I like the sound of this

It seems that this might be the week that Democrats finally get off their asses to begin taken the steps to considering having the House vote on the Senate bill and the Senate using reconciliation to pass the conference committee changes to the health care bills that they already passed.

But that second part, the reconciliation part, has some of our friends on the GOP side screaming bloody murder. See, reconciliation isn't supposed to be used to pass things like health care, it's supposed to be used to pass things like tax cuts for the rich that add $1.8 trillion to the deficit. And even then, only Republicans are allowed to do it. But Sen. Lamar Alexander, not only sees the danger of reconciliation, he's warning us of possible horrible horrors that await.

"But the difference here is, that there’s never been anything of this size and magnitude and complexity run through the Senate in this way. There are a lot of technical problems with it, which we could discuss. It would turn the Senate, it would really be the end of the Senate as a protector of minority rights, the place where you have to get consensus, instead of just a partisan majority."

Wait, so not only would this country improve it's health care and coverage systems... it would also end the Senate? Theoretically end, fundamentally end, or end in a fiery explosion that sends flame covered blowhards from Tennessee cartwheeling through the sky and into the Potomac? And it's it's the third one, can the Senate end that way by the weekend and can we get extensive HD coverage of it?

I just want to know how the four previous times Alexander voted for reconciliation didn't end the Senate. Maybe it's a cumulative thing.

I wonder why Democrats would have to take this extraordinary, Senate murdering step to trample over the "minority right" of the GOP to completely halt any attempt at governance? Could perhaps an unrelated news article explain it to me?

Last year, the first of the 111th Congress, there were a record 112 cloture votes. In the first two months of 2010, the number already exceeds 40.

That means, with 10 months left to run in the 111th Congress, Republicans have turned to the filibuster or threatened its use at a pace that will more than triple the old record.

Seems to me like that's the sort of thing that should be combated with the tyranny of majority rule. Majority rule, of course, being confined to measures that slightly modify already passed bills that only affects the budgetary process and does not add to the deficit.

So sure, I'd like it if we might get to have a semi-functional government again and get health care. But if it throws GOP Senators into a hilarious hissy fit and destroys the US Senate? Then I'm doubly for it. Triple even. Get destroying.