Syriza, Greece and Europe

It has been a hot debate in the corridors of power in Brussels, Berlin, Paris, London and the whole European Union. Will Greece remain in or get out of the Eurozone? Recent events in Greece have brought this improbable question to the forefront of the political discussion.

Emmanuel Macron, Savior?

It has become quite the norm, in the presidency of Francois Hollande for government to rise and fall in short periods. In the last remaniement, the more outspoken personalities, Arnaud Montebourg, Benoit Amont, Aurelie Fillipeti, opposed to the centrist shift of the President and his Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, were all fired. The new government ministers represented the full embrace by Hollande of the Social-Democrat political mind and his reject of the true left, the ideal to his party, the PS (the Socialist Party). No one represents that change more than the new minister of the economy and industrial renewal, Emmanuel Macron.

Midterm Election 2014, Two Weeks Later.

How?

How, would summarize my thoughts after seeing the results and the terrible performance by the democrats. Yes, these were midterms during an incumbent President's last half of his second term. The congressional map has been gerrymandered by republicans for at least the next 10 years, but how does one explain the loss of the Senate and the loss of even more gubernatorial seats and state legislatures?

Manuel Valls and the Second Chance

Of course Francois Hollande nominated Manuel Valls to Matigon, there was no other choice for him, a man whom I consider rather bland, charisma-less and incapable of sticking to a decision. After dangling the glorious suggestion of a Martine Aubry prime ministership, Francois Hollande settled for the safest pick. A change in government was needed, and after the crushing defeat that was suffered by his PS in the municipal elections, which are always used as a confidence vote to the party in power, nominating Valls looks like a sensible choice.

China in France and the Coming Changing of The Guard

This week France received the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, to great pomp and circumstance for his first ever State visit in France. No expense was spared in welcoming the head of the second most powerful country and the fastest growing economy in the world. As usual there is always a little hypocrisy involved when the head of a western country receives a Chinese delegation, there were no mention of human rights etc. a stark contrast let's say if Hollande were to receive the President of Cameroon or any other impoverished nation, human rights would be at the forefront.

John Boehner Woke Up and Grew Some Balls

'Are you kidding me?' 'Frankly, I just think they have lost all credibility.' Those are words that came from the mouth of Rep. John Boehner, Republican Speaker of the House, he was talking about the conservative outside groups like the Heritage Foundation, Club for Growth etc. This was in relation to the budget deal that was passed overwhelmingly by the House and that was ferociously decried by those organizations. Why, you ask is it surprising or noteworthy? Well John Boehner ever since he got the Speaker's gavel in his hands has been more of a follower than a leader in his caucus, he allowed the crazy Tea Party members of his caucus backed by those groups he slammed earlier, to have a powerful voice that overtook everyone else and made the entire House GOP look like a bunch of right wing crazies.

Washington Did Something Last Night

I should have written about the mini scandals and happenings on the budget deal, but hey, witting about government incompetence all the time gets boring and tiring, this however, is different. Last night the House of Representatives passed a 2 year budget deal that would fund the government until October 2015. The bill was a compromise crafted by Senate Budget Committee chairwoman Patty Murray (D) with Rep. Paul Ryan (R), the House's own Budget Committee chair. In a bipartisan move that has become very rare on Capitol Hill, the House passed the bill 332-94, the Senate is to follow suit and the president has promised to sign the bill into law as soon as it reaches his desk.

Marco Rubio, Hope Gone Sour

At his election in 2010 Marco Rubio looked like hope for the Republican Party. A well-spoken, Latino man, beloved by the Tea Party and supported by the Republican establishment. Whispers of a second Barack Obama were heard and even the future Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, campaigned for him. The Republicans needed a high profile Latino and the well-spoken Rubio certainly was it.

Martine Aubry, Prime Minister.

Well, it seems that the shoe has dropped for Jean Marc Ayerault, after one of the MPs of the PS called for a change of the head of government on public television, the path to his dismissal began. After a fruitless meeting between Ayeraut and the PS MPs, to try and end the current intra-party rift, shocking news were revealed.

The sad saga of Francois Hollande

The president of the French Republic is certainly a person to pity and feel for. He took over a country that was in a bad economy, a crisis exasperated by the fact that the entire European continent is doing wrong. His promised change and reform have yet to materialize.

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 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.

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 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.

Hello World,

This is my first attempt at serious blogging, and I am very excited. This will mainly be a blog for me to writabout my politics, be warned, they tend to be rather on the left side of things. I am not only interested in US politics, so there will be some random pieces about french, Israeli, British and even some Greek politics. Politics is not my only passion so there will be pieces here and there of general knowledge. I am excited and I hope this is a fun and exciting adventure.