One of the oddities of the health care reform saga is that, amid a debate that raises profound questions about a citizen’s right to medical attention and the appropriate structuring of an entire industry, public discussion has come to focus on an issue that is both picayune and utterly phony: the legitimacy of Democrats using budget reconciliation to pass a final bill.Reconciliation is a congressional procedure used to expedite votes on budgetary matters. Its main attraction is that it allows a bill to be passed with a majority vote in the Senate. As the filibuster has evolved from a rarely used signal of unusually strong dissent into a routine requirement for a supermajority,...

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE          www.nationalreview.com           PRINT Daniel Foster & Stephen Spruiell Archive    |    Latest Myths about ReconciliationUsing reconciliation to pass Obamacare would be inappropriate and unprecedented. Here's why.  Let me just tell you, without trying to take much time, that our distinguished leader had an opportunity to move this bill under what is called a reconciliation bill. Do you know what that would have done, Mr. President?

The Obama administration has from the start seen Syria as a leading case for engagement. Barack Obama said so during his presidential campaign (announcing he would meet Bashar al Assad without preconditions) and repeated this policy view again last summer: CincinnatiThe earthquake that struck Chile on February 27 was sudden. The ground shuddered without warning. The devastation was immediate. Like all natural calamities it was random, rapid, and beyond human control.Texas governor Rick Perry's impressive primary victory over Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is a signal. After the midterm election this November, the field of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 (or...

SMILE: CBS' Harry Smith Undergoes Live Colonoscopy...(First column, 7th story, link)

CHINA: Cause of global warming not clear...(Second column, 3rd story, link)

Shelby proposes yet another protections structure.

Futures tumbled to one-month lows, dragged lower in part by disappointing U.S. government export-sales data that showed China had canceled orders.

The U.S. energy giant known for its heady profits is forecasting its energy output will begin to expand, but the new production comes at the risk of lower profit margins.