Top Headline Comments 12-13-13

Happy Friday.

The Minnesota Obamacare exchange, which is seeing the full gamut of Obamacare website problems, had another little problem last month: its director took a vacation to Costa Rica right in the middle of the failed rollout. I suspect this vacation had been scheduled ("financial commitments were made") in some happier day when the exchange director thought everything was going to be hunky-dory after the October 1 launch. She's basically Sec. Sebelius on a smaller scale.

The White House is signaling its openness to letting Islamist groups join the Syrian rebel coalition. They have to promise to actually want peace, though. Oh, and "the Americans would like the Islamic Front groups to return U.S. vehicles, communications gear and other non-lethal equipment they seized last weekend from warehouses at the Syria-Turkey border." "Seized" is a more politic way of saying "stole," I think.

A UN team has determined that chemical weapons were used at least five times in Syria in attacks against . . . government soldiers and citizens.

Mike Huckabee has quit his radio show and is preparing to run for president again. My take: good. He can't win the primary, but he can suck up a lot of funding and support from fringe types, thus deterring and hamstringing other long-shot politicians considering a run.

Last night the House overwhelmingly voted to approve the Ryan-Murray budget deal, 332-94. The GOP breakdown was 169-62, easily satisfying the Hastert Rule. Speaker Boehner ends the year much stronger than he began it, and he's taken the possibility of shutdown in 2014 and 2015 off the table, assuming the Senate passes it today. We discuss this deal in depth on the podcast, which will be up later.

Here's a cover from a nice Mormon boy and some Canadian dude:

Have a great weekend.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 06:46 AM

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