Program Note: I fully admit that sometimes I run repeat articles because I am lazy and don't feel like writing a column. Other times, I am just too busy with real life, or sick. And then there are slow political news days when I just don't have a handy subject to write about.

But then there are times like today, when I repeat an article to do nothing more than metaphorically spike the football in the end zone and do a victory dance.

Ahem.

Eleven months ago, I wrote the following article. For the time it was written, I was going out on a limb. We had just heard the oral arguments in two pivotal cases at the Supreme Court, but the decision was still months away, and nobody really knew how the Supremes were going to rule. Even so, I argued, the tipping point had already been reached on the subject of gay marriage.

I thought that now, immediately after Arizona's governor just vetoed a very discriminatory bill, was a good time to repeat my claims about how the tide had turned. The bill in question is even instructive, because it shows how the anti-marriage-equality folks are grasping at straws -- they are passing state laws in full anticipation of marriage equality becoming the law in the entire nation. In other words, they know they're fighting a losing battle, and they are looking for ways to strategically retreat.

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What follows is a modern-day parable. I think it's important to point that out up front, in order not to cause any undue offense. The scene: the near future, when Arizona (or any other state, for that matter) becomes a bastion of religious freedom by passing laws shielding businesses from penalty for discrimination on the basis of religious belief.

Our heroine, Libby R. Terryan, wakes up to a bright new beautiful world in which citizens and businesses are free to act without governmental restraint upon their deeply-held religious beliefs. Libby breathes in this sweet air of freedom as she gets ready for work. Because of all this intoxicating freedom, Libby finds herself running a bit late.

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President Obama just released a statement from the White House to mourn the passing of comedy genius Harold Ramis. It reads:

Michelle and I were saddened to hear of the passing of Harold Ramis, one of America's greatest satirists, and like so many other comedic geniuses, a proud product of Chicago's Second City. When we watched his movies -- from Animal House and Caddyshack to Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day -- we didn't just laugh until it hurt. We questioned authority. We identified with the outsider. We rooted for the underdog. And through it all, we never lost our faith in happy endings. Our thoughts and prayers are with Harold's wife, Erica, his children and grandchildren, and all those who loved him, who quote his work with abandon, and who hope that he received total consciousness.

That bit at the end refers to a line from Caddyshack (which can be seen here).

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As we enter into what political wonks call "primary season," the next few months are going to prove instructive as to the relative strength in the Republican Party of both the Tea Party and the Establishment Republican factions. The Tea Party rode high in the 2010 election cycle, and was again influential during the whole 2012 race, but one has to wonder if the luster of the Tea Party's shine is beginning to wear off -- even among Republican primary voters. The next few months will tell, as sitting Republicans either win their primaries or are dethroned by their Tea Party challengers.

This will be most important in the Senate races, once again. In the past two cycles, Republican voters have chosen enough Tea Party stalwarts (who then went on to lose very winnable general election races) to have changed the control of the Senate, after all. Some of them crashed and burned so spectacularly that even today we still remember their names and their gaffes (Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin and Christine "I'm Not A Witch" O'Donnell, to name just two). Republicans need to gain six Senate seats, and (just as in 2010 and 2012) they've got a real shot at doing so. If, that is, they manage to pick candidates who can be counted on to not say outrageous things while campaigning.

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We've got a lot to get to in our weekly roundup of politics this week, it seems.

For those watching the Olympics (or trying to, in and amongst the soap opera that is NBC's coverage, and the accompanying forty bazillion commercial breaks) and wondering what's going on in Russian politics, well, we direct you to the panty protests. Not the most important issue of the week, but quite possibly the most bizarre (and that's even in a week that saw members of Pussy Riot getting horsewhipped by Cossacks, mind you).

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The White House has just given everyone a peek at what President Obama's next budget proposal is going to look like. Full details aren't yet available and likely won't be until next month, when Obama's budget is officially released. What is known, at this point, is that the White House is signaling that the attempt to reach out to Republicans and meet them halfway in some "grand bargain" on the budget is officially over, at least for the time being. Specifically, Obama has dropped his "chained C.P.I." idea. What this is going to mean for the rest of the year is likely "not much," at least outside the realm of politicking. It is, after all, an election year. But Obama is sending a strong message to Democrats that he won't be "giving away the store" in any budget agreements this year, which comes as a relief to many Democrats.

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Marijuana is in the news today, as the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform (the best-financed advocacy group in California) have stated that they will not, after all, be moving forward with a ballot initiative in 2014 to legalize recreational use of marijuana. After considering their ballot measure's chances (the "Control, Regulate and Tax Marijuana Act"), the group has decided to wait until 2016 to move forward. This may come as a blow to California marijuana supporters, but in the long run it may have been the smart thing to do. Waiting another two years isn't a welcome prospect to many, but it may produce a better law and broader public support in the end.

The biggest argument in favor of California waiting is voter demographics. More liberal voters turn out for presidential elections than do for midterms. There's a counter-argument to make -- that putting marijuana legalization on the ballot will improve turnout among young and liberal voters -- but so far it remains largely unproven, due to how fast public opinion is changing on the issue and due to how little data exists on such votes. But the "let's wait" argument has it's own history: California's previous attempt at passing legalization, Proposition 19, failed. In 2010. Which was not only a midterm year, but also the year of the "Tea Party shellacking." Bypassing 2014 in favor of 2016 would avoid the problem of low turnout in midterm years, especially if 2014 turns out to be a big victory for Republicans (as many are currently predicting).

The biggest argument in favor of going ahead in 2014 is that the idea's time has come, and California could help lead the way towards nationwide legalization. It would be the most-populous state to legalize recreation use, which would carry a lot of weight in other states considering the idea. Since Proposition 19 failed, however, California has lost the "first in the nation" claim to Colorado and Washington, so this leadership effect would be slightly blunted. Advocates of going forward this year point to polling which shows a majority of California's voters are now in favor of outright legalization -- but there were also favorable polls which showed the same thing in 2010. The actual Proposition 19 voting didn't reflect these polls, however, and the initiative lost (polls showed public support for the measure at 50 percent or higher, but it only wound up with 46.5 percent of the vote). Given two more years, it is likely that the public will be even more supportive of the idea, especially after seeing how other states' experiments work out.

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The Congressional Budget Office just put out a report on what effects raising the minimum wage might have on the American economy. The Washington Post has a pretty good rundown (complete with charts and excerpts from the report), which does a good job showing what the C.B.O. numbers really are, and what they predict. One of these numbers in particular is getting most of the attention, but we're going to largely avoid the debate over the numbers themselves and instead focus in on what this report is going to mean politically for both sides in the debate.

The number that's going to get all the headlines tomorrow is a prediction the C.B.O. made as to what raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour will mean for total employment. Since all C.B.O. numbers are nothing more than estimates, they provided a range of possibilities -- one fact that is sure to get lost in the fray. The range the C.B.O. predicted for job losses was (best case) "very slight decrease" to (worst case) 1,000,000 jobs lost. The middle of this range is the number most news organizations will go with, though, as the C.B.O.'s "most likely" guess: 500,000 jobs lost.

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Happy Presidents' Day to all!

Well, to all who live in Hawai'i, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Vermont, at the very least. These are the states which officially recognize today as "Presidents' Day." Unlike other federal holidays, however, there is much disagreement and controversy surrounding the holiday. Not so much the holiday itself, but over what to call it (and when to celebrate it). In states such as California and Alaska (and, notably, the state of Washington), the apostrophe moves and it is known as "President's Day." This can be read as either snubbing all the other presidents (since the holiday originally celebrated one president's birthday), or celebrating the presidency itself (or the day of the president, to put it another way). But even without such grammatical gymnastics, the day has plenty of other official titles. Some states such as Michigan and New Jersey dispense with the apostrophe altogether and just call it "Presidents Day." Some states get flowery ("Recognition of the birthday of George Washington" in North Dakota), and some get inclusive ("Lincoln's and Washington's Birthday" in Montana, "Lincoln/Washington/Presidents' Day" in Arizona, and "Washington and Lincoln Day" in Utah), and some even throw in a local personage to the mix ("George Washington's Birthday and Daisy Gatson Bates Day" in Arkansas). Wikipedia lists ten separate official state titles for the holiday, in fact.

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John Boehner has a song in his heart. That song is "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah," which he was heard quoting from as he was busy passing a clean debt ceiling bill in his House. He followed up with another lyric from the tune: "Plenty of sunshine coming my way." Mr. Boehner is, of course, being amusingly ironic. He does not, in fact, have a song in his heart, and he is not looking for beams of sunshine heading his way from his fellow Republicans.

Boehner passed the clean debt ceiling bill with 193 Democratic votes and only 28 Republican votes, after all. He ignored the self-imposed "Hastert Rule," surprisingly early in the legislative fight -- two whole weeks before the crisis was scheduled to hit. He did so because the Tea Party faction in his party informed him that he didn't even have the votes for the usual round of hostage-taking -- Republicans, on their own, couldn't pass any bill. Boehner, realizing the futility of his position, then gave President Obama exactly what he asked for by going ahead and passing a clean bill with mostly Democratic support. Beams of sunshine did not follow, from his fellow Republicans.

The most amusing response was the circulation of bizarre threats via email to House Republicans. The email (with an anonymous sender) told Republicans who voted for the bill to expect outside groups to mobilize against them. One anonymous Republican in the House pointed out that the email addresses it was sent to were closely-guarded official emails of the representatives, and concluded that the sender "[has] got to be another member. Probably one of the crazy ones." That characterization comes from a fellow Republican, mind you.

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