With President Obama and and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stating that they will use “reconciliation” as a procedural tool to pass socialist health care reform, I felt it necessary to post a description of or tutorial on what exactly “reconciliation” is.

Though I have many issues with Newt Gingrich (he’s not that conservative anymore, and he’s an enabler to and participant in the GOP establishment), he offers a good explanation of the reconciliation process:

The budget reconciliation process was created in 1974 as part of the law that created much of the modern rules and organizational structures used by Congress to pass the annual budget.

This new law required Congress to pass a budget resolution every year that would set the parameters by which the various congressional committees would write their specific parts of the total budget bill.

Within these budget resolutions, instructions can be given to specific congressional committees to create legislation that would alter current laws affecting spending and/or taxation in order to conform to the targets set out in the budget resolution.

To enhance Congress’ ability to meet budget resolution targets, these pieces of legislation are not passed under the normal rules of the Senate. Instead, they fall under the “budget reconciliation process” rules which prohibit unrelated amendments to the bills and set a maximum of 20 hours of debate on the floor. As a practical matter, this means only 51 votes are needed to pass a reconciliation bill because the limit on debate overrides the threat of a filibuster.

Robert Byrd’s attempt to limit abuse of the process:

Provisions that had nothing to do with meeting budget resolution requirements, even some that directly contradicted them, were passed using the reconciliation process.
To prevent this, the so-called “Byrd Rule,” named after Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, who introduced the legislation, was passed in 1985 and made permanent in 1990.

The Byrd Rule allows any senator to raise a point of order objection to provisions in a reconciliation bill that they consider extraneous to meeting budget resolutions requirements. Then, it is up to the chair – either the Vice President (as President of the Senate) or, more often, the presiding officer of the Senate if the Vice President is not present — whether that provision stays or is stricken.

However, the chair almost always relies on the advice of the Senate Parliamentarian to determine if that objection is legitimate. (Learn more about the parliamentarian here).

This determination is made based on six tests created as part of the Byrd Rule used to weed out provisions that have nothing to do with raising or reducing taxes or spending. It takes a 3/5 majority vote to override the decision of the presiding officer if he or she finds that a provision violates one or more of these tests.

Knowledge is power, folks. Understand just what President Obama and the Senate Democrat leadership are doing here: They are trying to to use a Senate budgetary procedure to pass an overhaul of the health care system.

Senate GOP leadership please take notes. And yes, that includes you, Mitch McConnell–the stooge who is essentially forcing Sen. Bunning to retire.

Senator Bunning is standing up for fiscal responsibility right now in the Senate. He’s being called every name in the book by Democrats, the media, and even some Republicans. I absolutely support his objection to extending benefits that we can’t pay for. But let me say this: I disapprove of some of Sen. Bunning’s actions like allegedly flipping someone off and snapping at Jonathan Karl. But look, we all have moments like that, in fact, I had one this last weekend when a liberal with an Obama-Biden bumber sticker cut me off on the interstate. (By the way, I want make the following statement about liberal drivers: not all bad drivers are liberals, but almost every liberal is a bad driver.)

OK, back to the topic at hand. Sen. Bunning is aggressively–and that’s key–defending and promoting fiscal conservatism. This is precisely the type of conservative leadership we have needed for the last couple of years. This is the kind of vehement opposition we needed against TARP and President Obama’s so-called stimulus.

But where is the Senate GOP leadership on this? Answer: They’re absent; They’re playing politics. The Senate GOP leadership is more concerned about the election than about saving America.

Al Gore is no longer AWOL. He resurfaced with an op-ed in Sunday’s NY Times that essentially blames skeptics of anthropogenic global warming for the misinformation and lies in support of so-called “man-caused” climate change.

Ellis Washing discusses his latest column, Rush Limbaugh and The Spook Who Sat by the Door, published exclusively on The Conservative Beacon.

 

 Al Gore finally resurfaces with a lengthy, accusatory and illogical op-ed in NY Times; The Report from Washington with Ellis Washington: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I am right 99.5 % of the time.

–Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh is a media phenomenon whom I’ve known about virtually from his genesis. In Aug. 1988 when his radio show became nationally syndicated I was beginning my graduate studies in history and law at Harvard, ironically during the same time when Barack Obama entered law school at Harvard (although I have no distinct memory of him). Shortly after arriving at Harvard I became a conservative and started listening to Rush regularly on the radio.

After a period as an editor at the Michigan Law Review (1989), in the early 1990s I started writing my first works on constitutional law, political philosophy, culture and race. When I published my first book in 1999, “The Devil is in the Details: Essays on Law, Race, Politics and Religion,” I sent Rush a signed copy with a glowing dedication.

The response from Rush Limbaugh … nothing. This non-response response from Rush even at the later urging of his brother, David Limbaugh, and the fact that we have a mutual friend in Justice Clarence Thomas, would be repeated dozens of times in years to come.

I often wonder what the American political landscape would have been like if Rush Limbaugh used just a measure of his vast powers, skills and money to reach beyond himself, beyond excessive buffoonery, jokes and racist entanglements to help my generation of conservative policy analysts, writers and intellectuals and those who will succeed us get some notoriety?

One of Rush’s competitors, Dr. Michael Savage, host of “The Savage Nation” radio show took an opposite approach than Rush did and in May 2009 after I had written anessay in criticism of Savage being banned in Britain because of his effectiveness, his doctrinaire conservative ideas and being a convenient Jew. Savage thanked me for being one of the few writers in America to champion his cause for justice from Britain and America.

After knowing of my writings for only two months Michael Savage made me his authorized biographer, and over the next six months invited me to do over a dozen and a half radio interviews of my WorldNetDaily articles and also of my latest book on “The Nuremberg Trials.”

I sometimes wonder why Rush didn’t grant me the necessary public exposure 22 years ago when as a young intellectual at Harvard I held him in such high esteem. Paradoxically during that same time an anti-intellectual and Marxist named Barack Obama entered Harvard. Unlike me, Obama had lots of support from his radical associations which eventually gave him entrée to become America’s first black president.

Aside from its racial connotations, a spook is an unjustly ignored person; a human shadow haunting society. Recalling Sam Greenlee’s 1969 provocative book that critiqued the bad faith of liberalism, The Spook Who Sat by the Door, I came across this quote: The purpose of the [1973] film was to encourage blacks to create an action plan to “survive in the belly of the beast” rather than always reacting as victims of a racist society.

Interesting. I wonder who will write the book about the bad faith of conservatism.

While Rush is the most popular figure in talk radio history and has amassed a personal wealth of over a quarter of a billion dollars, there are in my humble opinion several deficiencies in the man:

• Billionaire George Soros got the socialist Obama elected president in 2009. To my knowledge Rush in 22 years on the airwaves has gotten no politician elected? Why not use your vast powers and skills to become a conservative George Soros. Invest $50-$100 million dollars and start 50 new 501(c)(3) or 527 non-profit political organizations and substantively help millions of Americans become educated about the original intent of the Founding Fathers.This money would greatly help people like my friend Josh Price, a very talented conservative blogger who needs business sponsors to keep his important blog going or Simone Perry, a former liberal student of mine at Savannah State University who has recently started a new conservative student organization: Young Black Conservatives of SSU. Rush, will you help these young conservatives and thousands like us positively affect the marketplace of ideas?
• In the Age of Obama fun and games are over! Stop entertaining us and work personally and directly to get conservative Christian politicians elected all over America like Reagan did for 50 years keeping this great country from the abyss. Rush, get off the golf course and become the catalysis to take the Reagan Revolution into the twentieth century rather than being a distraction and a punchline exploited by ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, the New York Times, “The Joe Scarborough Show” or for the ladies on “The View.”
• Rush, you constantly criticize President Obama, and many times I agree with you, but you must also admit that this man has held positions, read books, studied with certain scholars, and has been to places you have never been and perhaps cannot go (Kenya, Indonesia, Pakistan, Columbia, Harvard, University of Chicago, the Oval Office); those accomplishments deserve some respect, don’t they my friend?

Rush, in conclusion study the picture above, a picture of America’s shameful, racist past of de jure and de facto discrimination. Mr. McLaurin was a black professor, a scholar, an intellectual who simply wanted to obtain his Ph.D. Why did he have to fight all the way to the Supreme Court just to pursue his happiness?

Look at the picture, Mr. Limbaugh. Observe that not one of his fellow students showed George McLaurin enough value to even glance his way; to look into his sad eyes, to show him humanity and solidarity of silent support for his heroic cause of equality.

Now Mr. Limbaugh, guess where you sit in that picture and guess where I sit? For I am

… The spook who sat by the door.