Want government assistance? Just say no to drugs. Lawmakers in at least eight states, including Florida, want recipients of food stamps, unemployment benefits or welfare to submit to random drug testing. ...more

March 27, 2009

Single-Payer Health Care The USA must join the modern world by establishing health as a right of the population. Our weak, wasteful and convoluted method places America at greater competitive risk without a single-payer health system. ...more

February 23, 2009

Whenever a top pharmaceutical company eliminates thousands of jobs, it leads to worry and caution from the medical community. ...more

January 23, 2009

Outspoken radio host Bubba the Love Sponge Clem has offered to help the mother of La'Damian Barton, the 5-month-old Tampa baby hospitalized with water intoxication -- if she takes a drug test. ...more

December 3, 2008

An Oct. 26 letter to the editor by Jim Mastro omits one very important factor; his dissertation is theoretical and has no substance in our realistic society with the greed mentality recently displayed over the last eight years. ...more

November 4, 2008

loans extended to those with no credit or bad credit - many are calling for the government to do something to stop the suffering. At the same time, many recognize that a bailout of struggling homeowners would be wrong. Thus, we see a growing list of proposed solutions that purport to save the day without a bailout: "borrower assistance" programs to refinance defaulting mortgages, crackdowns on "predatory lending" practices, or laws restricting mortgages the government deems too risky. ...more

November 12, 2007

SEBRING — Housing assistance offered by Highlands County to low- and moderate-income people has grown 15 times larger than it was seven years ago, when Penny Phillippi took over the program. That's one reason Phillippi is on the verge of becoming the first executive director of the new Immokalee Community Redevelopment Agency. When Phillippi became county housing director in November 2000, assistance programs totaled just under $700,000 per year. That figure is now more than $10 million annually. Phillippi confirmed that she has a contract offer of $85,000 to head the Immokalee CRA. With a $6,000 per year car allowance, her total salary package would be $91,000. While the new job would raise her salary by about $35,000, Phillippi said, "for me it was never an issue of money. I loved this job, I loved the challenge here, and I love Highlands County." ...more

October 5, 2007