In the latest Mad-Magazine-like-Spy-vs.-Spy move, the House Dems have hatched a plan which reminds me of their ill-fated plan to delay seating Senator-elect Scott Brown until they had another ObamaCare vote on the Senate floor.

The Dems backed down. Similarly, they will back down from the Slaughter plan.

Former Speaker Gingrich describes the Slaughter plan in a tweet about a Brian Darling blog:

“Incredible. We’ve gone from passing bills without reading them to passing bills without voting on them.”

They haven’t tried it yet, they are thinking about it.

But now that the Senate Parliamentarian has ruled the obvious, that you can not vote on a reconciliation measure if the bill you are attempting to reconcile has not been signed into law — the Slaughter plan looks both desperate and comical.

It is also (obviously) unconstitutional and will, if carried out, create a public outcry that will make burning witches at the stake look rational.

Just like the Black Spy thought the White Spy was caged and an easy target, the trillion dollar President and the Speaker find themselves without the votes and trying again to cheat the U.S. Constitution, public opinion and voters who want Congress to stop the irrational ObamaCare quest and start over. Their persistent problem is they keep causing their colleagues mortal political harm with their increasingly hare-brained-Slaughter schemes.

You know, like lets-use-reconciliation-to-pass-the-hated-Senate-ObamaCare-bill. (It’s no shock that Obama has hit his lowest Gallup poll approval rating ever.)

Ironically, the trillion dollar President has created a bi-partisan health care effort, it’s just that it’s a bi-partisan alliance against his bill. What is causing cognitive dissonance in the White House and among the Democratic Party’s cognoscenti is the simple fact that the only thing bi-partisan about ObamaCare is the opposition to it.

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Behind closed doors, the Obama Administration, House and Senate Democrat leaders are cutting a secret deal on ObamaCare.  They have come up with a way to pass the Senate version of ObamaCare in the House without any House members having to vote directly on the bill.  Now The Hill is reporting that the House and Senate Parliamentarians are helping to advise Democrats on how to pass ObamaCare.  When will the self proclaimed most ethical Congress in history start acting ethical and honest?  This 111th Congress has proven, to date, to be the most secretive, non-transparent and devious Congress in recent history.

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The Speaker’s flip-flops are catching up with her.

And the strangeness is starting to show (see the video): we have to pass the Senate bill so the public can see what is in it.

Her famed control over house members minds is fading: She supported Chairman Rangel right up until she dumped him. She did not have the muscle to impose upon the Ways and Means Committee, her choice of Chairman.

And on ObamaCare, the Speaker insisted the Senate go first, that she could not pass the Senate bill, that the House would not be a rubber stamp for the Senate, and that the Senate must prove it will act as she says it will, which is for the Senate to change their own bill into a bill the House wants. Uh, huh.

But the Speaker has flipped on all of it. Now, the House will go first, the House will pass the Senate bill without changing it (i.e. rubber stamp) and the House will act without proof the Senate will actually act in the way the House wants it to act.

Furthermore, the Speaker must now insist the following will not happen: the White House will not take the House passed Senate bill, sign it, declare victory, and move onto jobs.

The Speaker must argue that the Senate and the White House will put itself through months of more ObamaCare political pain, by letting the Republicans bog down the bill in the Senate, in a huge fight that will be another example of the Dems changing the rules and ignoring the public to pass a bill independent voters and seniors hate.

But assuming you believe that reality will be suspended — that the irrational is rational — and the White House and the Senate will act to bail out the House from passing a bill they don’t agree with, then there is the immovable Byrd rule problem on any abortion “fix.”

The Bryd rule prohibits legislating on a reconciliation bill. The rule is named after the still-serving Senator Byrd (D-WV). Sixty votes are needed to over-ride the Byrd rule on reconciliation. Both the Byrd rule and Senator Byrd himself stands directly in the path of legislating on abortion on any reconciliation bill.

You see, Senator Byrd is very vigorous in his support of the Byrd rule. He will vote with the 41 Republicans to enforce the Byrd rule. And the Byrd rule is very clear on abortion — precedents have been set — you cannot legislate on abortion on a reconciliation bill.

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The Congressional Budget Office Director, in today’s blog, says CBO cannot “score” or provide a cost estimate for Obama’s health care plan because CBO needs more detail.

It’s amazing, the Trillion Dollar President wants to change the world, but doesn’t have legislative language to do it. Not even to give to CBO. Where’s the bill?

The CBO Director went out of his way today (in the first two sentences) to say WE’VE NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE!

The opening from his blog:

“This morning the Obama Administration released a description of its health care proposal, and CBO has already received several requests to provide a cost estimate for that proposal. We had not previously received the proposal…”

And what sort of plan vapor bill do you make public without consulting with CBO?

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Brian Darling of the Heritage Foundation has moved the entire health care world from refitting weapons and/or R & R to DEFCON Two with these two posts, here and here. Darling is not only one of the few real operational experts on Senate Rules, he is a highly effective operative for the good guys. If Darling says the Dems are going to try it, they will. DRUDGE is now on board with his front page all-caps headline: BACK FROM THE DEAD: DEMS VOW TO RAHM THROUGH HEALTHCARE.

Add to this that Senator Reid just gave an interview saying Congress will pass ObamaCare in 60 days, and FireDogLake is reporting the Leadership is on-board for the reconciliation strategy. Also, FireDogLake is pushing the public option to be included in reconciliation. TIME and Washington Monthly are reporting that Reid intends to use reconciliation to insert the public option. Furthermore, former White House Communication Director for Obama, Anita Dunn says ObamaCare will pass Congress by November, just after Obama made another push for ObamaCare at his Nevada town hall.

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Over at NROnline’s The Corner, Daniel Foster wrote an interesting piece where he explained how Vice President Joe Biden could press the button to launch the Senate’s reconciliation Nuclear Option.  This strategy is the only way the Democrats can get ObamaCare across the finish line and to the President’s desk in the next few weeks. 

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s office has come up with this partisan strategy to pass a version of ObamaCare that must start in the House.  They need the help of Vice President Biden to usher the bill through the Senate’s consideration, because the plan includes the Vice President issuing rulings, as President of the Senate, that will avoid a filibuster.  Ironically, the Pelosi strategy is all happening as President Obama’s schedules a public bipartisan meeting of the House and Senate to work on a deal to find common ground on health care reform.  The President and Democrats are readying the ObamaCare Nuclear Option if the summit does not produce a deal. 

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The Trillion Dollar President ran on his “yes we can” slogan, but, it turns out, a former State Senator and a part-time U.S. Senator who campaigned instead of legislating may be able to convince people he can, but, well there is this: even Paul Krugman believes he can’t.

Krugman, in the NYT, writes “We’re doomed.”

Yes, the Krugman piece is about the Trillion Dollar President, and it’s titled “Clueless.” (Here is the Hill’s short version.)

This PepSuber video should clear up any questions about what Krugman is talking about. (Sorry, could not embed the video into the post, so you’ll have to click on this link.)

Does it surprise you that Team PepSuber still thinks they can?

The ink is yet to dry on Senator-elect Scott Brown’s certification to be the 41st vote against ObamaCare and the left is readying a multi-pronged attack on the filibuster.  Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) have opened up a front in both the House and the Senate to lower the threshold for Senate leadership to stifle debate and amendment.  Don’t be fooled.  These are merely first shots in an all out war by the left to exterminate the one rule in the Senate that makes it difficult for the Obama Administration to railroad though an unpopular left wing agenda.

The Hill reports:

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) in the next few weeks intends to introduce legislation that would take away the minority’s power to filibuster legislation.  Harkin has wanted to change the filibuster for years, but his move would come in the wake of Republican Scott Brown’s dramatic victory in Massachusetts. Brown’s victory cost Democrats their 60th vote in the Senate, and may have dealt a death blow to their hopes to move a massive healthcare overhaul. It could also limit President Barack Obama’s ability to move other pieces of his agenda forward.

The Harkin rules change would require 67 votes for passage.  It is unlikely that Senators in the minority party would vote for a rules change that would erode the few rights of the minority.  Especially at a time when the Obama Administration seems intent on passing ObamaCare using all means necessary to get it done.  This is merely one idea in the Senate to attack the filibuster.  There are other options that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has at his disposal to crush minority party rights in the Senate.

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UPDATE — About an hour after this post, Pelosi admits she does not have the votes to pass the unamended Senate bill on the House floor.

As soon as Senator McConnell objected to the appointment of the Conferees of on behalf of Senator DeMint, the Democrats in the House, each, individually, were given an unprecedented opportunity to influence the amendment that the House would vote on to change the Senate bill.

This meant that the very small margin of error on the House floor — which has since become one vote less because a Democratic House Member has left his seat — created huge leverage for each individual Democratic House Member. They are not used to this amount of leverage, nor are the Speaker and the other House leaders on health care used to dealing with Members with this amount of leverage.

So, the Speaker must listen to everyone’s demands. And the Republicans were left out, helping, I am certain, Brown win in Massachusetts. (Thank you Senator DeMint.)

Into this unstable political environment, enter Big Labor and the Progressive outside groups. They just took the Dems shortest route to passing their health reform law off the table — which is passing the Senate bill unamended so it can go directly to the President for his signature.

PlumLine’s Greg Sargent reports: “AFL-CIO legislative director Bill Samuel tells me in an interview that labor won’t support any efforts by the House to pass the Senate health bill in its current form.”

Add to this the Progressive’s efforts to illustrate that a portion of the 20% of Democrats who voted for Brown — they say 82% of the 20% — supported the public option, meaning Progressives had a key role to play in electing Brown because the Democrats in Washington walked away from the public option.

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Problems, or P to the sixth power, is what Speaker Pelosi faces.

She tells her caucus on a conference call not to believe reports that she has decided that the House will OK all the major positions of the Senate (read: cave to the Senate) — but in order to defeat the Senate position, she needs to show the White House and the Senate leadership, she does not have the votes in the House.

And she has no Dem Member of Congress who has corralled the votes with which she can point to as being the one who has them, while she does not. The Progressives are suffering from the fact they will not threaten to kill the bill if they do not get what they want. They have no Stupak, no DeMint, no Coburn.

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