Saturday, September 14, 2013

Through The Looking Glass, Darkly

Now that Vladimir Putin has turned into a Syrian "peacemaker", what has become of Edward Snowden? The whistle-blowing bogeyman has secured temporary asylum in Russia to escape prosecution for revealing to Americans, and the world, what the laws of the United States allow the government to do to its citizens.

You read that right. An American citizen has sought political asylum in Russia, not for defecting or treason, but just for revealing the truth. And this international absurdity has been wiped from the headlines by Russian intervention in the United States headlong rush into a new foreign adventure in the middle east.

In a country where the cost of health care was leading to economic ruin and bankruptcy, reform of the system is fought against, tooth and nail. The Affordable Healthcare Act, the seminal piece of legislation in President Obama's first term, duly passed by Congress, ratified by Obama's re-election, upheld by the Supreme Court, is going to be held hostage by opposition Republicans in Congress by not increasing the debt ceiling unless "Obamacare" is defunded.

In an economy not yet recovered from the shock and dislocation of the financial implosion of 2008, the "sequester" is tamping down economic growth, inhibiting job growth, and prolonging economic misery for no other reason that the "sequester" was a plan deemed too draconian to actually be put into effect. But put in effect it was, because Congress and the President have been unable to figure out how to govern in a responsible way.

Sometimes the news can make it feel like your head is going to explode.


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