The Hey there, friends, family and listeners who have somehow discovered this podcast.

My name's Jennifer Briny and welcome to the 26th episode of

Congressional Dish. Now for those of you who are new listeners, this podcast

focuses on the US House of Representatives. Now I know that the title is

Congressional Dish and sometimes I will

tell you about stuff that happens in the Senate, but for the most part it focuses solely on the

House of Representatives and that's because as far as citizens are concerned the House is supposed to be the people's house

it's supposed to be the one that we most directly control but unfortunately it's

somehow become the part of Congress that we know the least about so I'm

focusing completely on the House

and letting you know what's going on in there.

I also do this because every single bill that becomes a law

in this country has to go through both Houses of Congress,

so if I focus very hard on one one I'm not going to miss anything.

So this week in the House of Representatives was really a tale of two bills.

One of the bills was a beautiful example of systematic health a much needed

injection of hope into those of us who have questioned whether our democratic system

is broken. It was proof that the system works when our representatives wanted to.

The other bill though, well, it's an intensive care after being dealt a possibly mortal self-inflicted Republican Party wound

when a scary clever plan drafted by the smart Republicans was shot down by the Dumms.

Now the two bills couldn't have been any more different and it's truly fascinating to

see this all play out in one week to watch our representatives jump so seamlessly

...