It's that time of year again folks (it's actually even one day early!), so gather 'round for two spine-chilling tales of horror to rattle your bones and shiver your timbers!

In fact, if you read this right now, we will double your fright with a full four nightmares evenly divided, left and right! That's right, I said four frightful tales!

Well, two of them are so short I could probably have tweeted them, I have to admit. Because in the depths of Obamacare website death, it's pretty easy to use that as a springboard to spin terrifying yarns, when you stop and think about it. So we've got two Obamacare-specific tales which are very short indeed, and then two non-Obamacare scenarios to make both Democrats and Republicans run screaming into the night.

So sit back, break into the bags of candy a night early, turn down all the lights and fire up the pumpkins, because we've got the short and long of both Democratic and Republican nightmares for your terrified pleasure. Enjoy!

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Since it's Hallowe'en week, we thought it'd be worth taking a look back at the nightmares we dreamed up last year. Also, we're busy carving pumpkins for tomorrow's column (we're planning our annual frightfest one day early this year, so it'll run on Huffington Post as well as here). Obviously, none of last year's predictions were 100 percent on the mark, although there are certainly some aspects of all of them which have now come true. In any case, read and enjoy, and check back tomorrow for this year's horrific tales (and, of course, Jack-o-lanterns...).

Originally published October 31, 2012 (right before the election)

It's that time of year again, so gather 'round, kiddies, for our spine-tingling and bone-chilling tales of political horror!

This Hallowe'en, we've got not only two frightful nightmares to recount, but actually three, so that absolutely nobody will feel left out. Yes, horrific futures await not only for Democrats and Republicans, but one at the end for everybody to run from, shrieking in terror all the while!

As always, our spooky stories are accompanied by hand-carved Jack-o-lanterns (so that I can write off "pumpkin purchase" on my taxes). That first one's supposed to be a baseball mitt (get it... Mitt?), but admittedly wasn't my best effort. The second one's supposed to be red, too. The third one came out OK, I thought... but I digress.

To get back into the frightful spirit, let's turn off the lights, and everyone make a circle and turn on your flashlights and point them at your chins (for the proper spooky atmosphere), and we'll begin with our skeleton-rattling, chain-dragging tales of fearful futures...

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The term "Geneva Convention" (or even "Geneva Conventions") is a rather vague term, encompassing a whole sheaf of international agreements on the proper conduct of war. In the first place, the "convention" doesn't refer to a group of people but rather to the agreements themselves. In the second place, what most are referring to when using the term is a collection of international agreements reaching back to the late nineteenth century; some agreed upon in Geneva, Switzerland, and some elsewhere (the Hague, for instance). But while the term itself is a collectively vague one, what is being referred to is usually pretty clear: nations of the world banding together and deciding that certain conduct in wartime is simply unacceptable for being too inhumane.

Of course, that's a tough target to hit, to put it in military terms. There are many weapons and tactics which are pretty downright inhumane which are still completely legal under the Geneva Conventions. And being killed in one fashion rather than another certainly doesn't bring much comfort to those loved ones left to mourn. Even so, the accomplishments of the Geneva Conventions are many, from the introduction of the International Red Cross to definition of acceptable treatment of prisoners and non-combatants.

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"I will not yield to this monkey court!"

This may be the quotation of the week, from Representative Frank Pallone, describing the House "Obamacare Is So Very, Very Bad" hearings held this week. One immediately wonders whatever happened to the kangaroo courts of old -- too foreign a metaphor, perhaps? One is also immediately struck by the idea that Monkey Court would become an instant hit, if it were filmed for television, with live monkeys. I mean, just think of the possibilities!

Ahem. Sorry, it's been that kind of week.

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The hearings have started on Capitol Hill, and there will likely be plenty of fodder mined by Republicans over the awfulness of the Obamacare exchange launch for weeks to come. That much is certain, at the very least. But I can't help but wonder what the future will look like this time next year, especially on one key question: will "red" states begin to set up their own state health insurance exchanges, or will they continue to allow the federal government to run their exchanges for them?

This might seem an esoteric point, in the midst of the frenzied finger-pointing in the news today, but it's been an aspect of the entire Obamacare debate which has always fascinated me. Plus, I already wrote a finger-pointing sort of article on Obamacare this Monday, so you'll have to forgive me for my attempts at peering into the future today.

Of course, Obamacare supporters would much rather focus on the future right now, but that's not really my main point here. The assumption that the Obamacare exchange website will eventually get all the bugs worked out and start reliably working for everyone is a comforting thought for Obamacare supporters, but it is also a pretty safe bet. The key will be over when that "eventually" will arrive, because the politics just gets worse for the president the longer it takes. But, like I said, I'm setting all of that political discussion aside -- I'm just going to use it as a premise.

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Wouldn't it be great to have a place where children and adults alike could learn about the sordid history of how American politics really works? If Bruce Roter has his way, visitors to New York's state capital will indeed have this opportunity, at the "Albany Museum of Political Corruption" -- which he hopes to locate just down the hill from the state's Capitol building. Adults entering Roter's political corruption museum will be charged a reasonable "bribe" as admission, with children under the age of 12 entering for half price (although "parents are encouraged to lie about the age of their children").

Roter points out that New York is certainly fertile grounds for such a museum, with 29 officeholders convicted of a crime, censured, or accused of wrongdoing in the past seven years alone -- to say nothing of its long and storied history of political corruption reaching back to the Tammany Hall era. While the Albany museum would only cover the state of New York, if it becomes a success, Roter could easily see the idea spreading to other state capitals or even to a national museum in Washington.

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Gallup just released a poll showing a large majority -- 58 percent -- of the American public now thinks marijuana should be fully legalized for adult recreational use. This is somewhat stunning news. The "somewhat" part is that this is really only a continuation of a decades-long trend towards acceptance in public opinion. The "stunning" part is how quickly it is now happening. In fact, it might be fair to say that we may only be a year or two away from marijuana legalization reaching a political "tipping point" from which there will be no going back. I wrote earlier this year that gay marriage can now be seen to be over this "tipping point" -- it's hard to now imagine going back to the days of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the Defense Of Marriage Act. Legalizing marijuana hasn't hit this point of no return yet... but it certainly can be glimpsed on the horizon.

The road to full acceptance for marijuana legalization has been a long one, reaching back even further than the 1960s. One of the main demographic shifts which has helped grow public acceptance for legalization is the fact that the Baby Boomers -- who grew up with Vietnam and the counterculture raging around them -- are now either nearing retirement or have already retired. There are very few people left in America who could not have very easily procured some marijuana when they attended high school, to put this another way. Growing up with weed all around has changed the public's opinion dramatically, over time.

Now, of course, the world has changed in other ways. If, back in 1968, you had told a random hippie that 45 years in the future two American states would have legalized weed for adults, their response would have doubtlessly been: "Far out, man." Or that senior citizens were using marijuana as medicine for a variety of ailments in forty percent of the states, for that matter.

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President Obama today addressed the problems with the rollout of the Affordable Care Act's website... kind of. He tried refocusing media attention from just the website's problems, and he promised that the problems would be fixed. But he didn't actually admit what those problems were. Today, to be fair and evenhanded, we're going to take a look at the president's statement extolling the good things his signature healthcare reform law has accomplished, as well as the bad things he couldn't quite bring himself to talk about in detail.

President Obama spoke for roughly a half an hour on the subject, by the official transcript. He fully admitted that the federal website has been plagued with problems. He tried to refocus attention on the benefits of "Obamacare" itself (rather than the problems), saying repeatedly "the Affordable Care Act is not just a website." It is likely that little of this will get through to the American public, because the media will focus on Obama's admission of website problems, perhaps best exemplified by a letter he read at the end of his address, which contained the line: "Yes, the website really stank for the first week."

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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."

Heh. I mean, not to spike the football or anything....

Democrats just had a very good week. Best week they've had since last November, in fact, when Barack Obama was re-elected. The Tea Party grabbed the wheel of the Republican bus and -- just as pretty much everyone had predicted -- they then drove right off a cliff. We've all been picking over the wreckage in a "we'd like to think this is a high-minded N.T.S.B. investigation of a horrific accident so it never happens again, but we're really just rubbernecking to see the fresh corpses" sort of way, if truth be told. I certainly engaged in this sort of thing myself, immediately after the deal was struck (when I named a few winners and losers), so I can't say I'm any more high-minded than anyone else.

This week will be seen as a turning point in the future. Ted Cruz and his band of merry Tea Partiers fought the Obamacare law, with every ounce of energy they could muster. And the law won. From this point on, Obamacare will never be repealed. It will be a fact of American life. It will not be delayed by legislative means. It will not be defunded. Public opinion about the law is changing, and the more people see of the realities of the law (as opposed to the caricatures of doom Republicans have been scaremongering on for years) the more they like it. Look for this trend -- much to the Tea Partiers' surprise, no doubt -- to continue.

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It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene V

Now that we're done with both Round 1 and Round 2 of this year's annual budgetary battles, and while we have a pause here before Round 3 starts up, it's worth taking a moment to ponder the near-term future of the Republican Party.

The shutdown really consisted of two internal fights between factions of Republicans. The first of these, obviously, was the ongoing Tea Party takeover of the establishment Republicans. In fact, to mark the occasion of this fight moving squarely into the spotlight, from now on I'm going to honor the wing of the party with a fully-capitalized name, and will henceforth refer to the Establishment Republicans.

The second fight was more subtle, and is explained by this "only told in Washington" type of joke:

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