…you’ve lost, period:

WE UNDERSTAND the administration’s sense of urgency on health-care reform. But what is intended as a final sprint threatens to turn into something unseemly and, more important, contrary to Democrats’ promises of transparency and time for deliberation.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Monday that she is leaning toward a parliamentary maneuver under which the House would vote on a package of changes to the Senate-approved reform bill, and the underlying Senate bill would then be “deemed” to have passed, even though the House had never voted on it. That may help some House members dodge a politically difficult decision, but it strikes us as a dodgy way to reform the health-care system. Democrats who vote for the package will be tagged with supporting the Senate bill in any event. Why not be straightforward about it?

More worrying is that Congress and the country have yet to see the changes, for which Democrats hope to win quick House approval and which they then hope to speed through the Senate under a procedure that would bar filibusters. These changes — the so-called reconciliation bill — are not all minor “fixes”; some could have far-reaching consequences. Such changes deserve to be fully understood and debated before they are voted on. The speaker’s office says the week-long “conversation” that Nancy Pelosi promised to have with members is taking place and that they are waiting for the final word from the Congressional Budget Office before releasing the package; in any event, they say, lawmakers and the public will have 72 hours to consider the changes. But why be so secretive about it? Any number of measures — including versions of the health-care bill itself — have been unveiled without CBO scores.

The health-care debate has been going on longer than a year, and House members want to get it over with. They don’t want it hanging over them during the Easter recess. President Obama wants progress to have been made before he leaves for Indonesia on Sunday. These are understandable desires, but they don’t outweigh the need for a reasonable process on a matter of such importance.

No wonder the moonbats see the WaPo as a right-wing rag — something I find quite humorous, having subscribed to and read the WaPo print edition every morning for six years while living in DC.  ..bruce w..

Well, you've won my vote.

President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Reid, and Speaker Pelosi seemed determined to bend, twist, and subvert the rules and procedures of government — and possibly the Constitution itself — in order to pass Obamacare, which they seem to see as more important than any of those things. Their “whatever is necessary, the ends justifies the means” approach brings to mind the following passage from one of my favorite plays, “A Man for All Seasons” by Robert Bolt:

Alice:   While you talk, he’s gone [referring to Richard Rich, who is a potential threat to Sir Thomas More].

More:   And go he should if he was the devil himself until he broke the law.

Roper:   So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law.

More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

Roper:   I’d cut down every law in England to do that.

More: Oh? And when the last law was down — and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws being all flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast — Man’s laws, not God’s — and if you cut them down — and you’re just the man to do it — d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.

Being in my mid-50s and an avid reader of history, I tend to take a long-term view on politics; I’ve seen the pendulum swing any number of times. But Reid and Pelosi’s plan, encouraged by Obama, to use reconciliation and the so-called Slaughter Solution to get health care through Congress and onto Obama’s desk, strikes me as a profoundly dangerous and unwise approach, with implications that could last for decades.  ..bruce w..

This was my favorite ad from the Superbowl yesterday, though probably not for the reasons Audi wanted.  ..bruce w..

If you’re not aware, the title of this post is how members of the United States Senate refer to themselves and their institution. I’d like to see any one of those 60 Democrats say that with a straight face anymore.  ..bruce w..

…can’t trust that day. Or the weekend, apparently. Video above courtesy of Gateway Pundit. Not what George Lucas had in mind, I dare say.

Backlash? What backlash? Once again, the “Serenity” trailer as a metaphor for the growing conservative rebellion. “No. They’re not going to see this coming.”

The poster below has been showing up all over the ’sphere for some weeks now, most lately over at Instapundit:

The British press — which seems to be doing a much better job of covering the Obama Administration than the US press — notes the growing hints of wistfulness for Bush, even among Democrats. Heck, at this point, I miss Bill Clinton — words I never thought I’d say.  ..bruce w..

Via Wesley J. Smith at Critical Condition (National Review Online) comes this ‘death panel’ tale from the health care paradise to the north of us:

Bonnie Cameron and Cindy Waters-Goodman do not know each other, but they have much in common. Both are feisty, small-town Ontarians who were young, busy mothers when hit with diagnoses of pulmonary arterial hypertension, an incurable heart and lung disease. Ms. Cameron’s verdict came after the day she felt constantly winded and her legs grew so swollen that she had to scissor off her jeans. A family photographer, Ms. Waters-Goodman found out after a flight of stairs at work rendered her faint, dizzy and slurring her words. Both were started on a regimen of drugs that are costly but slowed the pace of the disease, which is uncommon and often goes undetected. The province paid much of the tab, which the women estimate was about $100,000 a year each. Their lives improved drastically: They could play with their kids, cook meals and shower without fainting.

Then, last spring, out of the blue, both received letters informing them the province would no longer allow more than one medication. To continue receiving support, they’d have to stop taking combos. After much lobbying, Ms. Waters-Goodman won a reprieve and can stay on her combination of drugs for one more year. Ms. Cameron wasn’t so lucky. Forced to give up her secondary medication, she has suffered greatly, and this week slipped into critical condition after being moved to hospital in Toronto. With an intravenous line in her neck and several failing organs, she seesaws between life and death.

And this is where Congress and President Obama are steering us, whether they intend to or not.  Be sure to read the comments, including the first one — written by the husband of Ms. Waters-Goodman.  ..bruce w..

Yeah, the process scares me as well. Hat tip to Mark Tapscott at the Washington Examiner.  ..bruce w..

Philip Klein over at the American Spectator analyzes the Baucus Healthcare Bill and finds (surprise!) that the Democrats are playing fast and loose in order to get a favorable estimate from the Congressional Budget Office:

Given that the CBO only puts a price tag on the first 10 years of a piece of legislation, Democrats realized that they could simply delay the enactment of the major spending provisions of the bill by four years, thus creating the illusion of a bill that costs $829 billion over 10 years. But in actuality, the bill is projected to cost just $14 billion in the first four years, and $70 billion through its fifth year. . . .

. . . The red shaded area to the left of the line represents all of the spending in the first half of the 10 year period the CBO evaluated, and everything to the right of the line represents spending in the second half of that 10 year period. About 98 percent of the spending comes in the last six years, and 92 percent comes in final five year period. Thus, the true 10-year cost of the Baucus bill is well above $1 trillion, and according to estimates cited by Republicans, it’s actually $1.8 trillion.

Time to fire up the phones and fax machines.  ..bruce w..

Matt Welch over at Reason reminds us of a critical historical event that, curiously, we don’t celebrate:

November 1989 was the most liberating month of arguably the most liberating year in human history, yet two decades later the country that led the Cold War coalition against communism seems less interested than ever in commemorating, let alone processing the lessons from, the collapse of its longtime foe. At a time that fairly cries out for historical perspective about the follies of central planning, Americans are ignoring the fundamental conflict of the postwar world, and instead leapfrogging back to what Steve Forbes describes in this issue as the “Jurassic Park statism” of the 1930s (see “?‘The Last Gasp of the Dinosaurs,’?” page 42). There have been more Hollywood hagiographies of the revolutionary communist Che Guevara in the last five years than there have been studio pictures in the last two decades about the revolutionary anti-communists who dramatically toppled totalitarians from Tallin to Prague (see Tim Cavanaugh’s “Hollywood Comrades,” page 62). And what little general-nonfiction interest there is in the superpower struggle, as Michael C. Moynihan details on page 48 (“The Cold War Never Ended”), remains stuck in the same Reagan vs. Gorby frame that made the 1980s so intellectually shallow the first time around.

Please read the whole thing.  ..bruce w..

ITEM: Y’all remember the “United Breaks Guitars” music video? Well, here’s a Downfall mashup (above) — possibly one of the best I’ve seen in a while.

ITEM: Coming out of the Bryon White Courthouse in downtown Denver this afternoon, I saw this protest going on in front of the Federal Building across the street:

The masses rise.

In case you can’t read the signs, they are calling for Bush and Cheney to be tried for war crimes and treason. Note that there are fewer people at this entire protest than there were lined up in front of each and every one of the 80 or so PortaPotties at the 9/12 March in Washington DC. Just sayin’ . . .

ITEM: You know that cost estimate the Congressional Budget Office released yesterday for the Senate health plan? Well, it turns out there is no actual legislation — the estimate was done on some basic ideas:

The CBO scored the concepts described by the Baucus Committee. There is no legislative text. None. Baucus and his Democratic colleagues refused to reduce their concepts to actual legislation prior to a vote. Here is the CBO’s disclaimer:

CBO and JCT’s analysis is preliminary in large part because the Chairman’s mark, as amended, has not yet been embodied in legislative language.

The Baucus Concepts are disasterous, but that’s for another post. For this post, let me get across a simple concept: THERE IS NO BAUCUS BILL.

Your esteemed Senators on the Senate Finance Committee will not be voting on legislation because THERE IS NO BAUCUS BILL.

Your esteemed Senators have so little respect for you that some of them are willing to vote in favor of legislation which does not exist because THERE IS NO BAUCUS BILL.

The actual legislation will be drafted in secret by Harry Reid and a few other people, including staffers whose names and political connections you never will know, and the resulting legislation will be rammed through the Senate and House before anyone gets to read and analyze it.

Can you say “end run”, boys and girls? I knew you could. And it’s not like the mythical bill is that great a deal. Plus, Megan McArdle has her own analysis.

ITEM: Even the Left is getting worried about the economy:

The trick the Administration must pull off is reigniting the revenue stream. The numbers could hardly be more stark: tax receipts fell off nearly 17 percent making FY 2009 the biggest  single-year decline since 1932. Individual income tax receipts are down 22 percent from a year ago. Corporate income taxes are down 57 percent. Social Security tax receipts could drop for only the second time since 1940, and Medicare taxes are on pace to drop for only the third time ever. The sheer magnitude of the tax decline points to a lingering and deep recession that is reducing incomes and eroding corporate profits.

So . . . do you still think raising taxes is a good idea? Think that will increase those plummeting tax revenues? ..bruce w..