While Pelosi and Obama have been saying that people don’t care about “process", they know it’s not true.  They say that everyone knows a vote for the Slaughter Rule is the same as a vote for the Senate Bill.  But if their members knew that, they wouldn’t need the scheme.  For Democrat members of Congress, voting on the rule lets them think they might be able to fool just enough voters to get reelected.

But again, Pelosi and Obama know it isn’t true.  Americans won’t fall for it.  In a way, I think it’s smarter for the Dems to vote for the Senate bill and try to honestly defend ObamaCare than to try to hide behind a transparent procedural maneuver. I think the Democratic leadership knows that as well.

Thus, their goal is not to pass this bill by a one or two vote margin.  They want to have enough “Yes” votes so they can just vote on the Senate bill rather than on the Slaughter Rule which will have the secondary effect, after passing the government takeover of health care, of slaughtering Democrats in November even worse than the blood-letting they’re already going to take.

It must be noted that the situation will become even muddier if the House passes their bills or rule on Sunday because the reconciliation process could be even more complex and arcane than the hoops the House is jumping through.  Republicans are already working out plans to derail the ability to pass reconciliation as the House wants it.  And if they can force changes, it would have to go back to the House.  One huge question remains:  reconciliation must reconcile with existing law.  That means that Obama would need to sign the Senate bill into law, but the House does not like the Senate bill as-is.  If Obama signs the Senate bill into law and then reconciliation fails, America will be stuck with the Senate bill (which is an utter disaster but, if anything, probably better than the House’s reconciliation plans.)  But the House will be extremely displeased if that happens, and they may use the Slaughter rule simply to avoid that possible outcome.

It will be political theater of the highest order.

Finally, keep in mind that the Democrats are finally admitting publicly that a loss on health care “reform” will destroy the Obama presidency for the remaining 3 years for which we must be tortured by a president who hates capitalism, hates fundamental American values, and has no understanding of economics or the real world.  The Democrats’ true goal is to make sure this Manchurian Candidate’s agenda is still at least somewhat achievable and his legacy at least somewhat preserved.

I had an interesting conversation with Human Events reporter Connie Hair – she of the endless energy and commitment to her conservative principles – in which she made a few key points:

First, she told me that the Democrats reached out to Joseph Cao (R-LA), the only Republican to vote for the first House health care bill.  Cao has switched to “no” and they’re trying to get him back.  As Connie noted, “they wouldn’t be trying to get the Republican if they had enough Democrats.”

Second, there is pressure on Democrat congressmen from their governors, including from Democrat governors (click HERE to see letter from the Democrat governor of Tennessee to no-turned-yes Congressman Bart Gordon), who know that the health care “reform” bill will bankrupt financially-teetering states because of the mandates from Medicaid expansion.  This is the particular issue which was the subject of the Cornhusker Kickback. The Democrats’ proposed solution is to get rid of that payoff and give the same payoff to every state, essentially a massive expansion of the very entitlement that is bankrupting the federal government.

Third, it is all but impossible that the House’s reconciliation package will pass the Senate unaltered.  And if it gets altered by as much as a comma, it has to go back to the House where Democrats will have to “walk the plank again.”

Keep in mind that the Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that reconciliation in any form can only proceed after the Senate bill has been signed into law.  According to Connie, that ruling means that the House cannot make their approval of the bill conditional on the Senate’s agreeing to the House’s reconciliation package.  Therefore, if the House passes their “self-executing rule", the Senate health care bill will be signed into law. And that will probably not change as we could see weeks or months of political chaos during which the reconciliation package is sent back and forth between the Senate and the House, with Senate Republicans using every procedural tool available to them to strip out the illegal, i.e. non-budget related items, from the reconciliation package.

Connie also noted that Mark Levin is planning a constitutional challenge to anything that passes the House under the Slaughter Rule and that there is a good chance the DC Circuit would put a stay on the implementation of the Senate bill until they can hear and rule on the case.  And there’s a good chance that the Supreme Court hears the case.

In the meantime, especially if Republicans take back control of either chamber of Congress, the GOP can work to make sure that the plan is essentially defunded until it can be repealed under a Republican president in 2012.

As Fred Barnes recently noted, if the House passes health care “reform", it means we’re closer to the beginning than the end of the political chaos around the issue.

Back to the myth of inevitability, the blog Firedoglake.com is one of few on the left not buying into Pelosi’s claims that she has or will imminently have the votes.  That site still thinks the Dems are down about 7 votes.

Finally, almost nobody is reporting that while there have been some “no” votes switching to “yes", there have also been “yes” votes switching to no. In fact, Fox’s Carl Cameron reported midday on Friday that 6 yes votes have switched to no, with only 4 no switching to yes. This is, as Connie says, “the big unreported story of the past few days."  And that’s just how Pelosi wants it.

UPDATE 2: For Debbie Schlussel’s response to the Freedom Alliance, please see the end of this note.

In a remarkable piece of investigative reporting, blogger Debbie Schlussel tells us that Sean Hannity’s Freedom Concerts, which are supposedly raising money for injured veterans and the families of veterans killed in action, give an almost-criminally low percentage of its donations to these veterans or their families.  Instead, it spends the vast majority of the donations on expenses and salaries, on consultants and on private jets for Hannity and his family.

I’ve never been an enormous fan of Hannity’s even though I appreciate anyone who effectively promotes a message of liberty.  To me, he’s rather superficial and rarely seems to do innovative or ground-breaking work.  He’s a conservative populist and I generally don’t like populists but I always thought he was doing yeoman’s work with the millions of dollars he raised for dead or injured veterans and their families.

Now, even that reason to like Hannity appears to be gone.

It’s a remarkable story and I urge you to read it:
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/6938/sean-hannitys-freedom-concert-scam-only-7-of-charitys-money-went-to-injured-troops-kids-of-fallen-troops-g5s-g6s-for-vannity/

For those of you who don’t know Schlussel, she’s no liberal.  She’s run for office as a Republican and has received death threats for her hard-hitting attacks against radical Islam in the US.

————–

Debbie Schlussel’s response to Freedom Alliance’s post in their defense:

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36104

Schumah’s article: Pressing China on the Yuan Won’t Work

Please read it…it’s an excellent intellectual immunization against the siren-like call of economic ignoramuses.

I would also add that China’s policy causes them to accumulate dollars, with which they have been massive buyers of US government debt.  Some people worry about that giving China leverage over the US but I doubt that.  Debt holders are not voters, whether in international economics or in standard corporate finance.  Beyond the debt, we’ve learned recently that China is buying equity stakes (stock) in US companies.  Combined, China’s trade surplus with the US is giving them more reason than ever to support American economic success.  The argument that China will damage the US if they don’t get their way is like saying they’d be willing to incinerate billions of dollars.  If there’s one thing we’ve learned about Communist China, it’s that they’re more capitalist and more fiscally disciplined than our own government, at least over the past several years – including most of George W. Bush’s second term. And that’s all on top of the 800-pound gorilla of China needing the US export market to keep Chinese workers employed and prevent social unrest, something they fear greatly.

One of the main impacts of China’s debt purchases has been to keep long-term interest rates very low.  While one can make a legitimate case that long-term bonds have largely because of China been in their own bubble (prices up, rates down) and that the bubble was a cause of the real estate bubble and ensuing economic collapse, at this point it’s clear that the economy and the real estate market would be in even worse shape if long-term rates were higher.

If there’s anything the global economy can’t handle now, it’s a trade war between the US and China.  Our politicians are just stupid enough to lead us into one, though I predict they’ll back off before that happens.

As if the arguments against the Senators’ move isn’t enough, the list of Senators behind it should give anyone with the slightest clue about political economy grave doubts about the thinking behind this attack on China:

Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Evan Bayh (D-IN), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Robert Casey (D-PA), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Carl Levin (D-MI), Jim Webb (D-VA), and Arlen Specter (D-PA).

Have you ever seen a more complete list of econo-morons and RINOs?  (It could only be more complete if it included John McCain, though McCain isn’t too bad on free trade most of the time.)