President Obama has promised Oklahoma “everything that it needs right away” to begin the process of recovering and rebuilding, after the massive tornado touched down in the state on Monday, devastating the cities of Monroe and Newcastle. Already hundreds of Federal Emergency Management Association employees are the ground in Oklahoma, and millions of dollars in federal disaster relief will almost certainly follow. Oklahoma will recover.

But the debate in Washington is a reminder that we’re all threatened by a masssive, man-made disaster called sequestration, that could make the next natural disaster even worse.

With 82 empty seats in our federal district and appellate courts, nearly 10 percent of federal judicial seats are vacant, and have been since President Obama took office. That’s the longest period of judicial vacancies in 35 years. Judicial vacancies have increased 51 percent since President Obama took office, compared to declining by 65 percent and 34 percent under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, respectively.

To make matters worse, 40 percent of those vacancies are in districts that have been declared “judicial emergencies” — where vacancies have persisted for 18 months or more, and the hundreds of backlogged cases wait for someone to rule on them.

Republicans in Congress have a new tactic for shrinking government: making sure that nobody’s there to run it. Well into the president’s second term, an alarming and unprecedented number of vital positions in every branch of government remain vacant. As Republicans use and abuse processes that helped government run smoothly once upon a time not so very long ago, government grinds to a halt, and the consequences trickle down to Main Street America. And apparently that’s just fine with Republicans.

If, like me, you’re a working parent or any other adult struggling to balance the demands of work and family, you know the two biggest challenges to pulling off that balancing act: Time and Money. We never have enough of either, and have precious little control over what we do have. Now, House Republicans have introduced a bill to make sure we have even less.

It’s called the “Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013″ (H.R. 1406), and it’s as Orwellian as it sounds.

Alas, support for improving mental health services have proven even more fleeting than support for gun control -- until the next shooting, that is. Unfortunately, the sequester will turn those existing “cracks” in to chasms, and create new ones.

The latest evidence of the impact of “de facto” austerity is a widening wealth gap between races.

Sadly, no.

Most likely, the explosion itself caused by an industrial accident involving ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer, pesticide, and powerful explosive. In West, Texas ammonium nitrate combined with conservative disdain for government, yielded devastating results. If sequestration continues, we can expect to see more of the same.

There was one more reason I decided to keep my mouth shut. I didn’t want to risk joining in the inevitable speculation about who might be responsible.

But the GOP’s “rebranding” efforts are running into another troublesome reality: It’s hard to stop being the “Party of No” when you can’t really say “yes” to what most Americans want.

If this was your guess, you’re right.

Black guys in hoodies can’t fly first class on US Airways.

While there’s are many things wrong with the president’s budget, investment in transportation infrastructure is one thing Obama’s budget comes close to getting right.

Could there be a more appropriate moment to assess how far we’ve come, how far we’ve yet to go, and what kind of leadership is needed to move us forward?

She meant it, and I did learn. My sister and I took turns doing the exact same chores. Today, I can cook, clean, and kiss boo-boos with the best of ‘em. But apparently, many men from my generation on down can’t, or just don’t.

It’s something I’ve written about before: even in the most progressive families, the lion’s share of housework and childcare still falls to women.

“Honey, if you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love someone else?…..Can I get an amen?” — RuPaul

One of the most interesting things about the focus on marriage equality in the past couple of weeks has been the Republican Party’s reaction to all the hoopla. No, I don’t mean the Georgia GOP chairwoman who warned that straight people will get “gay married” to get benefits, or Michigan National Republican Committee Chairmen who said gays have a “filthy lifestyle,” or newly minted conservative media start Ben Carson’s comparisons of homosexuality to bestiality and murder, or the conservative radio host who suggested a link between same-sex marriage and threats from North Korea, or even Alan Keyes calling homosexuality the “archetype of all crimes against humanity.”

No, I’m talking about the Supreme Court Ruling a surprising number of Republicans may really want.