Casual Observations (mainly about government irresponsibility)

• Anyone who thinks the government shutdown has anything to do with Obamacare isn’t paying attention. A significant group of Republican right-wing-nuts were elected to the House of Representatives in 2010 by promising to shut down the government. This irresponsible move by a minority of Republican lunatics is not a tactic to achieve some end, it is the end itself, as far as these jerks are concerned.
• Opinion polls reflect this reality. In a CNN/ORC International poll released yesterday only 10 percent of Americans polled said they approved of how Congress is operating and a whopping 87 percent disapprove. What’s worse for the GOP, according to a Quinnipiac University poll, only 17 percent approve of how Republicans are handling government affairs and 74 percent disapproved. (Democrats’ approval rating was 32 percent, not great, but almost twice as high as Republican, and up 1 percent from the last poll).
• Ironically, one of the many programs the shutdown won’t affect is the Affordable Care Act. In fact, beginning today, Americans can go on-line to purchase their own affordable health insurance from one of the many available exchanges. It all starts right here.
• Today also marks the 55^th anniversary of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It will be celebrated by only about 550 of NASA’s 28,000 employees. Those 550 are needed to keep operational those satellites currently circulating the globe. The rest have been told not to report to work today because of the government shutdown.
• And, finally, speaking of polls, according to a poll conducted by the arch-conservative Fox News Network, 47 percent of Americans oppose Obamacare (a figure I found incredibly low, considering the source of the poll). However, that same poll revealed only 34 percent of Americans oppose the Affordable Care Act. I guess those poll results reveal more about the intelligence level of those watching Fox News than anything else. "Here is a prediction for you," President Obama said last week. "A few years from now, when people are using this to get coverage and everyone’s feeling pretty good about all the choices and competition that they’ve got, there are gonna be a whole bunch of folks who say, ‘Yeah, yeah, I always thought this provision was excellent. I voted for that thing.’ You watch. It will not be called Obamacare."