Link: http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latest-news/harkin-public-option-backers-eyeing-second-reconciliation-bill

Public option supporters could offer a second reconciliation bill to establish the program, a top Democrat said Wednesday. Supporters of creating a government-run public option health insurance program are considering moving the proposal after healthcare reform is finished via another budget reconciliation bill that would require just a simple majority to pass, said Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/03/201032452129607686.html

Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) is a single issue organisation that advocates for a universal, comprehensive single-payer national health programme. Al Jazeera interviewed Matt Hendrickson, a doctor from California and PNHP member, who said the recently signed healthcare law is good for the short-term, but in the long run it could prove disastrous.

Truly a disgusting and contemptuous human being. Its not difficult to see why he was selected by the banks and the military industrial complex. The tabloids said that George was talking about killing himself, so his family put him on suicide watch. All they really needed to do was to tell him not to be in such a hurry to end his life because when he dies he will be going straight to hell.

Link: http://www.henrymakow.com/tobacco_madness.html

"Tobacco could not be sold without government support. Some people make the point that tobacco remains legal so that the government can tax it and commit genocide at the same time." We all know tobacco can cause lung cancer and heart disease. And we know the mass media suppressed this knowledge for many years due to tobacco industry pressure. But did you know that smoking tobacco can make you crazy? That's the power of mass media. For years, medical literature has documented that smoking tobacco can cause brain damage. And that same brain damage can lead to insanity, crime, alcoholism, promiscuity, and a host of other ills. When was the last time you heard that on the evening news? Or that medical research now considers smoking itself to be a form of mental illness? Visit a mental institution or penitentiary, and you will find the inmates smoke like chimneys. Indeed, the mentally ill smoke 44% of all cigarettes smoked in the USA. A recent Australian study demonstrated that 80% of schizophrenics smoke.

Link: http://thethreedirtywordsdoedg.blogspot.com/2010/03/to-be-disabled-or-elderly-in-ameraca.html

Here I sit, thinking how once I made $38.00 ph when I worked Building America. Now the Federal Government (with their $80.00 ph wage) and the State Government (with their $20 to $50 ph wage) pay me barley $6.92 ph to live off and feed, house ($750 rent), and care for my two kids still in the home. Even sadder still, the state I live in taxed my SSI and reduced the money my children received by a 1/3 in TANF (food and cash).

Link: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/334.php

A Discussion with Federico Fuentes and Kiraz Janicke: As Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution enters a new decade of struggle and defiantly advances toward its goal of ‘21st Century Socialism,’ serious challenges to the future of the process emerging from both inside and outside the country still abound. As a result, key questions surrounding Venezuela's mounting tensions with the West, the role played by its fiery and outspoken leader Hugo Chavez, and the future of the process itself remain as relevant today as ever before. Australian-based journalists and long-time Venezuela solidarity activists Federico Fuentes and Kiraz Janicke have been carefully following Venezuela's ongoing political transformation for several years now, countering mainstream media spin and providing invaluable on-the-ground coverage and analysis about the process as it unfolds.

Link: http://www.aolnews.com/politics/article/ann-coulters-speech-canceled-after-threats-at-university-of-ottawa/19412237

A protest by hundreds of students led organizers to cancel a Tuesday night speech by American conservative commentator Ann Coulter at the University of Ottawa. A spokesman for the organizers said Coulter was advised against appearing after about 2,000 "threatening" students crowded the entrance to Marion Hall, posing a security threat.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9002332

California's budget crisis and overcrowded prisons have led to a new reality for thousands of convicted felons: parole is getting a lot easier — no more random drug tests, travel rules or requirements to check in with an officer.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/mar/24/britain-leads-war-on-poverty

Britain's "war on poverty" has been one of the government's success stories, eclipsing the achievements of the United States and European neighbours, according to a year-long study by a US academic.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/03/2010323233237561100.html

The Israeli prime minister has met the US president for the first time since relations were soured by the announcement that 1,600 settler homes were to be built in occupied East Jerusalem.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/03/201032316847544350.html

The US president has signed a landmark healthcare bill into law, as attention shifts to the senate, which is expected to begin debating another round of changes to the legislation. Barack Obama signed the bill on Tuesday in the White House East Room before a group of Democratic legislators and individual citizens whose cases he had highlighted during the one-year campaign to get the legislation passed.