It can\u2019t have escaped the notice of my readers that there are topics about which I\u2019m not writing, even though I am rather interested in them.\u00a0 And, for the most part, these are topics where I don\u2019t think, at this point, I have anything to contribute to the conversation other than just a \u201cwhat she said.\u201d\u00a0 (It also doesn\u2019t help that this is the busy season at work. . . )<\/p>\n
But, just to establish my bona fides<\/em> as a person who follows the news, here are\u00a0some short takes on the major news events:<\/p>\n Obamacare<\/strong>:\u00a0 Yes, I think we\u2019re all getting tired of this.\u00a0 Even Megan McArdle is slowing down.\u00a0 The Republican leadership isn\u2019t trying to actively move towards a fix that incorporates any of the proposals that have previously floated around \u2014 presumably waiting to see what the end result is of the frantic coding and parade of waivers and deferrals.<\/p>\n The budget debate<\/strong>:\u00a0 isn\u2019t there supposed to be some movement on this now?\u00a0 There\u2019s virtually no reporting.\u00a0 Every now and again, something pops up, largely around Democrats wanting to end the sequester, and the GOP having the upper hand, potentially, but news is scant.<\/p>\n In Illinois, a new pension bill aims to reform and fund the system.\u00a0 <\/strong>Republicans mostly voted against it, in a protest that it doesn\u2019t go far enough, but, with Democrats in power, it\u2019s about as good as you can expect \u2014 and already unions are threatening to sue.\u00a0 (No one listened to my proposal that we amend the Illinois constitution to give the government more flexibility regarding future accruals, which I promoted not only on this blog but in a \u201cwrite your legislator\u201d exercise and as an unpublished letter-to-the-editor submission. . . )<\/p>\n In the Ukraine, protesters are protesting the regime\u2019s move towards Russia and away from the EU.\u00a0 <\/strong>Really, it would be lovely if this were a new Velvet Revolution, but I don\u2019t hold out much hope.\u00a0 Most likely, the government will just ignore the protesters, with a significant chance of a new post-Prague Spring Soviet (OK, Russian) intervention.\u00a0 Russia is not going to let its nearest neighbors align with the EU.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Immigration<\/strong>:\u00a0 this one worries me, that there are too many Republicans who are chasing the \u201cmoderate\u201d label, who will happily alienate their base with an amnesty which pretends to trade legalization for enforcement, but with a toothless version of enforcement with promises rather than true triggers.\u00a0 Of course, given how eager Obama is to waive laws he doesn\u2019t like, it\u2019d be difficult to construct any sort of triggers that can be enforced if the president doesn\u2019t want to (unless the law could be designed in such a way as to give ordinary citizens standing to sue when non-enforcement happens?).<\/p>\n Pope Francis<\/strong>:\u00a0 liberals love him because they are turning him into, well, them.\u00a0 They don\u2019t see him as a figure who inspires them to lead a better life in any fashion, but as a figure who tells them that the way they lead their lives is just fine.\u00a0 They latch onto statements that conform with their own beliefs and ignore those that don\u2019t, and see him as a sign that any day now, the Catholic Church is going to revise it\u2019s doctrine on every teaching they don\u2019t like.\u00a0For that matter, his calls against greed are read as criticism of \u201cthe 1%\u201d \u2014 never of the rest of us who ignore the poor expecting someone else to take care of them.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It can\u2019t have escaped the notice of my readers that there are topics about which I\u2019m not writing, even though I am rather interested in them.\u00a0 And, for the most part, these are topics where I don\u2019t think, at this point, I have anything to contribute to the conversation other than just a \u201cwhat she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n