Breaking -- Bipartisan deal reached to re-open U.S. government and raise the debt ceiling

I think we won:

http://yahoonews.tumblr.com/post/64215144522/breaking-coverage-via-storify-of-the-congressional

More coverage -- apparently this only creates an opening of a few months to create a more permanent fix:

http://news.yahoo.com/compromise-or-collapse--lawmakers-eye-breakthrough-on-debt--spending-150123572.html

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Meanwhile in the US, where the government has now been partially shut down for two weeks and the deadline for default on US debt is just over 48 hours away if the Congress doesn't lift the debt ceiling (ie: give the US the OK to borrow more to pay its obligations - and the negative consequences of default have already started) there was hope that moderate - or at least not barking mad - voices in the Senate would convince the Republican-controlled House of the Representatives would back a plan to lift the ceiling and reopen the government until February.
Yeah, that ain't happening.

The House Republicans looked at the deal and went "yeah, nah" and are now sticking to a new version that would gut accessibility to the Affordable Care Act and will not be acceptable to the Democrats. Speaker John A. Boehner is still insisting he's looking for a way forward - “We’re going to continue to work with our members on both sides of the aisle to try to make sure that there is no issue of default, and to get our government reopened” - which either means talking the nutjob Tea Party wing of his party around or risking splitting the Republicans into two separate camps, the don't-want-the-US-to-burn-to-the-ground group vs the Something-Something-Obama-is-Satan reality-haterz. Either way, the clock is ticking, and sounding awfully like a cartoon timebomb.

As Republicans insist that this is all about adherence to their oh-so-precious principles, it's worth re-emphasising that Obamacare was a Republican initiative (more specifically, it's following the blueprint of a plan spearheaded by former presidential hopeful Mitt Romney) which subsidises the poor - or, to put it another way, bribes private insurers to take on customers they wouldn't otherwise take. It's not a public option where the government actually just pays for healthcare, as per our Medicare system: it's government paying the private sector to keep standing between healthcare and people who need healthcare. The difference it that it's paying to increase that number of of people.

"But hold on," you might justifiably say, "given that the skyrocketing cost of health care in the US is almost entirely down to the private medical insurance industry and has nothing to do with medical care per se, Obamacare sounds like a right-wing dream that props up a broken and expensive private system rather than take the cheaper, more responsible option where the government just fucking pays for citizens to get the care they need."

Yes. Yes it is - and that's because the public option was never going to pass, so the Democrats went for a compromise position (see opening paragraph about this politics thing). And this is how they're rewarded for meeting the Republicans 85% of the way.

Oh, US, you're going to be in for a nasty shock when Xi Jinping's government cash in their US Treasury Bonds and you officially become a subsidiary of China.
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~Andrew P Street

http://thevine.com.au/life/news/10-things-political-compromise-is-for-jerks-20131016-266882/

Ah, pessimism abounds, but the deal to re-open the government through early February just passed the Senate and is headed to the House, where it has the votes to pass. And Obamacare won't be gutted.

As far as that goes, it's a good first step -- people really are getting better and more affordable health care, and I know because I'm one of those people. My hope is that we can make even better improvements to our health care system once the U.S. public has lived for a while under Obamacare and sees the benefits of it. A giant portion of the U.S. public has been brainwashed into thinking their government is only good for blowing up brown people who live where there's lots of oil; once they see what Obamacare does for them, that attitude will start to erode.