This is the third installment of my new weekly news round up column and – not surprisingly – the third week in a row that the health care reform debate and Cheating Charlie Rangel take center stage.

This, the first week of September 2009, as the news outlets are covering it.

A huge collection of photos taken at the Houston Tax Day Tea Party protests.

Let’s play a game. Try to come up with ways to pay off the $11 trillion national debt. Here’s some figures to get us started: last year the national budget was $2,650 billion dollars. We spent $412 billion of that paying JUST INTEREST. The debt has increased by more than 20% since January.

And… go!

The economic crisis currently gripping our country has been the top political issue in this country for months now. My blog is a political blog. Noticeably absent from it has been the top political issue in the country. Why? Because words can’t describe how angry, disappointed, and disgusted I am with the handling of it all.

Believe me, I’ve tried. There are many half-written posts on the subject. A starting paragraph followed by a rant followed by broken sentences that simply couldn’t be folded in coherently – not that my rants are terribly coherent to begin with. It almost makes me feel like I’ve somehow failed as a blogger. I’m normally a very articulate person. I’d like to at least think that I’m a rational, reasonable, persuasive person.

But every time I think of what the government has done on this my mind just fucking asplodes.