Late yesterday the final version of the healthcare "fixes" bill sailed through both the Senate and the House to complete its legislative journey. Now it's safely harbored on President Obama's desk. Republican opposition was still unanimous in both Houses. Even so, the Republicans finally gave up on all their legislative stalling tactics. It was the difference between saying "no," and yelling "no" like a crazy person. Maybe they just got tired of yelling. Maybe Republican lawmakers started asking themselves "How many nights am I going to stay up until 3 a.m. just to make a bunch of Tea Party lunatics happy?" It should be noted that after all their bluster, Senate Republicans managed to hold up the bill with frivolous amendments for exactly 21 hours. Every dog has his day, but these dogs didn’t even manage a full day. In the end Republicans identified a full 20 words in the fixes bill that violated procedural rules, and that ended up delaying the bill’s passage by about 20 minutes.

The good news is that now that healthcare is pretty much a wrap, we're free to move on the next item on the agenda. The bad news is that that seems to be the right wing’s hysterical reaction to healthcare. Glenn Beck is saying that when Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leaders walked to the Capitol for the healthcare vote that they were trying to incite the Tea Party mob to kill them. He said they were thinking "What the hell do you have to do to these people to get them to kill us?" Beck seems to think that Democrats are willing to be martyred to pass a healthcare bill. In a weird sense it's a compliment. Thanks Glenn, but if we all want to die before our time, we would just keep our present healthcare system.

To end on a lighter note, If you ever wonder if "The Jersey Shore" is the dumbest thing on television, tune into Fox and Friends next time former Saturday Night Live cast member Victoria Jackson in on.  How dumb is Victoria Jackson? Tina Fey comes off as more intelligent—when she’s in character as Sarah Palin. Victoria! You don’t see other alumni of Saturday Night Live all over the TV making fools of themselves. Well, at least not since "According to Jim" was cancelled. There’s a lot we don’t know about the Tea Partiers, but between Victoria Jackson and Jon Voight, it seems like the Tea Party is where show business careers go to die.