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The Pendulum Swings Both Ways

 

It took about 35 years, but the Republican Party is just where it wants to be. They have a Congressional majority and are flush with the optimism of a political movement that they believe has broad popular support. They are looking forward to perhaps winning the presidency in 2016 and finally being able to implement the agenda that Ronald Reagan gave voice to in 1980. Democrats are supposed to be on the run. President Obama is spent.

It’s a nice tale, this one. The problem is that it’s full of inaccurate assumptions and leaves out the fact that the Republican Party is split and the far right has so far given no indication that they are in any mood to compromise. They will pass bills and send them to the president, and he will veto most of them. Obama will propose legislation that the Congress will not consider. In many ways, the gridlock will continue.

But there is cause for optimism on both sides. The GOP knows that they will be burnt toast in 2016 if they can’t pass some kind of immigration bill that allows people to stay in this country with their families. They also know that they are on the wrong side of history when it comes to marriage equality and that very soon most southern states will be forced to recognize all marriages performed in other states. After all, this is the party that wants government out of people’s lives and wants United States citizens to be free to follow the lives that they choose to live.

On health care, the Republicans will vote one more time, probably within a week or so, to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Then they will need to get serious about how they would implement health care without taking it away from the approximately 10 million people who’ve bought it on the exchanges or qualified for it under the expanded Medicaid program. It is true that the party could wait until the Supreme Court rules in June on whether people who bought policies on the federal exchange qualify for subsidies, but I believe that they will be disappointed. Supreme Court justices read the news and they know that denying people subsidies would cause a mammoth disruption in the lives of millions of people. John Roberts will once again come to President Obama’s rescue and provide the fifth vote to uphold the law.

Democrats have essentially lost the fracking debate because not enough people are having their tap water catch fire to offset the millions of people who are now paying $2.00 for unleaded gasoline. Yes, Governor Cuomo outlawed fracking in New York State last year, but that will mean that upstate will remain an economic wasteland for years to come, but at least will have casinos so people with little money can lose it on their own rather than having to pay higher taxes.

The low gas prices will also make the XL Pipeline a moot point. There is little need now to push for more oil when oil producing states will be experiencing budget crises over the next year or so. If anything, many Republican lawmakers will need to hope that gas prices moderate a bit so they can pay for the services their constituents sorely need. That was a joke, by the way. In the end, though, low gas prices will provide a nice boost to the economy and another boost to American foreign policy, which will see much more pain for Russia, Iran and Venezuela.

What the GOP cannot argue, thought, is that much of this optimism and hope will greatly help President Obama. The economy is already improving and having people spend less on gas will help it more. Does the right believe that people will give the president no credit? If Russia and Iran have to pull back their dastardly initiatives because of falling revenue, does the GOP believe that they will get credit for that? Of course not. The president gets the blame when things go wrong and the credit when things go right, and an expanding economy is the number one issue on most Americans’ minds.

Perhaps this is the moment when both parties realize that they do need to work together if they want to achieve anything, and activists on both sides will need to recognize that they will have to give something up in order for legislation to move forward. I can confidently say that there will be no broad tax cut this year, nor will an immigration bill contain a path to citizenship. There will be no carbon tax or an increase in the gasoline tax. The Common Core is not going away. Neither is Social Security or Medicare.

Our country was born of compromise. It’s the only way we will move forward.

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TIME FOR OBAMA TO DECLARE WAR….ON REPUBLICANS

As seen on America The Not So Beautiful

November 17, 2014

By Mike Caccioppoli

No need to mince words here. Starting with immigration reform President Obama must do what is best for the country and the people who live here and not give a fuck what the Republicans, still very much led by the Tea Party, think about it. After being stymied for six long years by a Congress that did not want the first black President to have a legacy of any kind, he must now give it back to them in a big way. There is nothing to lose, no Republican lite Democrats to protect. After Obama was elected twice, by landslide electoral college victories, Republicans refused to admit there was any mandate, even any legitimacy to his victories. Now Obama must tell them loud and clear that he feels the exact same way about their victory.

Immigration reform is a no lose deal for Obama and the Democrats. First of all it’s the right thing to do. It will prevent 5 million people who live and work here, have families here, from being deported. It will also cement the Latino vote in 2016 and the Republicans have little chance of winning without a decent chunk of the Latino vote. As the Republicans complain and talk about impeachment, this will only make Latinos hate them even more than they already do. Any attempt to impeach Obama for something totally lawful and correct, will further destroy Republicans just as the impeachment of Bill Clinton did.

So there really is no downside to Obama acting by executive action on Immigration. As I had mentioned in my last column, the next two years must be executive orders and veto’s and that’s it. There is no negotiating to do with Republicans, not anymore. Been there for six years, done that for six years. You can’t negotiate with neanderthals. They don’t have the brains nor the heart to do what is right for the American people that are not in the top one percent. On the Keystone pipeline Obama must use his veto pen. Obama must show that America will take the lead on global warming. Funny how a party that hasn’t cared one bit about creating jobs, all of a sudden cares about a thousand short term jobs that would lead to about 50 permanent jobs. The over 200,000 jobs that Obama has been creating every month, they won’t talk about of course.

There is nothing more to talk about. Obama must now finish carving his legacy. A legacy that is about taking us out of a recession, ending two wars, finishing Bin Laden, bringing affordable health care to over 10 million people, a stock market that hits record highs daily, gas prices that continue to plummet, cutting the deficit in more than half, and so on and so on and so on.

Republicans will scream and shout, they will have tantrums and curse and threaten. Too damn bad. They have and will continue to misread this past election and overplay their hand. Obama must use this against them and continue to watch the infighting within the Republican party. Let them continue to have to answer impeachment calls from the Tea Party members, let them continue their infighting over this and other issues. Let them fight over shutting down the government. The more resolute he is the more infighting there will be as they try to figure out what to do with this newly defiant President that they are certainly not accustomed to.

I’m cautiously optimistic.  Obama has had these opportunities before and has squandered them. However maybe with Immigration reform, the great climate deal with China, and his recent comments about the Keystone pipeline, we are indeed seeing a new Obama. An Obama that has finally realized what the agenda of the Republican party is and has been since January 20, 2009. They couldn’t prevent him from being elected twice, but they still believe they can control his destiny.

They can do so only if he allows it. He is the President. He has the moral high ground and the law on his side. He has the veto pen. He cannot allow Republicans to hurt this country anymore than they already have. He cannot allow them to destroy all the good he has done and take us back to 2008.

He must forge ahead. All they can do is cry about it. He has all the power. They know it. Let’s hope he does as well.

Mike.Caccioppoli@yahoo.com

@CaccioppoliMike

 

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Go Home

I came across this article by Fred Barnes in The Weekly Standard because I happened to be trolling around right wing sites and thought he had a provocative, interesting idea. I also found a site that castigated Progressives for Palin Derangement Syndrome. You know, that knee-jerk negative reaction the left has whenever Palins’s name comes up. The author seemed to suggest that those on the left were offended by Palin’s obvious feminism and suggested that the left loved women’s rights and opinions, but not Palin’s. Especially when she was shown shooting a gun. What the author missed is that Sarah Palin just sounds uninformed whenever she speaks. I have plenty of respect for her as a woman, as a mother, as someone who wanted to serve the people of Alaska. I just happen to disagree with every single word she utters. Nothing more, nothing less.

But I digress.

Fred Barnes wants the GOP to Go Big or Go Home, hence the title of my response. He says that if only the Republicans would advocate abolishing the IRS and a stronger, more muscular foreign policy, then they would win the hearts and minds of the American people. He does say that these positions might not win the GOP the Senate this fall, but would provide a template for action that the party could run on in 2016.

The problem is that most Americans do not want to get rid of the IRS, even though they hate its very guts. Deep down, they understand that if the United States is going to make good on its mission to protect the homeland and the common good, then it will need funds and a means by which to collect them. That’s what the IRS does. What Mr. Barnes should really be advocating is that all the companies that evade U.S. corporate taxes should actually pay up. That might lessen the burden on the overburdened middle class and it might provide more funds for, you know, schools, roads, bridges, job programs and Medicare.

Barnes is not at all specific when he talks about why the country needs a more muscular foreign policy, or even what that looks like. I have a suspicion that it looks like a foreign policy that throws bombs and bullets on people who are either innocent or who already hate us to the point that more bombs and bullets will help their recruiting efforts. But he doesn’t say, so this is all conjecture.

The article is instructive because these positions are precisely why the GOP has only won one big election since 2008, when they took over the House in 2010. Every other election has gone to the Democrats despite the baying from the right that Obama is abusing his power and is wrong on every issue. Clearly, America does not agree with that.

And that’s why the Republicans will not win a majority in the Senate this fall, nor will they win the presidency in 2016.

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Uncompromisingly Wrong

The Fourth of July is always a great time to revisit what makes the United States a great nation, and I always come back to the same characteristic: Compromise. There is probably nothing more American than our genius for compromise, even more so than apple pie and motherhood, both of which were invented by people who didn’t live here in the first place. But compromise? We are good at that, and the reason I think we’re in the political quagmire we find ourselves in today is because we’ve stopped compromising, and I blame the Tea Party for this situation.

I know the right wing likes to blame President Obama or Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for not compromising when the Democrats had the majority from 2009-2011, but the truth is that all three of them did offer opportunities for the Republicans to support the health care law that, after all, was the brainchild of conservative scholars who thought it a far better idea than what the Clintons were peddling in the 1990s. The same is true for the Dodd-Frank bill and the stimulus package, which had far too many Republican tax breaks and not enough in grass-roots spending to be fully effective. But at least those laws got passed.

The problem today is that the Tea Party-inspired GOP has become the party that has consistently traded the good for the perfect and has come up empty each time. They could have had a grand bargain twice that cut social programs and the deficit, but because it didn’t go far enough, the Tea Party faction in the House wouldn’t support it. The same is true of the ACA, which the right still wants to repeal, and a whole host of other issues where we could actually have made some progress and then improved the legislation down the road, but because the bills required compromise, the Tea Party was not interested.

I fully understand that this is sometimes the way politics goes in this country, but this time it seems different because now the right is saying that they, and only they, interpret the Constitution as it should be analyzed, so anything that runs afoul of that reading is wrong and un-American. This is the dangerous part of their agenda and the one that runs directly against their reading of American history, because they reject compromise of any sort.

This country, plain and simply, was built on compromise. The Declaration of Independence was a compromise that mentioned freedom and equality but didn’t mention slavery. The Constitution was a compromise over commerce, slavery and representation. The run-up to the Civil War included a number of compromises that in the end could not satisfy the southerners who decided that slavery was a protected right and got the Supreme Court to agree with them. Financial legislation, social legislation, immigration laws and even US foreign policy in the era of the great world wars had elements of compromise.

FDR compromised, as did every other president we’ve ever elected. You’d think that Ronald Reagan was some great pillar of conservatism who blocked everything the Democrats sent him over eight years, but he compromised too. He cut taxes and then raised them. He signed a compromise immigration law and a tax overhaul that had both liberal and conservative elements. He bargained with terrorists after saying he would never do that. George H.W. Bush, who I think will be rehabilitated once historians get into the meat of his administration, did the absolute right thing by raising taxes to fight the budget deficit in the early 1990s.

You get the picture, I presume.

Lack of compromise is political suicide, and that’s a lesson that the Tea Party will ultimately learn. The more savvy politicians know that you need to get what you can given the political mood and realities of the times. Then you run on your successes and build on them. That’s how the Republicans ran the country until the 1930s and how the liberals ran things until the 1990s. Since then, what has government really accomplished? It’s so bad now it took the threat of massive disruptions to get a Farm Bill. Bob Dole couldn’t even convince his fellow Republicans to back a measure that would support people with physical disabilities.

We’ll get through this and people will look back and wonder how it ever got so bad. If the Tea Party persists, though, they will become a historic party.

Like the Federalists and the Whigs.

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With a Court Like This, Who Needs Congress?

The Tea Party and most social conservatives can sleep easily throughout the summer now. The two Supreme Court decisions rendered on Monday should delight the right and make the inaction across the street in the Capitol seems like a mere distraction. Like a fly buzzing around the collective government heads. The conservative revolution has been won, and all it took was five justices and very little money.

In the Hobby Lobby case, the court affirmed that not only are corporations people, they also have religious rights that can be exercised on health care issues. Yes, Justice Samuel Alito did say that he didn’t expect the floodgates to open on religious issues, but just look at what the Court’s decision on marriage equality did to even conservative states. Lower courts have run riot over anti-gay marriage laws to the tune of 17 states, many of which are in the most conservative areas of the country. Does Justice Alito really think that lower courts will demure when it comes to challenges on religious grounds? I don’t.

But just as this Court has affirmed the highest aspirations of the conservative movement, and, I’m sure, cemented the idea that Madison, Adams, Jay and Hamilton would have agreed with them, they are just doing what the liberal courts did in the 1950s through 1970s. Remember that the court found a right to privacy in the 1968 Griswold case, and used that right, which appears nowhere in the Constitution, to decide Roe v. Wade. The Warren court did the same with Brown, basing it on previous, smaller cases that affirmed what the justices believed to be correct decisions.

Alito, clearly the more articulate conservative compared to Antonin Scalia, who just wants to rant, also wrote the majority opinion in Harris v. Quinn, the day’s other liberal-bashing case. Here, he and the conservative majority said that some public employees do not have to pay union fees even if they don’t want to actually join the union that represents their field. For example, in New Jersey, public school teachers who don’t join the teacher’s association still have to pay 85% of the association fees because the association represents and negotiates for these teachers. Alito created a new category of worker, a partial public employee who works for both the government and a private person who hired them, and said that this type of employee was exempt from representation fees.

This decision is not major in the sense that it covered a great deal of people, but it does open up the gates to further challenges to unions and laws that require people to pay a representation fee. The next case could give the conservatives an opening to expand the definition to part-timers or support staff or, to be honest, any other public worker. Alito doesn’t like unions. It’s not just the law; it’s personal.

While President Obama and the right wing Republicans duke it out over language and politics, the Supreme Court is moving full steam ahead to craft a country that looks more like 1814 than 2014. The biggest problem, though, is that the former generation had Chielf Justice John Marshall to guide it. We get Alito, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas.

We lose.

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The Party’s Been Over

I think I’m just going to assume that the Democrats will lose the Senate in November and prepare myself as I would for any frustrating event I’ve endured over the past few years. That way, if they do eke out a win or tie, then it will be that much sweeter.

There’s been no shortage of discussion about the ramification of a GOP takeover of the Senate, but not much would really change, save for the fact that no judges or executive appointments would be ratified. The Congress would pass some bills that President Obama would veto, and the country would be treated to an intramural fight as the far more conservative House would pass more extreme bills that the less extreme Senate would either ignore or try to temper so that they’re palatable to the larger caucus. In short, how would this term be different from all other terms, save for Obama’s first two years in office?

Which makes former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs’ comment that a Democratic loss would mean that “The party’s over” seem rather quaint. The party’s been over and it doesn’t look like it’s coming back anytime soon. Even if the Republicans take the Senate, they will most likely lose it back to the Democrats in 2016, because the GOP will have to defend a whopping 27 seats and convince the young, the Hispanic and the African-American that they have their best interests at heart. And they’ll have to win the presidency, which at this point doesn’t look like it will ever happen.

The GOP seems to think that young people are in play because they aren’t signing up for health insurance at the rate that the ACA needs in order to function, but recent surveys show that the millennials aren’t attached to either political party, and less so to the Republicans. It is true that many people become more conservative as they gather life experiences such as marriages, children and mortgages, but let’s remember that on social issues, the younger generation is far removed from the right wing scolds who want to decide who gets rights and who doesn’t. And we’ve also seen the effects of less government involvement in, say, North Carolina, that should scare people away from a more libertarian direction.

It hasn’t been a good year for Democrats so far, but nothing that a more robust turnout can’t alter. But the party? Turn out the lights.

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They Cheered, As Ted Cruz Promised to Take Away Their Healthcare – Video


As more and more Americans fall in love with finally being able to buy their own private healthcare through the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, Republicans, led by the Texas Senator from Canada are determined to repeal the entire bill, kicking millions of people off their healthcare and putting Insurance companies back in the driver’s seat when determining who to insure and who to deny.

Ted Cruz, speaking on behalf of his Teaparty colleagues and congressional Republicans, continued their promise to take away your health care.

“I am absolutely convinced we are going to repeal every single word of Obamacare,” Cruz told a group of Teaparty members as they celebrated their 5th year of obstruction and regression.

“If you listen to the media, if you listen to Democrats — although I repeat myself — they will say the fight to stop Obamacare did not succeed,” Cruz said. “Really? Well, I’m a big believer the proof is in the pudding. Last fall, millions of Americans rose up and said, ‘Stop the disaster that is Obamacare.’”

Of course, Cruz cannot point to any documented proof showing the “million of Americans” who want to stop Obamacare. But it’s a good talking point and his brainless believers – some of them on government insurance – eat up his nonsense.

“I am hopeful, I am optimistic, I am filled with the promise that we’re going to turn this country around,” the Canadian born leader of the Teaparty said, “because there is a grass-roots revolution sweeping this country.”

Again, Cruz cannot show this so-called “grass-roots revolution,” because it doesn’t exist. In fact, new polling states that 64% of Americans are against the Teaparty. But this small fact never stopped this fella from lying before, so he continued. And the 300 or so in attendance loved every moment of it!

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Republican Group Enjoys Idea of Shooting at Cars with California License Plates

Bill Whittle, an apparently influential member of the Republican/Teaparty/Conservative movement and blogger, was invited to address a Republican gathering in Texas. His sick humor was enjoyed by all in attendance especially his suggestion that shooting at people in cars with California plates is fun and a necessity for all true red blooded patriotic Texans.

And get this, the Republican god Ted Cruz and wannabe Texas governor Rick Perry have benefited from Whittle’s advice on previous occasions. He’s told them about his shooting idea before.

“I’ve said this several times in Texas before and I’ve said it to Mr. Cruz as a representative of the Texas government, I’ve said it to Governor (Rick) Perry directly, and now I’m going to say it to you as individual Texas citizens.

“You will see a lot of cars coming from the west heading east on Interstate 10, and they’re going to have California license plates on them. Now, if you see these cars pull into rest areas or hotels or restaurants, that’s fine; wave goodbye, make sure they go out on the Louisiana end.”

“But if you see them pull off into residential areas,you need to open fire on these vehicles immediately. Immediately. Not with 9mm or AR rounds; you need to put mortars on those things, you cannot take any chances.”

“What is the worst that can happen to you? I mean honestly, this is Texas, right?  You’ll stand in front of a Texas judge, he’ll say, ‘did you shoot up that car full of Californians?’  You’ll say, ‘yes,’ he’ll say, ‘why?’ You’ll say, ‘well, your honor, they needed killing, and he’ll say ‘okay, we’ll strike a medal in your honor’ and off you go.”

The Conservative/Republican/Teparty group’s trigger-happy fingers must have twitched with anticipation as the crowed rejoiced at the thought.

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The Final Push

Far be it from me to argue with one of the greatest historical minds of the 20th century, but we essentially have an executive that serves a six year term, even if we get two extra bonus lame duck years for our efforts. So it has been with most other presidents, and so it probably shall be with Barack Obama. This is his sixth year; if it doesn’t happen this year, chances are that none of his high priority agenda items will become law in 2015 or 2016.

That’s why 2014 represents the final push for immigration, tax reform, a higher minimum wage, climate policy and every other item on the left-wing wish list. But this is not necessarily a bad thing. History has taught us that the first push rarely results in success when it comes to big change. Look how long it took to get healthcare reform. Sometimes the push is necessary if for no other reason than to get an idea in the public’s mind and to prepare them, or to follow their lead, when it comes to legislation.

Like marriage equality, which coalesced into a major civil rights issue in a short amount of time, the push for rights for all people goes as far back as Stonewall in 1969 and the Supreme Court’s ruling for and then reversal on, anti-sodomy laws in 1986 and 2003. Progressives have been highlighting income inequality and the rising gap between wealthy and not for decades. Now that cry is becoming a major force in calling for a higher, livable minimum wage that just could pass this year. After all, most people, even Republicans, support it.

The same will most likely be true of climate legislation, immigration, privacy and energy. More and more younger people realize that their world is changing and that the United States either has to catch up to other countries who are already addressing the problems or fall behind to our economic and social detriment. The far right is beginning to lose its grip on the Republican Party, and while I don’t see a more moderate wing surging anytime soon, I do see a less strident GOP in our future. That’s good news.

This year will see one or two major pieces of legislation, with the rest of Obama’s agenda left to the next Democratic president and a more willing population. I think we are moving in the right direction, but like anything done well, this will take time.

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“Tea Party Patriot” Charged with Child Pornography

A self-proclaimed tea party patriot is in hot water after being charged with distributing and receiving child pornography.

According to a federal complaint filed Tuesday, Brian Schwanke, 46, allegedly used the e-mail account hornypastor@outlook.com to trade hundreds of child sex photos and videos, The Smoking Gun reported.

Federal agents raided Schwanke’s home in Adrian, Michigan in August, after getting a tip from Australian law enforcement officials, RawStory.com reported.

An undercover police officer in Queensland allegedly had an email conversation with Schwanke in July, during which Schwanke he sent a video of a naked prepubescent girl.

He also claimed to have been a pastor for 20 years and allegedly had sex with numerous underage girls during that period, some as young as 8.

“I’ve even knocked up a couple but we were able to make people believe it was someone else,” he allegedly wrote, according to a court document.

There is no evidence that Schwanke is or has ever been a pastor, but during the August raid, Schwanke allegedly admitted to “sending, receiving, and viewing child pornography” and told them he began looking at illicit images about ten years ago.

On his LinkedIn page, he does claim to be a public safety professional, and an emergency medical services worker. He also is an avid Civil War re-enactor.

He is also a Tea Party patriot, according to his Facebook page, where he describes the group as:

“A non- racist, non-sexist, group of patriots who believe that the Government has too much say in our personal lives. We believe that a smaller government operating on a fixed budget that can not be increased or wasted is the right way to go. We believe this country WAS founded on a CHRISTIAN foundation, and the progressive, atheist left is running us into the ground to create a Socialist country that will fall like all the others.”

On the same page, Schwanke claims to be fluent in American English, German, Klingon and Entish, a fictional language created by J.R.R. Tolkien and states under “religious views” that “All men have sinned and only by forgiveness through the Blood of Christ can we avoid the punishment of Hell.”

The Smoking Gun asked Schwanke about the accusations via Facebook and he responded that he had not been advised of any Federal Charges against him and “would not be able to respond at this time.”

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The Political See-Thaw

Yes, that sound you heard out of Washington was not just John Boehner’s rant against his conservative brethren, it might have been the long-awaited thaw in relations between the two parties in the Congress over the budget.

And you probably thought that Republicans didn’t believe in warming.

Well, don’t get too excited. After all, 94 House members voted against the bill and it looks like the Senate will manage only four GOP supporters when the bill lands on their desks. And this is a bill that I might have voted against because it basically sacrifices the long-term unemployed on the alter of perceived laziness and blame-the-victim politics that’s the hallmark of the Republican Party (though Patty Murray must be terrific at selling unpopular ideas). The bill does modify and correct some of the most egregious sequestration cuts, but this budget deal was played on the Republican side of the field.

Is this a thaw? Possibly, though there are significant snowstorms ahead. The immigration bill is stalled in the House and it would be a monumental achievement for a law that includes a path to citizenship to pass in that chamber. Then again, Boehner is not a dumb politician and understands that the Republicans need to begin courting the Hispanic vote, so maybe he can shepherd a modified version of the bill through his caucus. Of course, Democrats will jump all over any perceived weakness int he GOP approach and will run with it in 2014 and 2016.

The Senate provides another ice sheet for progress. Although the two sides came to an agreement to pause the confirm-a-thon until Monday, the Republicans are still smarting from having the filibuster rug pulled from under their Gucci-shoed feet. Two of the president’s DC Circuit nominees have been approved at the EPA Chief is up next. I see this as great progress and a future bulwark against Republican mischief via the courts in the years to come. “Young Democratic Judges” is a phrase I love hearing over and over.

So I’m not looking for a grand love-in on the floor of the legislative bodies over the course of the next year, but I do see a grudging push in the direction of getting things done, especially on the right. They can run against the health care law and probably keep the House and make inroads in the Senate in 2014. Their main concern, and a shiver up the spine, has to be the prospect of a Tea Party presidential candidate and the thought of defending 24 Senate seats in 2016. They won’t win the former contest and could do serious damage to themselves in the latter if they persist with the nonsense they’ve been peddling since 2010.

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Good News for Obama: The Right Will Rise Again

Don’t get me wrong. What’s happened over the past five weeks has been a colossal, epic failure on President Obama’s part. All he needed to say about the health care law was that you could keep your insurance if it met minimum standards, and then he needed to repeat those standards. He also needed to repeat the benefits of the law, from covering preexisting conditions to free physicals, checkups and flu shots. But Obama thought that passage of the law was enough and that the government didn’t need to publicize what was on public record. Big mistake. Now he’s gotten caught in a web that the right wing has been spinning since 2010. It’s ugly. It’s sobering. It’s a mess. And it hurts.

And now for the good news. Obama’s opponents are still the same gang that shut down the government, opposes marriage equality, wants to voucherize Medicare and cut $40 billion from the food stamp program, denies global warming, thinks transvaginal ultrasounds are effective public policy, supports testing public school students at the expense of a real curriculum, opposes immigration reform and continues to want to deport large numbers of Hispanics.

In the 1990s, my father used to say that Newt Gingrich was the best thing that ever happened to Bill Clinton. The Tea Party and John Boehner are the best things to happen to Barack Obama. His approval ratings are down now, but they’ll rebound because the right wing hasn’t changed.

Their main vulnerability is their belief that the health care law has imperiled every part of Obama’s agenda. What they forget is that prior to the shutdown, the GOP’s ideas were extreme and unpopular. My sense is that they’ll get even more extreme because they see Obama at a critical point in his presidency. Healthcare.gov will not make the Republicans look any better on women, Hispanics, social programs and, yes, health care.

The health care mess will also leave the front pages soon because the website will be fixed and more people will successfully sign up for care. Also, fiscal negotiations are just around the corner and the right has left itself vulnerable because they’ve pretty much promised not to shut the government down again and they’d be even crazier than I think they are to not raise the debt ceiling. Plus, the press will get tired of this story and move on to other things.

In the end, though, the real advantage is that we’re talking about trying to insure people against catastrophic expenses by providing them with health insurance. Never forget that.

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