Only one week until the government shutdown because the tea baggers need to be in the spotlight for as long as possible. The thing is, we've been here before. An actual government shut down in the 90s was a disaster for the Republicans which makes seeing Newt Gingrich on the Sunday morning shows acting like an expert statesman all the more hilarious. People forget that he was run out of the Congress by Republicans. And the tea baggers have already tried this fiscal brinksmanship themselves, and failed miserably.

This time around Obama isn't even pretending that he give them anything, not even the courtesy of pretending that they are his equals. That has got to so burn under their white sheets and hoods.

Round two will be the debt ceiling disaster, it's unclear exactly when that will happen. The TV schedule has it for October 15, but that's just a guess, or more likely it's all just for show. In reality, Obama can simply ignore the debt ceiling if he wants to, or he may wish to orchestrate the total humiliation of the Republicans with some sort of default. That's assuming the more mainstream Republicans won't simply join with Democrats and pass the legislation that is needed as they did the last time around.

ObamaCare starts to make affordable insurance policies available on October 1st through the State exchanges no matter what the Tea Baggers do. Today's Rightwing Talking Point is that the insurance companies are limiting choices on the new exchanges to keep premium costs down. In most states you never had more than three choices and often you really had only one choice for health insurance. The big difference with these exchanges is that what they tell you is in your policy actually is what you'll get. They can't cheat you anymore. No more dropping your coverage because you didn't disclose the acne medication that you took when you were 13, and the dozens of other dirty tricks they pulled are also outlawed.

The rightwing assumes that this will drive up their premiums because the insurance companies have to pay everybody else's claims. They just don't get that someday they will be the 'everybody else' who needs to stay out of bankruptcy. It's ironic that the long running TV series Breaking Bad will end just before ObamaCare makes obsolete its premise of a terminal cancer patient turning to crime in order to save his family from financial ruin.

In fact, treating everybody's medical needs in a timely, efficient and effective way costs half as much as the 'free market' insurance system we had previously. Well, actually that is the efficiency of a single payer system, but ObamaCare is at least half way toward that goal and has provisions for single payer to be implemented.

Twitter @BruceEnberg where I go all HeisEnberg on the Conservatives (Heisenberg is a Breaking Bad reference, just in case you've been living in a remote cabin with no communication on a Vermont mountain in order to hide from the DEA).