Shove it! Dan Choi won’t pay the government for his being discharged under DADT

The Defense Department, after discharging gay soldiers under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, apparently sends them bills requiring them to pay back “unearned portions” of their contracts. High-profile discharged soldier Dan Choi received his bill this week from Defense Department Finance and Debt Services in the amount of $2,500. He sent a strongly worded letter to White House Public Engagement Director Brian Bond explaining why he wasn’t going to pay.

In shadow of offshore disaster, growing concern over onshore drilling

The worsening Deepwater Horizon oil spill may be grabbing all the headlines lately, but several much smaller incidents in Colorado and neighboring states are quietly highlighting the need for increased onshore oil and gas drilling regulation.

Colorado’s Western Slope drilling…

Senate passes historic, if diluted, health reform bill

WASHINGTON– Senate Democrats on Thursday approved the best health care reform bill they could manage: a sweeping $871 billion proposal designed to extend coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and slow the growth of runaway costs. It was at once a monumental achievement, which if signed into law would represent the most expansive overhaul of the nation’s dysfunctional health care system in generations, and a disappointment to many liberals who’d hoped the reforms would go further to rein in the medical-services industries most responsible for the skyrocketing expenses.