The UK economy bears good new for Cameron

The Office of National Statistics had good News for Britain today, the growth for Q3 was 0.8% percent, the country strongest growth in three years. This is the second quarter in a row that the UK has grown its economy, taking them out of recession and on the path of finally leaving behind the 2008 crisis behind.

The audacity of Saudi Arabia

So apparently Saudi Arabia has decided to pivot away from America, so the rumors go. Those rumors leaked from the Saudi government, and it was enough to scare John Kerry into hurrying to meet the Saudi Foreign Minister, prince Saud Al-Faisal. The reason, that the United State did not strike Syria and that the country is not giving enough aid to the Rebels.

The unlucky president

Francois Hollande, president of the French Republic has once again had a bad week, a very bad week. It all began with the arrest early last week of Roma school girl Leonarda Dibriani, she was arrested on a class trip and deported to Kosovo with her family that has been illegally residing in France since 2009.

To the readers.

For those who have checked out my blog regularly (I know you are there!). Feel free to email me at generalpoliticshh@gmail.com, to give me feedback: what you liked, what you didn't like, areas that can be improved on. I am new at this and would love to be better. Thank you all for taking time to read my ramblings.

The glitches that could doom Obamacare

 debt ceiling and shutdown drama, the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act or as it is commonly called Obamacare, on Oct. 1st has been a very big failure for the government. The website that was supposed to help people in 36 states register, has been plagued by glitches that have not allowed visitors to sign up or select plans. Originally the plan was for every state to set up their own healthcare exchange websites, but the conservative states governors refused setting up their own exchanges forcing the government to create one website for those states, heathcare.gov.

Building a fully functional website for the use of millions is no small challenge even when given around two years to build and sustain, but the failure of the administration especially the Health Department, was abysmal. Glitches are to be expected and growing pains are usual but complete shutdown mode and utter inefficiency are inexcusable. The taxpayers forked around 100 million dollars to create that website and being told that it has been shutdown for 42 hours, as was the case yesterday is upsetting and does not go a long way in getting people to like the law, a law whose popularity was actually on the rise during the debt crisis. The reporting on Obamacare is mostly centered on the glitches instead of the many benefits that the law offers like kids staying on their parents insurance until they are 26, no more preconditions and government subsidies for those who cannot afford health coverage.

The government has said that around 476,000 people have signed up for the law, an underwhelming number, and around half of those come from states with their own exchanges. The government is planning on giving the full number in November giving us a clearer picture. States exchanges websites, have shown to be much more functioning and have only suffered minor glitches. The target for the administration is to have seven million people enrolled in the program by March and going by these number form Oct. 1st, that goal seems impossible to achieve. The situation will only generate bad press for the law and give republicans ammunition to attack the law.

What this glitches are doing is completely overshadowing the content of the law. The Affordable Care Act, with its many imperfections, is still away to deal with the health care crisis that the country has and make sure that everyone gets a change to have heath coverage. Just because acquiring it is proving to be a problem does not mean that the product itself bad. Hopefully, the administration will find a solution to make the website even remotely functional and give people health care, like the law intended.

The difficult road to the White House for Christie

Today is my birthday! Speaking of cake, it's an ideal day to talk about Chris Christie, lame joke! Back in 2010 Christopher Christie entered American political consciousness when he rode the anti democratic wave of that year into the governor's mansion in New Jersey.

Deal

After their aborted attempts of throwing a wrench in the Senate deal, the House GOP leadership has declared failure. Their plan even suffered the backlash from conservative power bases like the Heritage Foundation and the Chamber of Commerce. In the morning today Speaker(?) John Boehner announced that the House will take on the Senate deal and will even vote for it first so that the process can be expedited and pass the Senate before the Midnight deadline. The hashed out dead between Senate Party leaders Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell is one that shows the complete and utter loss that the GOP suffered in these two weeks of shutdown.

None of the Houses previsions on Obamacare will make it to the final cut on the bill. Its a clean CR that opens and funds the government until Jan. 15 and also lifts the debt ceiling until Feb. 7. The only sort of concession to the GOP is that there is income verification on those who are receiving subsidies on their insurance. Gone are the one year delay, the two year delay of the medical devices tax and the removal of subsidies from Capitol Hill staffers and administration officials. This is a total victory for democrats in the House, the Senate and the White House who remained united throughout the stand off while the republicans couldn't even figure out what their endgame was.

Hopefully this marks the end of the GOP using the default on the US obligation in their crusades to cut spending. There are far more ways to bring democrats to the table than using the entire US economy as bail. Hopefully this in January and February while we are back to this we will not be back to this mess again.

Obama and democrats - 1
GOP - 0

Valls vs Hollande?

In my previous post I mentioned that French president Francois Hollande was suffering horrible poll numbers, his latest at 24% approval ratings. Things have looked really bleak for him recently. This is how we come to his Minister of the Interior, Manuel Valls who has been recently anointed most popular politician in France.

The craziness of the House GOP

On Thursday, at midnight the Treasury is set to reach the debt ceiling limit and economic havoc unleashed on the global economy. Signs late on Monday morning were all pointing to a deal coming close in the Senate.

Update

I haven't posted anything about the happenings in DC, as it looks like the shutdown is about to end.  But an unfortunate situation happened, I lost a friend, it was very unexpected and very sad. I am attending his funeral tomorrow. Please pray for him and his family as they are going through this difficult time. He was only 21. Gone too young and too soon. Rest In Peace.

Nicholas Sarkozy is free!

In my last post on Nicholas Sarkozy, I expressed hope that he would be found innocent in the Bettencouurt case, a better thing happened. Today court dropped all charges and there is no longer a case against him in the justice. This clears the path for a definite political comeback and is the stuff nightmares are made from for French president and Sarkozy arch-rival, Francois Hollande. I look forward to an interesting political scene in France. Will Sarkozy butt heads with UMP president and aspiring 2017 candidate Jean Francois Cope? What about Francois Fillon? What will be Hollande's reaction? All these scenarios and question are popping in my head and surely in the heads of many French citizen. The race for 2017 is on and it will be an unpredictable and possible crazy. Bonne chance, tout le monde!

P.S. For the connoisseurs of French politics, you guys know that Nadine Morano will be all over the JTs, and that is always a good thing

The Government is still shutdown

It was unbelievable when the government shut down seven days ago and it's still unbelievable now. The government closed because the House refused to pass a clean CR bill that would have funded the government until early December while they worked on compromise for raising the debt ceiling. Unfortunately for all of us the Tea Party hijacked everything a decided to attach a de-fund of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) measure as condition for funding the government. The White House and Senate predictably refused. The House offered a delay of a year, the Senate and the administration still refused. The shutdown happened.

Merkel, Merkel, Merkel

This is late since the election happened on September 22nd but I have always wanted to write something about this election cycle. I have always and will always be fascinated with Angela Merkel, the girl from communist East Germany who grew up to become the most powerful woman in Europe and in the world.

What is wrong with this picture?

The house republicans posted this picture in an attempt to show that they were willing to negotiate with the democrats on passing a Resolution to this government shutdown and that the democrats were unwilling as represented by the empty chairs. It's a ridiculous piece of theater, considering the fact that they democrats have asked for conference many times in the previous weeks, and were given no as answers. Now with the government shut down and the GOP realizing it was a bad strategic move (really, John Boehner was afraid to lose his speakership) they are asking for the same conferences they denied the democrats.

Nicholas Sarkozy and the perpetually stalled political comeback.

                                                       Nicholas Sarkozy

If you follow French politics, you are aware that Francois Hollande, the current president of France is very unpopular. His government elected under the motto le changement c'est maintenant  meaning change is now (echos of Obama 2008) has not delivered on its promises.

The government is shut down

It happened, It actually happened, for the first time since 1996 the United States Government is shut down. Up until the final hours of Monday I held on to the hope that there would be a stop gap resolution passed, the Mitch McConnel idea, but that was shut down by his own caucus members. Nancy Pelosi offered the support of the democratic caucus to John Boehner, that coupled with true GOP moderate could have had a clean CR bill passed, but Boehner as spineless as he is bowed to the pressure of his more conservative caucus members (ahem, the Tea Party). So what have here is, the government has shut down, 800,000 federal workers, are going without pay, and Obamacare, the reason of this whole shutdown is still being implemented. I don't get why the republicans are still pushing this, polls have shown that they will take the blunt of the blame (Quinninipac, CNN/ORC) so the democrats are being bold and letting this happen. It's a game of political interest that has very real causalities and consequences, but the bubble of  DC is preventing those lawmakers from seeing. It will be really interesting to see how the GOP will operate after they capitulate to the democrats and pass a clean CR, it's only a matter of time before it inevitably happens as no one can afford a long shutdown. However, real people are suffering the consequences of this foolishness and my heart is with them.