Senate Parliamentarian Hands Down Ruling

This Is Big – The Corner, National Review
BREAKING NEWS—The Senate parliamentarian has handed down his ruling. The House must first pass the Senate bill—and the president must sign that bill into law—before reconciliation fixes can be made. And as I have posted regularly, Senate Democrat Kent Conrad, the guy whose voice matters most on reconciliation, has pronounced that regarding the health-care monstrosity the reconciliation strategy is DOA. – Dick Young

Seven Costly Pro Athlete Screw-Ups – Yahoo! Sports
It’s hard to believe it, but 80% of retired NFL players are flirting with bankruptcy just two years after retirement. Mr. Riddix tells us that Scottie Pippen blew $120 million thanks to poor financial planning and bad business ideas. Evander Holyfield pulled $250 million in through the front door and sent $250 million right out the back door. Lenny Dykstra listed $30 million owed to creditors at his 2009 bankruptcy filing, and you wonder why banks go broke. Who would lend this kind of money to Mr. Dykstra in the first place? Latrell “Choker” Sprewell—remember him? Latrell gave a thumbs-down to a whopping $21-million contract that he famously said wasn’t enough to feed his family. It was Latrell’s last offer! Next, his $5.4-million house went into foreclosure. Golfer John Daly gambled away $50–$60 million. Finally, we have Mike Tyson, who squandered $350–$400 million. For many years my standing advice for pro athletes has been to invest 60/40 in short-term fixed-income / blue-chip dividend-paying stocks, draw 4% per year on the portfolio, and call it a day. Never draw a penny of capital. The short rule: don’t consume the host. – Dick Young

The Louise Slaughter House Solution – Human Events
At the health-care summit, viewers were treated to the spectacle of the House Rules Committee chairwoman, Louise Slaughter, pleading that the health-care monster was needed because folk were being forced to wear the dentures of dead folk. (I wonder how!) No joke, dead-folk dentures. Now Ms. Slaughter wants to use a “deem scheme” to, if you can believe it, bypass the Senate health-care vote. A letter signed by all 41 Republican senators has been sent to Harry Reid, informing him that budget reconciliation cannot be used to pass a health-care bill. Funds for abortion would absolutely stay in the Senate bill. Senate budget committee chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) once again reiterated just yesterday that for the health-care monstrosity reconciliation is a nonstarter. Yesterday, seven House democrats—Stupak (MI), Lipinski (IL), Oberstar (MN), Dahlkemper (PA), Driehaus (OH), Berry (AR), and Donnelly (IN)—informed Fox News that they will vote “no” on the Senate bill unless the abortion language is changed. Given all of the above, I think it’s safe to say that the monster has been slain. Perhaps our elected politicians can now get on to improving our overall health-care delivery system in a fashion that Americans actually support. Take things one step at a time: first, tort reform; second, selling insurance across state lines; and so on. – Dick Young

Commentary by Timothy Jones:
The Democrats’ attempts to use reconciliation and now the so-called “Slaughter Rule” to pass health care are quite simply changing the rules in the middle of the game because they are losing. Americans will not vote twice for a politician who changes the rules in the middle of the game.