It's time for a regularly-scheduled checkup (to use a medical metaphor) on how Obamacare's doing. Three months in, things do seem to be improving. So much so, in fact, that January will (one way or another) see a shift in the political discussion to other aspects of the health reform law than just the HealthCare.gov website. Whatever way the story gets spun next month, it will be different than the prevailing storyline up to this point. But before we get to that, let's take a look at the progress made in the past month.

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Welcome back to our annual year-end awards column!

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There seems to be an interesting round of speculation taking place in Washington over whether Speaker John Boehner will move on immigration reform in the House next year, and (if so) when he would do so. The story, at heart, is part of the ongoing civil war between the Tea Party and the Establishment Republicans, which is why it is such a fascinating question to even contemplate.

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The big political news of the day is that Republican Representative Paul Ryan and Democratic Senator Patty Murray have hammered out a new budget deal. Mostly, this news focuses on the details of the agreement, or the sheer jaw-dropping astonishment that a deal was reached before the next artificial deadline was hit. This last bit is actually laughable and not a little pathetic, when you consider how low the bar now is for Congress meeting the responsibilities outlined in their job descriptions. But even that is not the most cynical (or, if you're in a more forgiving mood, "most crassly political") aspect of the deal, which news reports are mostly missing today. Because, to me, the most appropriate headline from the new budget deal should really be: "Democrats And Republicans Agree To Remove Budget Negotiations From 2014 Campaign, Out Of Fear."

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I don't know about anyone else, but the image that popped into my head this week was Ted Cruz drunk in some dive of a karaoke bar, doing his version of "I Fought The Law, And The Law Won."

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While it may seem like that headline refers to yet another poll released which proves that Congress is held in lower esteem than dead bodies (dead bodies are actually now enjoying a resurgence of support, due to the proliferation of zombies in pop culture), it is in fact nothing short of literal. The U.S. Botanic Garden is currently experiencing record-breaking crowds eager to see -- or, more accurately, to smell -- the blooming "corpse flower" (or amorphophallus titanum, which -- no lie! -- translates to "giant, misshapen penis"). We merely note the event for those in the D.C. area who are inclined to visit the blossom before it shrivels up, and not to inspire any jokes in the comments or anything. I mean, how could you possibly joke about a corpse-like stench... the Nation's Capital... or "giant, misshapen penises"?

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The news that Liz Cheney is going to run for a Senate seat in Wyoming has certainly provoked a number of interesting reactions from the inside-the-Beltway set. From the Right, there has been consternation over Cheney primarying a sitting Republican, which mostly focuses on the unseemliness of it all. From the Left, there has been a mixture that I would call "horrified fascination" over the prospects of Dick Cheney's daughter sitting in the upper chamber of Congress (that's the horror part), tempered by the unrestrained glee of watching an internal Republican knife-fight. One thing's for certain, this will be one of the closest-watched primary races in the country next year.

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In this week's news, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died. As a result, Cher fans got a scare. The dangers of hashtag parsing -- because "nowthatchersdead" can be broken up two ways. The other pop culture result of the "Iron Lady's" demise was (you can't make this stuff up) the song "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead" rocketing to the top of the British charts, even though it is three-quarters of a century old. Make of it what you will.

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With that out of the way, we're going to take a quick overview of what the media considers the big stories of the week, and we're going to end up in the Talking Points section with all the stories you may have missed due to the media being distracted by this stuff, just for fun.

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Welcome to the 250th Friday Talking Points column!

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