Basically everyone in New York supports the idea of allowing seriously ill people to use medical marijuana if recommended by their doctor. According to a new Siena Research, poll an incredible 82 percent of registered voters in New York support medical marijuana, while only 15 percent of voters in the state oppose the idea.

It can’t be stressed enough how much our projected deficit problem basically fixed itself while most of Washington was trying to scaremonger the debt to justify cutting benefits. Paul N. Van de Water at CBPP did the math and found that since the recent round of deficit hysteria began in back in 2010, the CBO 10 year spending projection on Medicare and Medicaid has actually dropped by roughly $900 billion.

The GOP is convinced that the Affordable Care Act will remain a winning political issue for them. On Meet the Press Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said it will be the “biggest issue” in the next congressional election.

Like clockwork the continued obstructionism of Senate Republicans has got Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to start vaguely threatening to fix the Senate, possibly in July.

Illinois is set to become the latest state to adopt medical marijuana. The Illinois State Senate gave final approval to a medical marijuana bill sending it to the governor. The senate approved HB 1 in a vote of 35 to 21. The bill was narrowly approved by the House of Representatives back in April.

For better or worse, during the 2014 election the Democratic Party is effectively all in on Obamacare and the GOP is all in against it. While this was mostly true in both the 2010 and 2012 election, the 2014 election will be very different. In the previous elections the law was just some theoretical future reform. At the best of times, it was a merely an intellectual policy debate about competing predictions. At the worst of times, it was a fight simply over buzzwords.

Americans are not expecting to retire until much later in life according to a new Gallup poll. Since the recession started the number of people who don’t think they will retire until they are past age 65 has increased significant.

We have gotten our first look at what the labeling should be for all recreational marijuana sold in Washington State. The Washington State Liquor Control Board (WSLCB), which is responsible for implementing the newly approved Initiative 502, has just released its draft regulations for the legal marijuana market.

There has been a slow steady drip of indicators that President Obama will approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Recently there was Obama’s statements at a fundraiser and Biden claiming that he is “in the minority” in the administration who opposes the pipeline. Now the Huffington Post is reporting that Obama campaign spin-off Organizing for Action is refusing to do anything about the pipeline despite pleas from its members.

While the Virginia gubernatorial contest remains close, new polling shows Democrat Terry McAuliffe with an edge over Republican LT Gov. Ken Cuccinelli.