“The die is cast.” These were the fatal words spoken by Julius Caesar as he stood before his loyal legion on the northern bank of the Rubicon River (the boundary between Italy and the wide world) and proclaimed his revolutionary intent to enter Italy, thus declaring war on his rival Pompey and Pompey’s allies in violation of the law of the Roman republic. This same bold epigram was spoken last night by a much lesser light, Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), as he stood on the banks of the Potomac and proclaimed that the Healthcare Reform War of 2009 was over and that he and his cohorts in the Democratic Caucus had overcome their Republican opponents and would now march into the New Year imposing a revolutionary healthcare regime.

President Barack Obama has appointed Maria del Carmen Aponte to be the next American ambassador to El Salvador. Aponte, a La Raza devotee, was nominated in 1998 by Bill Clinton to be ambassador to the Domincan Republic, but her name was withdrawn after revelations that she had intimate ties to an agent of the DGI, the Cuban intelligence agency.

It Washington, D.C., it wasn’t the Grinch that stole Christmas, it was Tom Coburn, a physician from Oklahoma and most importantly, a senator opposed to universal government-funded healthcare.

Just as it seemed that recalcitrant receiver Senator Joe Lieberman caught President Barack Obama’s last minute healthcare Hail Mary pass, Howard Dean may have rushed in at the last moment and broken up the play. Replay officials will now have to decide whether Lieberman bobbled the ball or whether Howard Dean’s hit was too little too late and the healthcare legislation will score after all.

Despite dedicating five minutes of his recent 20-minute presentation at the Media Access Project forum to decrying the “right-wing smear campaign” he claims to be the target of, FCC Chief Diversity Office and Associate Counsel at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Mark Lloyd assured attendees that he was not carrying out “a secret plot funded by George Soros” to eliminate conservative talk-show voices such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

Proving that where there’s a will (among 58 or so senators and 38 percent of the American public), there’s a way to forcibly implement some sort of overhaul of the healthcare insurance industry and the dispensing of medical treatment in our country, Tuesday night the Team of Ten — a “dream team” of senators representing the left and middle of the Democratic Party — called Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and told him that they had successfully brokered a deal that should satisfy all sixty members of the Democratic caucus in the Senate. If such an agreement holds, then the Mr. Reid would have the sixty votes he needs to end a Republican filibuster and put the question of the measure to an up or down vote by the whole chamber.

The GOP will be torn apart and rendered powerless by its conservative wing. This is the prediction made by Tim Kaine, the Democratic National Committee Chairman during a speech at the 11th Annual American Democracy Conference held Wednesday in Washington, D.C. In raising the warning voice, Kaine singled out the tea party movement as the poison that will kill the Republican Party and with it all that party’s chances of electoral victories in the upcoming 2010 election cycle.

Major Nidal Hasan, the army psychiatrist accused of murdering 13 and attempting to murder 32 others during a November 5 shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas, exchanged at least 18 e-mails with radical, jihad-promoting imam, Anwar Awlaki. Remarkably, the FBI only knew about two of them.

Tea Party activists are working nationwide to shake every tree of unrest wherever they find them growing to acquire money sufficient to fund campaigns of viable political candidates who are willing to vow to hew tightly to the conservative principles upon which the movement is built. While these support safaris are happening in several states, the battle for the state house in Colorado has particularly animated the substantial segment of the population dissatisfied with the policies of the current Democratic governor, Bill Ritter.

President Obama instructed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to deliver to his desk a comprehensive overhaul of the healthcare system in America and make it happen for under $900 million. No sooner had the roll been called in the Senate chamber and the requisite 60 votes counted, Senator Reid was crowing about how his package came in under the budget set by the president. At the unveiling of his legislation, Reid was quick to point to the bill’s bottom line: $849 billion. That gives the President about $51 million in change.