This is where we are supposed to say it is time for the Obama White House and the Republicans, now in control of both the House and Senate, to work together for the good of the American people.

No one really believes that is going to happen, do they? Therefore, we'll skip the bunkum.

The political realities are thus: Recent elections have scrubbed most of the moderates from both the Senate and House of Representatives. Many of the Democrats who remain in the Senate are from safe states. In the Senate, where the minority still has significant power, the Democrats are not going to surrender their progressive agendas to help the new Republican majority succeed.

Republicans, after gaining success in the 2010 and 2014 elections by running against President Obama and his policies, are in no mood to meet the president half-way, or for that matter, one-quarter of the way. Many come to Washington with what they consider a mandate to impose their conservative will on the president.

President Obama, with no more elections to face, is not prone to capitulate. He still has the veto. He can continue to aggressively use executive authority, daring the newly empowered Republicans to talk of impeachment, and then dismiss the Republicans as radicalized, setting the stage for the 2016 election. In presidential years, more people vote, and the demographics better favor Democrats.

This is the perpetual political combat that has paralyzed Washington and there are no signs of it abating based on the Election Day results.

Expect the new Republican majorities, in deference to the corporate energy cartels that helped pay for their elections, to push to build the Keystone XL pipeline. The project, which would take oil produced from tar sands in Canada to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast, makes no sense except for those who will profit from it.

Converting the tar sands to oil requires almost as much energy as is produced. Both the process of creating the oil and the oil itself generate high greenhouse gas emissions. Due to global conservation and market glut, oil prices are already dropping. This oil is not needed. True, Canada may well sell the oil elsewhere, but that does not mean the United States should be a willing partner to a bad policy.

Yet, this may be a proposal that gets enough Democratic support - and backing from a White House that wants some policy success - to win approval. In other words, there may be progress, just not sensible progress.

Immigration reform provides the chance for sensible compromise. The formula has been the same since the presidency of George W. Bush - tougher border control, a path to legal standing for the roughly 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, and improved policies to allow some of the best and brightest studying and working here to stay.

Unfortunately, Republicans are held hostage by their hard-right wing that will not entertain any path to legitimacy for people who violated federal law to get here. Without that provision there will be no deal with President Obama. He has threatened to use executive authority to approve legal status for millions of these immigrants. (See impeachment discussion above.)

Republicans make much of providing tax amnesty to repatriate $2 trillion of corporate assets, parked in offshore accounts through clever bookkeeping. Such a program will not bring trillions back home, as proponents claim, all it will do is provide a windfall to corporations that have sheltered their profits.

The path to compromise is for Congress to close the loopholes that allow these profits to escape taxation, as the president seeks, in return for a simplified tax system and the reduced income tax rates sought by many conservatives. That would help average Americans. But, again, it is unlikely to happen.

Then there is the Affordable Care Act - Obamacare. Republicans hate it, but offer no alternative to make sure all Americans have access to health insurance coverage. Expect the Republican majority to work to defund Obamacare and repeal it piece by piece. President Obama will do all he can to protect his signature program.

It is going to be ugly.