Some good news for everyone this morning: the economy is once again back on track. Things were tough there for a while – so tough that rich people stopped buying shit. But take a deep breath and relax, America, ‘cuz times are good for rich people once again. Oh, things still suck for the rest of us, of course. Unemployment is almost as high as it was under St. Reagan, and those of us who still have work are faced with higher insurance premiums, and are left to scurry around trying to collect the crumbs that fall from the rich folks’ throbbing jowls, but, hey, guess what? The more the rich folks eat, the more crumbs there are for the little people. And that, my friends, is the how capitalism and the free market work.

As for health insurance, it turns out that the “historic reform” being contelmplted by the Senate is filled with loopholes for insurance companies (gee, who could’ve seen that coming). Basically, we’d all spend a lot of time and taxpayer dollars to wind up with basically the same system we have now (and that’s how the government works).

I guess everyone’s heard that AG Eric Holder is planning on bringing five Gitmo detainees to New York to stand trial for their (alleged) crimes. Amazingly (to me, if not to Wolf Blitzer), trying criminals for the crimes they’ve committed has somehow become “controversial.” Guidi Ruliani, for instance, has a great deal of contempt for our criminal justice system. That’s why he put a criminal in charge of the NYPD, I guess. Jim Webb thinks it’s a bad idea, too. And Bush AG Frank Murkasey went so far as to predict death and destruction for New Yorkers if criminals are put on trial there. Even the “9/11 Families” are “split” over the decision.

“I’m very, very disappointed in the government,” said Anne Ielpi, whose son, Jonathan Ielpi, was a firefighter who was killed in the south tower.

“It’s like throwing it in our face again,” she said, speaking by phone Friday. “We can’t get away from 9/11, we can’t.”

Well, with all due respect to Mrs. Ielpi and other family members who may be upset (and no respect whatsoever for the likes of Ruliani of Mukasey), sorry, but it aint up to you. I’m sure if one of my family members was killed in a robbery or something, I’d just as soon have his murderer packed off to some Kafkaesque prison cell somewhere, never to be seen again (personally, I’d prefer having him rot in a hole somewhere for 20 or 30 years to a quick execution). But that’s not how it works here. Victims and their families don’t get to decide who gets a fair and open trial, and who doesn’t.

If we can’t even agree on that, then we’re really screwed.

In the meantime, I think I’ll move to Portland (Oregon, that is).