In less than three months, President Barack Obama will celebrate the anniversary of being sworn in for his second term as president. Although many conservatives are looking ahead with anticipation to the end of his final term in office, many liberals are looking ahead with the hope that in his final years as commander in chief, the president might begin pushing a more aggressively progressive agenda. Then there are those of us who are hoping that in the president’s final term, we might get to see the Michelle Obama we haven’t seen since the early days of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Here is a bold and risky conclusion:  the Republican Party, as now constructed, knows it cannot win the White House.  It probably cannot get a majority in the Senate.  But it can continue its hold on the House of Representatives and thus continue its strategy of blocking legislation rather than acting on the needs of the nation. Looking at current polling numbers, the GOP is at a historic low in public opinion.  

The shutdown has ended…and now for the showdown. Recent polls show the great majority of Americans are unrepresented in the Congress. And it is time for them to exercise their muscle. The problem is that the hard right and the hard left have an advantage because of unfettered campaign funding in controlling the purchase of advocacy advertising and lavish funding given to candidates of their likemindedness, left and right, far extreme from the center.

More than three years after Dodd-Frank financial reform was signed into law by President Barack Obama and five years since Lehman Brothers failed, touching off a global financial crisis, U.S. financial markets remain vulnerable to the kind of meltdown that brought the economy to its knees in 2008. Dodd-Frank –which is supposed to prevent large financial institutions from taking excess risk of the kind that caused JP Morgan to lose more than $6 billion on a series of failed derivatives trades in London—is slowly but surely being watered down. 

The government shutdown serves no discernible purpose beyond setting a very dangerous stage for competing political interests to try to advance their agendas and, of course, giving the news media and political commentators an urgent issue to cover and interpret. Yet it’s a fascinating time to be a student of political communication.  During these epic battles, we get to analyze rhetorical weapons while they’re still being fired.  We get to take a close look at who’s saying what and how what they’re saying is evolving.  

More than 2 million civilian workers and 1.4 million active-duty military serve in all 50 states and all around the world. In the event of a government shutdown, hundreds of thousands of these dedicated public servants who stay on the job will do so without pay — and several hundred thousand more will be immediately and indefinitely furloughed without pay.” According to a report published Sept. 23: “A federal government shutdown could have possible negative security implications as some entities wishing to take actions harmful to U.S. interests may see the nation as physically and politically vulnerable,” the report stated.

No progress was made to end a budget impasse that resulted in a government shutdown since 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday. News of the shutdown, which includes the closure of all national parks and a work furlough for 800,000 federal employees, generated a big response in the ethnic press. Key areas of concern included the shutdown’s effect on federal workers, loss of funding for social services, ramifications for immigration reform, and environmental impacts. 

For the moment, Obama  now has a foil who's making it easier for him to stand up for his health care initiative and outline his budget priorities. And Cruz gets to show that he's first among equals when it comes to opposing anything linked to Obama. Meanwhile, federal employees will be furloughed, any salary that they forfeit won't be spent in a still-fragile economy, and Congress's inability to make a deal will eventually threaten another loss of confidence in the markets.

It is easy to believe that the security threats are exaggerated and complacency can set in. The truth is that there are small networks of sympathizers to radical Islamist causes in Kenya and also apparently in Tanzania. It was only a matter of time before a high profile target such as Westgate was attacked. For some years Nairobi's Kenyatta International Airport has been regarded by Western intelligence agencies as particularly vulnerable, and international airlines have invested in additional security screening procedures that seem to have reduced the risk.

A political party led by young people and indigenous Mayans wants to bring to Guatemala something that it has never seen: American-style democracy. Nearly two decades after the end of its bloody civil war, the country and its politics remain dominated by a white oligarchy and most political parties are built only to propel those leaders to high office. But a new party -- comprised largely of young adults and indigenous Mayans -- aims to change that.