The Small Business Jobs Act, poised to pass the Senate this week, contains provisions that will do more to damage small businesses than all the decent provisions combined. The bill is another swing-and-a-miss for Democrats trying to bolster their small business creds…

After a brief moment of clarity on CBS’ Face the Nation, where he said that he would reluctantly support the Obama tax plan without extensions of tax cuts for the wealthy, House Minority Leader John Boehner returned to form today in a news conference, vowing to hijack tax cuts on the first $250,000 of income.

Say what you will about the Tea Parties, the conservative grassroots, the Republican base, the right wing anti-establishment or whatever you would call them; they have done a very good job of trying to take control of their party from the Republican establishment and reshaping the GOP in their own image.

The latest in the daily series of trial balloons has Elizabeth Warren joining the Treasury Department as a “counselor,” where she would have responsibilities propping up the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which gets its start there.

There is some really twisted logic behind the notion that Obama would be vulnerable in 2012 if the economy’s bad, and yet the country would look to a creature of Wall Street like Mike Bloomberg for salvation. Of course, it’s equally twisted that the tea parties exploded in response to the bank bailouts, and yet Bain Capital billionaire Mitt Romney is their favorite for 2012. Maybe that gave them hope.

Oh, how it warms my heart to see wingnuts fight.

In just the last several days, dozens of police officers, prosecutors, and other law enforcement officials have joined forces to endorse California’s Prop 19 to legalize marijuana. Led by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, the mostly former officials say that marijuana prohibition only fuels more dangerous crime by enriching Mexican drug cartels who put guns on American streets.

The Tea Party triumph of Christine O’Donnell in a small pool of conservatives in Delaware over moderate Mike Castle has led the bulk of the Republican Party to run screaming in the other direction while the first set of post-primary polling shows Democrat Chris Coons up big.

About 40 medical marijuana industry employees joined with the Teamsters Local 70 in California earlier this month, ratifying a contract after their employer recognized their union without interference. These employees are different from those of medical marijuana dispensaries who joined with UFCW Local 5. The newest Teamster members are those who tend to plants at a medical marijuana management company.

In addition to promising votes on a variety of other issues, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is giving Sen. Jay Rockefeller an opportunity with a more distasteful vote, the bid to strip the EPA of greenhouse gas regulation for two years.