Democrats now control the United States Senate 60-40. With Al Franken coming on board as Minnesota’s Senator. [Politico]

Democrats will now hold a 60-40 majority in the Senate, the largest the party has enjoyed in a generation. Sixty votes are needed to break filibusters, ensuring that if Democrats stay united they would be able to cleave the GOP’s last lever of power in Washington. A Franken “yes” vote on health reform, climate change legislation and Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor gives Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) even more of a margin for error on these major votes.

Now, at last, perhaps the Senate will get on with healthcare reform, including a public option, which I hope is single-payer. Now, if we could only get all 60 of those Democratic Senators to come together and start representing us Democrats rather than representing Corporate America.

The healthcare insurance industry may surpass Bernie Madoff in swindling the public.

On June 24, 2009 Wendell Potter testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Potter is the former head of corporate communications at CIGNA. Cigna is a health insurance company based in Philadelphia. [Transcript of Potter’s Testimony]

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation is Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). The ranking member is Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX).

Also on the Committee are Senators Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI), John F. Kerry (D-Mass), Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Tom Udall (D-NM), Mark Warner (D-VA), Mark Begich (D-AK), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), John Ensign (R-NV), Jim DeMint (R-SC), John Thune (R-SD), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), David Vitter (R-LA), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Mel Martinez (R-FL), and Mike Johanns (R-NE). [Read more →]

Photo: Mona Shield Payne / Special to the Sun

Demonstrators, who gathered at the intersection of Fort Apache and Russell roads in Las Vegas, want healthcare reform. But Wellpoint, a major critic of a government-run health insurance plan, will have none of it. The company spent $1.22 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2009.

A spokes person for Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, a subsidiary of WellPoint said:

“The current market for health insurance is competitive, and a government-run insurance plan would create problems in the marketplace, including…reducing consumer choice by driving insurers out of the market and hurting the ability of private plan initiatives to improve the quality and control costs in the delivery system.”

[Read more →]

Zachary Michael Triggs, an Independent American Party candidate, for Washoe County clerk in 2002, neglected to file three campaign contribution and expenditure reports during the campaign.

He now as a $54,303 judgment against him for his omission.

Triggs was ordered to pay $15,000 in civil penalties for failing to file the reports, $33,369 in attorneys’ fees and $5,934 in interest.

He lost the election too. [Las Vegas Sun]

Chalk one up for the voters of Washoe County for not electing him. Just think of the mess he would have made of the Washoe County clerk’s office had he been elected.