In the midst of all the partisan rancor, backbiting, and oozingly slow progress on getting anything actually done in Washington, it’s refreshing and inspiring when the two major US parties can still find an issue on which they can come together.

Not the ever-growing national homelessness problem, the ongoing depravities of the US health care system, or the fact that the wealthiest country on the globe continues to lag the developed world in metrics ranging from poverty and food insecurity to its shrinking life expectancy. No, I’m talking about the bizarre, regular ritual where US lawmakers fall over each other to demonstrate their fealty to a foreign government, specifically that of Israel.

Last night, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on an absurd resolution saying that not only is Israel not an apartheid state, but that it’s not a racist one either. Israel is apparently such a hyper-advanced and enlightened shining beacon of goodness, it’s evolved beyond the scourge of racial prejudice that today continues to plague even the most socially liberal of Western democracies. Quite an achievement.