1. Women's Health Care (S. 844). "The Prevention First Act of 2005" will reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions by increasing funding for family planning and ending health insurance discrimination against women.

2. Veterans' Benefits (S. 845). "The Retired Pay Restoration Act of 2005" will assist disabled veterans who, under current law, must choose to either receive their retirement pay or disability compensation.

3. Fiscal Responsibility (S. 851). Democrats will move to restore fiscal discipline to government spending and extend the pay-as-you-go requirement.

4. Relief at the Pump (S. 847). Democrats plan to halt the diversion of oil from the markets to the strategic petroleum reserve. By releasing oil from the reserve through a swap program, the plan will bring down prices at the pump.

5. Education (S. 848). Democrats have a bill that will: strengthen head start and child care programs, improve elementary and secondary education, provide a roadmap for first generation and low-income college students, provide college tuition relief for students and their families, address the need for math, science and special education teachers, and make college affordable for all students.

6. Jobs (S. 846). Democrats will work in support of legislation that guarantees overtime pay for workers and sets a fair minimum wage.

7. Energy Markets (S. 870). Democrats work to prevent Enron-style market manipulation of electricity.

8. Corporate Taxation (S. 872). Democrats make sure companies pay their fair share of taxes to the U.S. government instead of keeping profits overseas.

9. Standing with our troops (S. 11). Democrats believe that putting America's security first means standing up for our troops and their families

It's become a clichéd trope of the right to say that liberals have nothing positive to offer, but it's simply not true. We've got at least two big ideas -- labor-law reform and universal health care -- that, historically, have only been beaten thanks to the filibuster and that, if passed, will generate self-sustaining political coalitions that the right will find it essentially impossible to ever defeat. There's a reason that right-wing parties in Canada and Europe never propose eliminating those countries' national health care systems, just as America's GOP doesn't try to abolish Medicare. And, of course, anti-union policies will become immeasurably harder to implement if it's made easier to unionize new groups of workers. Anti-filibuster conservatives aren't so much being hypocritical as they are shooting themselves in the foot, if not the head.

Republicans already get 95% of their conservative ideologues passed. I just don't believe that the net of a dozen more wingnuts on the bench will tip the scales. Meanwhile, Clinton had over 60 judges held up by Republicans, and many more vacancies.

This is a slippery slope. Getting rid of the judicial filibuster is the first step to getting rid of the filibuster entirely. Republicans will not be able to resist changing the rules for other enactments as well.

It's just about impossible for the Democrats to ever gain 60 seats in the Senate without the Republicans becoming totally regionalized. Given that Republicans are dominant, federally speaking, from the mountain states, into the southwest, and across the south, as well as being even with Democrats across the midwest, it's just not feasible that the GOP will become regionalized anytime soon.

Democrats will regain the Presidency and the Congress at some point. And it will likely be at a time when the country is fed up with conservative dogma, and ready for progressive enactment. The House is majority rule, so the only roadblock would be Conservatives in the Senate. The filibuster will be history, and the historical swing away from conservative dogma will be fast and furious.