There's an old and now-dated joke that is the genesis of that headline. The setup to the joke is the question: "What are the three greatest lies in America?" The punchline is: "(1.) The check is in the mail, (2.) I will respect you in the morning, and (3.) I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

I am reminded of this now because of a confluence of disparate issues, from Democrats bolstering the rights of transgendered people to the reaction to the news that the publisher of the Dr. Seuss canon will not be publishing six of his books anymore because of racially insensitive depictions. And a lot of other unrelated things, as well, such as Donald Trump railing about seemingly mundane issues like toilets and lightbulbs and dishwashers. Many of these things are now being lumped together politically as a conservative crusade against "cancel culture."

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We are in the midst of one of those rare seasons in Washington where Congress actually gets some things done. Joe Biden's legislative legacy will begin with his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, which now seems all but certain to pass. Hiking the minimum wage to $15 an hour fell by the wayside, true, but the rest of the bill will be historic nonetheless (there are all sorts of things in it, above and beyond the pandemic relief and $1,400 checks and state and local aid). Meanwhile, the House is about to begin a marathon period of passing Democratic agenda items and sending the bills over to the Senate. First and foremost of these is H.R. 1 -- the "For The People Act." And if even some of the key ideas contained in this breathtaking and sweeping proposal ever make it into law, it would likely be the most consequential election law ever passed. So it's a good bill for Nancy Pelosi to lead with.

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The issue of voting rights could be a pivotal one for Democrats, if they would focus intensely on it for the next month or so, and by doing so get their message out to as many people as possible. The political equation is pretty simple to understand, after all: Democrats are trying to make it easier for people to vote, while Republicans are making it as difficult as they know how. Republicans do not want you to be able to easily vote, because when that happens, they lose elections. Plain and simple. And they're even flat-out admitting it, these days.

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The prospects of Democrats scoring a big victory on hiking the minimum wage to $15 an hour are getting dimmer and dimmer. Sadly, this is true not just in the current pandemic relief bill, but overall -- because if it isn't included now it's hard to see how it is ever going to pass otherwise. One has to be forgiven for wondering if this was really President Joe Biden's plan all along; that including it in this bill was nothing short of a feint, to provide a lightning rod for Republicans to attack while the rest of the bill goes largely ignored. If this is true, it worked like a charm, but that's an awfully cynical ploy for Biden at the start of his legislative legacy. And it's an ominous indication that a whole lot of other progressive ideas are also never going to actually be enacted, too.

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In the past week, two of the biggest political stories have been which way the Senate parliamentarian was going to rule on an arcane rule in the chamber, and how one of President Joe Biden's nominees might be in trouble because in the past she had (gasp!) tweeted such mean things as: "vampires have more heart than Ted Cruz" (a statement that is not provably true only because vampires are mythical creatures while the heartlessness of Ted Cruz is, sadly, all too real).

Not to belabor the obvious, but this is a decided difference from the past four years. To drive the point home: last week there were zero nasty or racist or misogynistic tweets from the president, there were zero instances of the White House press secretary just flat-out lying from the briefing room podium, and zero times when the president was obviously completely and utterly ignorant about either basic facts, reality, how the Constitution works, or federal law in general. None. Zero. Nary a one.

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The increase in the federal minimum wage currently being discussed in Congress will be revolutionary if it passes, but not for the reason you might first suspect. Admittedly, a raise to $15 an hour will be monumental in absolute terms, since it will more than double the paltry current rate. That's pretty notable, but it's not what I mean when I say revolutionary. Because the truly revolutionary thing about this bill is that it will quite likely be the last minimum wage raise Congress ever votes on. And surprisingly, this is actually a good thing.

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While everyone agrees on the obvious truism that President Joe Biden is now the most powerful Democrat in Washington, the person next in line in this new partisan power structure isn't as obvious. Because it is not actually Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, or Nancy Pelosi, despite them being (respectively) vice president, Senate majority leader, and speaker of the House. No, instead the biggest power player in Washington after Biden is now Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. He has now set himself up to be "the next Joe Lieberman." Under President Barack Obama, Lieberman acted as a virtual caucus of one, determining what was allowably "centrist" enough for him to support and vote for. Manchin has now thrust himself into exactly the same position, and by doing so will hold the keys to Biden's ultimate legislative success or failure for at least the next two years.

Democrats, of course, only hold the slimmest margin possible in the Senate, a majority of 51 to Republicans' 50 (counting Harris as the tie-breaker). This means that any one Democrat who crosses the aisle is going to almost guarantee failure for Biden, whether on a piece of legislation (through the budget reconciliation process) or for his presidential nominees (which now only need a simple majority, due to Harry Reid dropping the first "nuke," which eliminated the filibuster for cabinet appointees). With every single vote needed, each and every Democratic senator now really has the power to deny Biden a win. Most will not ever use this power, but Manchin is already signalling his intent to do so whenever he sees fit.

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Joe Biden's first major legislative initiative is going to be a winning one for Democrats, and (hopefully) a big anchor around the neck of all the Republicans in Congress who vote against it (which, as of this writing, looks like it's going to be "all of them"). It's rare that a bill this popular doesn't have bipartisan support, because most politicians on either side of the aisle know full well that voting for something wildly popular -- even if your party didn't propose it -- is usually good politics. It's something to brag about in the next election campaign, in normal times.

But even with Donald Trump finally relegated to the sidelines, the times are anything but normal in today's Republican Party. They've backed themselves into the corner of "no compromise, no surrender" when it comes to dealing with Democrats, and this could be a serious liability for them -- especially with moderate or independent voters (who generally hate partisan extremism and instead just want to see things get done in Washington).

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Since the riot at the Capitol last month, both Democrats and the news media have managed a notable achievement, by slapping a label on what is actually a persistent and ongoing danger to both them and American democracy -- Republicans using made-up "voting fraud" claims to make it harder and harder for citizens to vote. Because this fake and non-existent "voter fraud" was not just what Trump latched on to in order to try and overturn an election result he didn't like, but it is also the root of a decades-long Republican attempt to cling to power even while getting a minority of the votes cast.

Both Democrats and the media quickly began using the old term "the Big Lie" to describe Trump's delusional view that the election was somehow "stolen" from him. But this has now grown to encompass not just all of Trump's complaints (about problems that somehow just could never be proven in any court), but also the entire idea of using "voter fraud" as a political wedge issue.

Democrats are going to need to keep this pressure up, because already Republicans are attempting to rewrite recent history to include the "belief" that "voter fraud" happened on a wide scale. Always missing from these Republican concerns is the fact that they themselves whipped this delusional fantasy up among their own base, meaning it would never have existed without their own participatory fearmongering (in fear of drawing Trump's wrath, since he had long since morphed into the Fearmonger -in-Chief). The problem (according to Republicans) is no longer even "election fraud," but is now just the fear of "election fraud" -- which is all the excuse Republicans need to roll back all those voting reforms that the COVID-19 pandemic made necessary.

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After one short month in office, President Joe Biden has already achieved his biggest goal. The country is united again. We all universally agree on one thing, with true bipartisan spirit. What is this unifying belief which all Americans now share? That Ted Cruz is an awful excuse for a human being.

We seem to have harkened back to a simpler time. A time when political scandals didn't involve cheapening the image of America on the world stage. A time when political scandals usually didn't revolve around a blatant attack on the bedrock institutions of a free democracy -- or a direct attack on democracy itself, for that matter. A time when politicians of all stripes -- even the worst ones -- were still capable of feeling shame and embarrassment. And a time when politicians caught doing something monumentally stupid had to pay a political price.

Of course, you may argue that Ted Cruz was already pretty universally loathed before this week, and that's hard to deny. Here are just some of the things people have said about him previously (and we hasten to point out, these are all real quotes, not satire):

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