When I heard about the book a couple of years ago, I read the first chapter. It was fine, but not enough to take me further. I hope it’s not a spoiler to say this 3 hour movie weaves 4 separate timelines together. (Actually, the modern timeline consists of the most characters and stories.) Several of the actors play multiple roles (a few are unrecognizable). It doesn’t seem to be simply a tale of two souls finding each other over and over again. There are more characters whose lives overlap and intersect over these timelines spread out over centuries.
The two stories set in the future interested me the most. The nearer future was well-imagined but ultimately disappointing, reminding me too much of Blade Runner and The Matrix — I don’t doubt a future in which corporations rule us, but I don’t think they’ll need machine guns to do so. However, the 4th timeline in a post-apocalypse was the most original and interesting. I don’t think either of the first stories could be movies on their own, but either of the last two could be.
No repeal, replacement, or delay of any aspects of Obamacare’s exchanges or individual mandate
It might look like this is overall a good deal for Democrats given the number of things that Republicans aren’t getting. It is good: It reopens the government and lifts the debt ceiling without doing any major additional damage to existing programs.
But it’s important to remember that the baseline for negotiations wasn’t exactly even: Democrats accepted the major budget cuts of sequestration (slated only to get worse on January 15, the same day their budget deal expires), and their only demand was actually the status quo: Keeping the government running and having the country fulfill its financial obligations. They didn’t request to restore the funding sequestration took away, they didn’t demand any new programs or initiatives that Democrats support. And if the previous budget conference is any indication, the one established under this deal has the potential to blow up in Democrats’ faces, leading to more cuts instead of an actual, long-term budget. In that sense, while it is the best, cleanest deal we can get, the Democratic party has been pulled slightly from center to right, not from left to center.
Meanwhile, Republicans threw everything but the kitchen sink into their negotiations. It’s no surprise they’re taking a lot of losses.
This is the quality of thinking—or lack thereof—that has afflicted many GOP conservatives from the beginning of this budget showdown. They picked a goal they couldn’t achieve in trying to defund ObamaCare from one House of Congress, and then they picked a means they couldn’t sustain politically by pursuing a long government shutdown and threatening to blow through the debt limit.
BILL MOYERS: Despite what they say, Obamacare is only one of their targets. Before they will allow the government to reopen, they demand employers be enabled to deny birth control coverage to female employees. They demand Obama cave on the Keystone pipeline. They demand the watchdogs over corporate pollution be muzzled, and the big, bad regulators of Wall Street sent home. Their ransom list goes on and on. The debt ceiling is next. They would have the government default on its obligations and responsibilities.
