Lame Duck Period: A To Do List

"Rubber Ducky, you're not the one
Rubber Ducky, don't get nothin' done"
~Freely adapted from Sesame Street

          Yep, you guessed it: it's time for another liberal rant--this time maybe with a little less humor and a little more (self?) righteous indignation.  So, dear reader, I apologize in advance. I digress.
          In the upcoming two years, several things are NOT going to happen under the new, more conservative Congress--such as the repeal of DADT, the termination of the Bush Era tax cuts, a more comprehensive (yes, that is possible) health care act (e.g. the revival of the public option), the passage of the DREAM initiative...the list goes on and on.  The time for congressional Democrats to act, therefore, is NOW.
          Lame duck periods are aptly named; the previous one consisted and a president and a Congress quietly trying not to make the burgeoning recession get any worse while simultaneously trying to slink away, tail between they're legs.  That's just fine--it's the norm--but I do not want congressional Democrats to slink (dammit).  I want Obama to take the reigns a little more than he has been accustomed to doing throughout the first two years of his presidency and I want congressional Democrats to make some serious headway before they are replaced by conservatives who will, in all probability, do what I don't want them to (because obviously the center of the political universe is me, myself, and I--that's sarcasm, just in case you didn't pick up on it).  More to the point, the somewhat extreme ultraconservatives that have been elected have grand plans to further stifle LGBT rights and attack the legality of abortions, which has been a precedent since the momentous Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade in 1973.  That would really, to use the vernacular, suck--it would be a major setback to years of crusading for civil rights.
          The lame duck session congress is already proving ineffectual.  It failed to muster enough support for the repeal of DADT--which was intended to pass as a provision of a much needed defense-budget bill--and so was subjected to yet another filibuster.  True, plans exist to write up a bill exclusively for the purpose of ending DADT, but if the Dems don't act fast, they will have lost the historic opportunity to pass some truly meaningful legislation within the context of a lame duck period.  Sounds worthwhile to me.