Here is another good news/bad news column about the 112th Congress.

Kicking the can down the road. That's been the Obama administration's response on issues from Iran's nuclear weapons program to America's entitlement systems.

The retirement of Rep. Barney Frank from the House will cause mourning among all in the Congress-watcher and Congress-lover fraternity.  Meanwhile, the super committee’s inability to reach any agreement was shrugged off by most observers as the expected outcome, and it was, but I was deeply disappointed nonetheless.

You know politicians are serious when they move from campaigning to governing. Something like that may be happening on the Republican campaign trail -- but, unfortunately, not at the Obama White House.

A exposé purporting to show that Bonn-based Fairtrade International (FLO),the world’s largest labeller of ethical goods, had failed in its oversight of a project in west Africa that supplies Limited Brands-owned Victoria’s Secret.  The project  was paying sub-par wages to children labouring in inhumane conditions and helps drive a wedge between FLO and FairTrade USA.

As I listened to House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan describe his latest budget plan in a speech at American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday, I couldn't help thinking how different things will be in Britain today when Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne steps out of Number 11 Downing Street with a battered red briefcase holding his budget for the forthcoming year.

Eight years after the 9/11 attacks, the Continuity of Government Commission will discuss the continuity of Congress, the lack of progress we have made, and where we might go from here.

Holding hostage the debt ceiling--meaning the full faith and credit of the United States to pay obligations incurred in the past by this Congress and its predecessors--threatening to take the risk of creating a depression or at least a serious recession unless all one's demands are met, is simply reckless.