Congress's holiday gift to America: Another government shutdown fight

There's good news and bad news in the mess that Congress is now in. First, the bad news. We're facing another potential government shutdown over really extreme, stupid, Republican ideological shit. that on the floor Wednesday.

Now the sort of good news part of that. There are dual, but combined, fights playing out now: first over the payroll tax cut extension, including the unemployment benefits extension and the Medicare reimbursement "doc fix," and a whole host of crappy, ideological Republican bullshit provisions; second, over the omnibus government funding bill, which also includes a host of crappy, ideological Republican bullshit provisions. Had the crappy bullshit provisions in the House payroll tax cut extension bill not been quite as crappy and extreme as they are, the slightly less crappy and extreme provisions in the funding bill might have been ignored by Democrats and just accepted.

whether to bar the District from spending tax money on abortions for low-income women. Also at issue are whether to include language to reverse a decision by Obama to make it easier for Americans to visit relatives in Cuba and whether to include a provision to block new standards for incandescent light bulbs.

Yes, light bulbs.