Think you could do it better?

The New Neo Posted on by

Did you ever have to try to reform or redesign a real-world program?

When I was in law school, I took a course that focused on the welfare system. We were assigned to read reams of papers detailing all the things that were wrong with welfare, and as you can imagine there were plenty of them.

And then we were given the assignment to design a better system. That was both a humbling and an edifying experience, one I wish everyone could have.

That was only an academic exercise, but many years later I was part of a panel that made recommendations for divorce law reform. We did something similar in terms of process—studied the laws in many states in order to figure out what model might be best for our state. The result was the same: the complexity of the matters involved and the law of unintended consequences kept rearing their ugly little heads. We ended up with something that no one really liked, but it was the best we could do.

And believe me, we were really really trying our best.

It’s easy to sit at home at a keyboard and figure out what we might do if we were in power. No, actually, even that isn’t so easy; for example, I’ve never come up with what I consider a good plan for health care reform, one that I think would actually work well in the real world.

And even if I could, to implement it I’d have to get all those other politicians to agree on it. Good luck with that.

US-AttorneyGate: Bharara, the press, and the president

The New Neo Posted on by

Andrew C. McCarthy explains the history of the most recent brouhaha, President Trump’s en masse firing of the US attorneys, and the reasons and history behind the move:

In March 1993, Janet Reno began her tenure as President Bill Clinton’s attorney general by summarily firing United States attorneys for 93 of the 94 federal districts (one, Michael Chertoff, was retained in New Jersey, at the request of Democratic Senator Bill Bradley). That is more than twice as many as Trump attorney general Jeff Sessions fired on Friday.

Indeed, there were only 46 Obama-appointed U.S. attorneys left for Sessions to relieve because Obama appointees fully understood that this is the way things work. Many of them had already moved on, in the expectation that the president elected in November would replace them ”” an expectation that became a virtual certainty once it was clear that this change of administrations would be a change of parties, and visions. I

…policy choices are the stuff of politics. They often weigh heavily in presidential campaigns and elections. Law-and-order issues intimately affect people’s lives. When presidents make promises about them, they must expect to be held accountable.

U.S. attorneys are the instruments through which the president exercises his policy discretion. That is why they are political appointees. They do not have power of their own. Under our Constitution, all executive power is reposed in the president alone. Every officer of the executive branch is thus a delegate. The U.S. attorney exercises the president’s power and can be removed at the president’s will.

It is only natural, then, that a president will want his power wielded by his own appointees, whom he trusts to carry out his policy program. And it thus follows that, when there is a transition between administrations that see the world, and the Justice Department’s role in it, as differently as the Obama and Trump administrations, there will be sweeping turnover, carried out rapidly.

I suggest you read the whole thing; it’s not long.

The MSM is treating this in an interesting manner, not atypical. If you just scan a bunch of headlines and don’t read the articles past the first paragraph (as I initially did when the story broke) you might get the impression that something extremely unusual has occurred with these firings. If you read the actual pieces, however, a bit further down in the stories you can find sentences such as this from the Times (headline: “Trump Abruptly Orders 46 Obama-Era Prosecutors to Resign”):

It is not unusual for a new president to replace United States attorneys appointed by a predecessor, especially when there has been a change in which party controls the White House.

Still, other presidents have done it gradually in order to minimize disruption, giving those asked to resign more time to make the transition while keeping some inherited prosecutors in place, as it had appeared Mr. Trump would do with Mr. Bharara. Mr. Obama, for example, kept Mr. Rosenstein, who had been appointed by George W. Bush.

The abrupt mass firing appeared to be a change in plans for the administration, according to a statement by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

And this from CNN, paragraph #4 (in an article entitled “Anger mounts over handling of US attorney firings”):

A Justice Department spokeswoman explained that forced resignations are a matter of course when turning the agency over to a new administration.

So the problem appears to be that the people involved, and their fellow-Democrats, don’t think they were given enough notice.

Nearly every Obama-appointed US attorney had to have known his/her days are numbered. The sole exception would be those who were told they could stay on for the duration. It’s not clear whether Preet Bharara, US Attorney for the southern district of New York, was told that he would be staying indefinitely, but it seems clear he was told he would be staying on at least for a while.

Not only that, but it seems that Preet would be a good guy to keep on. The usually Trump-friendly NY Post has criticized the firing of Bahara, and I’d say rightly so:

Trump and Sessions were right the first time, and they need to rescind the order for Bharara, the most successful prosecutor yet when it comes to undoing New York’s culture of political corruption.

Indeed, this comes as he’s still investigating the de Blasio administration and other key figures in New York for possible corruption. It’s absolutely the wrong time for him to leave.

If Bharara hadn’t been included in the mass firing, it also would have deprived the MSM of their most potent weapon in their criticism of the US attorneys’ firings, although it wouldn’t have stopped the criticism.

Bharara fought back:

The high-profile US attorney for Manhattan, Preet Bharara, has indicated he will not submit a letter of resignation as requested by the Trump administration Friday — placing the President in the position of having to fire him in a public standoff, sources tell CNN.

Bharara, who had been told after a meeting with the President-elect in November that he would stay on, felt blindsided by the move, the sources said.

Then there’s this paragraph:

The President-elect asked Bharara to continue as US attorney at the behest of New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, who made the request when he and Trump were discussing how they could work together.

As is often the case these days, it’s difficult if not impossible to figure out the truth on the motives for the Bharara firing from reading the press. Is this a way to get back at Schumer? Is it a case of carelessness? Is it just a way to make a statement that a clean sweep is needed? Or has Bharara himself done something to give Trump pause?

Right after writing those words, I noticed that the showdown predicted in that CNN article had just happened. A few moments ago it was announced that Bharara had been fired by Trump.

I repeat: why? We don’t know. We do learn this, which touches on the answer to one question about which I was curious (that is, did Trump originally say he could stay indefinitely, or just for a while, during that earlier meeting?)

After Trump won the presidency, he met in late November with Bharara. The meeting came about, according to people familiar with the matter, after Mr. Trump called Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and congratulated him on becoming the leader of the Senate Democrats. In that conversation, Trump brought up Bharara, and said he was thinking of keeping him in his job, these people said. Schumer praised Bharara and Trump then arranged a meeting with Bharara at Trump Tower.

During the conversation, Trump told Bharara to call Sessions, his nominee for attorney general, who also asked Bharara to stay.

When Bharara was leaving, according to one person familiar with the meeting, he asked the president-elect what he should tell the reporters in the lobby. Trump told Bharara to tell them he was staying on, this person said.

In other words, we don’t know.

Trump is famous for telling people “You’re fired!”. But I agree with Jazz Shaw that this particular firing seems to make little sense, and appears to be “a major, unforced error”:

Bharara has achieved deservedly legendary status in the law enforcement community and you can read the many remarkable stories of his exploits which have been covered here in the past. Replacing him would be a Herculean task in this era of political partisanship and cronyism. Donald Trump has spoken frequently and passionately, both on the campaign trail and in the early weeks of his presidency, about the need to “drain the swamp” in government and restore the trust of the voters and their elected leadership. When it comes to matters such as this, Preet Bharara is an industrial strength suction pump who could turn the Florida Everglades into a desert in under a day. He has no friends in the political establishment from either party. The most powerful elected leaders in the region absolutely dread the thought of hearing his footsteps approaching their office.

It’s worth reminding everyone at this juncture that Bharara was the man who took down the most powerful Democrat in New York State, Sheldon Silver, and followed that up with a conviction of New York’s top Republican, Dean Skelos. Both of those men currently face the prospect of very possibly dying behind bars. He currently has investigations underway into the affairs of the Clinton Foundation’s offices in New York City, the mayor of the Big Apple and the Governor himself. (He has already indicted several members of the Governor’s inner circle.)

Yes, of course Trump can do this. But it seems a stupid and shortsighted thing to do as well as a possibly ominous exercise in power for its own sake. I’ll be willing to revise that last sentence if I come across some explanation that makes sense to me.

All the news that’s fit to drive you crazy

The New Neo Posted on by

I don’t know about you, but lately the MSM has been getting far more annoying than usual. And that’s really saying something.

I’ve been blogging for a little over twelve years, and although I’ve always been eager to take a look at the day’s news, and always found it interesting, I’ve never felt this degree of dislocation and frustration at the descent of the media into almost pure propaganda.

Someone asked me recently “If you had only one source to recommend to people for their news, which one would you direct them towards?” I answered “never just one.” But if it were really a forced choice and I had to pick one, I reluctantly decided on the Wall Street Journal.

And I stick with that choice; it comes the closest to being fair than any other single periodical I can think of.

But there’s a pervasive sense of unease within me about what’s happening now in the media that’s different from what I’ve felt before. Rather than go on and on about it, I thought I’d just put up this thread for discussion. I bet some of you are feeling much the same way.

This is the feeling that Trump has capitalized on, but that doesn’t mean that Trump himself is some sort of truth-teller either. Anyone who closely followed the 2016 campaign knows that.

I’ve long felt that I needed to try to cobble together the truth from many sources, and that what I came up with would only be my best (almost certainly flawed) approximation of the truth. But lately that task has become even more daunting. I feel like I’m in a forest at night, trying to hack through the too-dense undergrowth with a dull blade and no beacon, only the glow of starlight and a quarter-moon.

The special effects of UDI

The New Neo Posted on by

A group called UDI (a bunch of guys from Siberia, by the way) was recently on Britain’s Got Talent. They do a gimmicky thing, and you can probably figure out how they do it. But the effects are wonderful and magical nevertheless.

Here’s one of their routines:

Here’s an article about them in the Siberian Times.

I do believe that’s the first time I’ve ever linked to the Siberian Times.

The great debate switcheroo

The New Neo Posted on by

You may already have seen this experiment in which parts of the Trump/Clinton debates were restaged—complete with gestures and expressions matching the originals—with an actress playing Trump and an actor playing Clinton. The idea behind it was this:

Maria Guadalupe, an associate professor of economics and political science at INSEAD, had an idea. Millions had tuned in to watch a man face off against a woman for the first set of co-ed presidential debates in American history. But how would their perceptions change, she wondered, if the genders of the candidates were switched? She pictured an actress playing Trump, replicating his words, gestures, body language, and tone verbatim, while an actor took on Clinton’s role in the same way. What would the experiment reveal about male and female communication styles, and the differing standards by which we unconsciously judge them?…

Salvatore says he and Guadalupe began the project assuming that the gender inversion would confirm what they’d each suspected watching the real-life debates: that Trump’s aggression””his tendency to interrupt and attack””would never be tolerated in a woman, and that Clinton’s competence and preparedness would seem even more convincing coming from a man.

But the lessons about gender that emerged in rehearsal turned out to be much less tidy.

In fact, viewers (the majority of whom appear to have been Hillary voters; the professors were from NYU so I’m assuming it was staged in New York City) were stunned and distressed by what they saw:

We heard a lot of “now I understand how this happened”””meaning how Trump won the election. People got upset. There was a guy two rows in front of me who was literally holding his head in his hands, and the person with him was rubbing his back. The simplicity of Trump’s message became easier for people to hear when it was coming from a woman””that was a theme. One person said, “I’m just so struck by how precise Trump’s technique is.” Another””a musical theater composer, actually””said that Trump created “hummable lyrics,” while Clinton talked a lot, and everything she was was true and factual, but there was no “hook” to it. Another theme was about not liking either candidate””you know, “I wouldn’t vote for either one.” Someone said that Jonathan Gordon [the male Hillary Clinton] was “really punchable” because of all the smiling. And a lot of people were just very surprised by the way it upended their expectations about what they thought they would feel or experience.

Here’s a clip of what I believe is a rehearsal:

Absolutely fascinating—particularly for me, because I study the process of political mind-changing. Certainly some of these people must have experienced the glimmerings of a change of mind, although there are many ways to fend off and/or rationalize such an experience if it occurs in isolation and isn’t followed up by more. I’m struck, however, by the honesty of the people’s expression of their unanticipated reactions, even though they were surprised and dismayed by them. People often refuse to even admit evidence that contradicts their assumptions.

But I have a caveat in terms of the gender conclusions. The fact that Trump is a man and Hillary a women was certainly no small part of how and why people reacted to each them (and to the battle between them) as they did. But it was still just a part. Both Trump and Clinton are also specific individuals who each have very distinctive characteristics that make them absolutely unique. Although the actors mimicked the candidates’ every gesture and expression, with genders reversed, the mimicry was only of the outward form of the presentation. The essence of each person was missing (at least, in my opinion), and not just because the sexes were switched, although of course that’s a big factor.

Watching that clip, I didn’t feel as though I was seeing a female approximation of Trump or a male version of Hillary, even though the actors were speaking their lines and imitating their movements. Did you ever see a play and then see it with a different cast of lead actors? I have, many times. The genders aren’t switched, but the performances can be like night and day. We all bring our idiosyncratic selves to every single thing we do, and that’s even true of actors who are pretending to be someone else.

GOPcare is a work in progress

The New Neo Posted on by

I sometimes am surprised at how impatient a fair number of people on the right can be.

I know, I know. We’ve been disappointed a thousand times. I know. Nor do I (as I’ve often said) think politicians are all just fabulous people trying their best.

But you know what? Some are. Or at least, some are pretty smart and are relatively eager to actually pass some of the things they say they want to pass. I still can get surprised when intelligent people seem to ignore the significant constraints of the Congressional process, and be so lightning-quick to blame Republicans for things they shouldn’t be blamed for (as well as the things they should be blamed for).

Sometimes I’m even one of those people doing the blaming.

So please read this post by John Hinderaker. It may reassure you, as it did me. If not “reassure,” at least it will give you greater insight into what the GOP says is the current plan for health care reform.

Of course, if you think the best plan would be to get the federal government out of the health care business altogether, then you are correct in being very heavily critical of all of the Republican plans. But I think that ship has sailed, although I would like to see less government involvement than these plans envision.

Earlier in this post I suggested you read a piece by John Hinderaker. In his post, he suggests you read the entirety of this article by Peter Nelson, from which he took a series of quotes he used. Here’s one of those Nelson quotes with which I heartily agree. It deals with a theme I’ve been harping on for years (and not just concerning health care, either):

But it’s dangerous if, to foment a public outcry to force changes to the bill, critics instill within the conservative base a sense that full repeal is possible if not for those weak-kneed Republicans elected to Congress. If conservative leaders set unattainable expectations, they will create a perception of failure in Congress that will deflate the conservative base.

That process has been aided and abetted for years by quite a few talk show hosts and/or bloggers on the right, with an assist from an MSM that likes to heighten discord on the right. The talk show hosts and bloggers do it because it’s good for ratings and traffic. The MSM does it because it wants the right to cannibalize itself.

I want to add, though, that one thing I’ve observed over and over is that the GOP is terrible at explaining to its base—at the outset—what it’s doing when it makes some move. The base often doesn’t listen anyway, but it seems to me that the GOP’s explanation often comes quite a while after the fact, when people are already mega-angry.

That’s not smart, and it’s one of many reasons the GOP in Congress is met with charges of “elitist.”

On moral compasses, women, and men

The New Neo Posted on by

Actress Cate Blanchett wants us to know something about her:

When talking about her upcoming Broadway debut with “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert, Blanchett discussed how the play is relevant for audiences today.

“It’s all about as you move forward in life, what’s your moral compass, where does kindness and humanity sit in a really brutal world?” she said.

Colbert asked that same question of the actor and was in for quite the surprise.

This audience laughed—I assume mostly with Blanchett rather than at her. But let’s assume it wasn’t just some sort of throwaway joke and let’s take Blanchett seriously for a moment. What could she be meaning when she says that her vagina is her moral compass? Here are some possibilities:

(1) “Women are more moral than men. So the possession of a vagina means that by definition a person possessing one is on a higher moral plane than those without one.”

This is, unfortunately, a rather commonplace brag these days on the part of women. I’ve never seen any evidence that it is true. It’s true, however, that women are less likely to be violent criminals then men are. But that’s not what Blanchett’s referring to; she’s talking about general “kindness” and “humanity.” Let’s just say I’ve seen plenty of unkindness and inhumanity in both sexes, as well as its opposite, and I see no evidence that either is more commonplace in one sex than the other, although they do have somewhat of a tendency to take different forms.

(2) The vagina is the seat of sexual intercourse—which I can’t say usually has much of a “moral compass” at all. But it’s also the seat of childbirth. Blanchett’s got four children, and so perhaps she’s saying that motherhood informs her sense of what’s moral. I doubt that was what was she had in mind, but it’s the kindest interpretation of her statement. And the phenomenon is not limited to women, anyway; I think it not unusual that the coming of parenthood calls forth a greater desire to do what’s “right” in both men and women

I don’t really care much what Cate Blanchett says, so why am I focusing on this? It’s because I’ve noticed a similar sort of moral self-preening quite often these days, particularly from women. Whatever Blanchett really meant, she (and others) do seem to be saying that men and women don’t make moral decisions—don’t get moral guidance—in the same manner. She even may be saying they don’t come to the same ethical conclusions in the end.

In other words, the assertion seems to be that the process of making moral decisions is not a universal one. Do Blanchett et al. also think the rules of morality are not universal? Perhaps.

This brings up an old question that’s been debated for quite some time: is the moral development of the sexes somehow different? And if so, is one gender’s development somehow superior to that of the other? The Blanchetts of the world appear to be saying that women’s moral development is superior, or easier, or better in some way. The old answer used to be that the moral development of women is different—or even, according to some, at an earlier and more primitive stage than that of men:

The theory holds that moral reasoning, the basis for ethical behavior, has six identifiable developmental stages, each more adequate at responding to moral dilemmas than its predecessor. Kohlberg followed the development of moral judgment far beyond the ages studied earlier by Piaget, who also claimed that logic and morality develop through constructive stages. Expanding on Piaget’s work, Kohlberg determined that the process of moral development was principally concerned with justice, and that it continued throughout the individual’s lifetime, a notion that spawned dialogue on the philosophical implications of such research.

The six stages of moral development are grouped into three levels: pre-conventional morality, conventional morality, and post-conventional morality…

There have been critiques of the theory from several perspectives. Arguments include that it emphasizes justice to the exclusion of other moral values, such as caring…

Carol Gilligan has argued that Kohlberg’s theory is overly androcentric. Kohlberg’s theory was initially developed based on empirical research using only male participants; Gilligan argued that it did not adequately describe the concerns of women. Kohlberg stated that women tend to get stuck at level 3, focusing on details of how to maintain relationships and promote the welfare of family and friends. Men are likely to move on to the abstract principles, and thus have less concern with the particulars of who is involved. Consistent with this observation, Gilligan’s theory of moral development does not focus on the value of justice. She developed an alternative theory of moral reasoning based on the ethics of caring. Critics such as Christina Hoff Sommers, however, argued that Gilligan’s research is ill-founded, and that no evidence exists to support her conclusion.

Blanchett may not have had any of that in mind, but the related idea that women are somehow more caring, and that “caring” is the most important (perhaps even the single) pillar on which moral (and for that matter, political) decisions should be based, has permeated our culture. But mercy and justice have always been elements of morality that need to be balanced.

If you want to read more of Sommers’ critique of Gilligan, see this article of hers entitled, “The War Against Boys.” Here’s an excerpt:

Does Gilligan actually understand boys? Does she empathize with them? Is she free of the misandry that infects so many gender theorists who never stop blaming the “male culture” for all social and psychological ills? Nothing we have seen or heard offers the slightest reassurance that Gilligan and her followers are wise enough or objective enough to be trusted with devising new ways of socializing boys.

Every society confronts the problem of civilizing its young males. The traditional approach is through character education: Develop the young man’s sense of honor. Help him become a considerate, conscientious human being. Turn him into a gentleman. This approach respects boys’ masculine nature; it is time-tested, and it works. Even today, despite several decades of moral confusion, most young men understand the term “gentleman”and approve of the ideals it connotes.

What Gilligan and her followers are proposing is quite different: civilize boys by diminishing their masculinity. “Raise boys like we raise girls” is Gloria Steinem’s advice. This approach is deeply disrespectful of boys. It is meddlesome, abusive, and quite beyond what educators in a free society are mandated to do…

A boy today, through no fault of his own, finds himself implicated in the social crime of shortchanging girls. Yet the allegedly silenced and neglected girl sitting next to him is likely to be the superior student. She is probably more articulate, more mature, more engaged, and more well-balanced. The boy may be aware that she is more likely to go on to college. He may believe that teachers prefer to be around girls and pay more attention to them. At the same time, he is uncomfortably aware that he is considered to be a member of the favored and dominant gender.

Note only that, but these days the “allegedly silenced and neglected girl [or woman] sitting next to him” is sometimes very pleased indeed to smugly inform him of her innate moral superiority, bestowed on her by the possession of a vagina.

Cosmic inflation and settled science

The New Neo Posted on by

In the most recent Scientific American, there’s an article on theories related to cosmic inflation:

On March 21, 2013, the European Space Agency held an international press conference to announce new results from a satellite called Planck. The spacecraft had mapped the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, light emitted more than 13 billion years ago just after the big bang, in better detail than ever before. The new map, scientists told the audience of journalists, confirms a theory that cosmologists have held dear for 35 years: that the universe began with a bang followed by a brief period of hyperaccelerated expansion known as inflation. This expansion smoothed the universe to such an extent that, billions of years later, it remains nearly uniform all over space and in every direction and “flat,” as opposed to curved like a sphere, except for tiny variations in the concentration of matter that account for the finely detailed hierarchy of stars, galaxies, and galaxy clusters around us.

That some “tiny variation”! However, on the cosmic scale (which is what we’re talking about here), I suppose galaxies are rather diminutive.

To continue:

The principle message of the press conference was that the Planck data perfectly fit the predictions of the simplest inflationary models, reinforcing the impression that the theory is firmly established. The book on cosmology seemed to be closed, the team suggested.

In other words, the team of researchers was indicating to the press and the world that the science is settled.

But the book of science is never, never closed:

Following the announcement, [the three authors of the article in Scientific American] discussed its ramifications at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics…We all remarked on the meticulously precise observations of the Planck team. We disagreed, however, with the interpretation. If anything, the Planck data disfavored the simplest inflation models and exacerbated long-standing foundational problems with the theory, providing new reasons to consider competing ideas about the origin and evolution of the universe.

That may whet your appetite for the entire article, which is behind a paywall (I happen to have a copy of the dead tree version of the magazine, from which I copied the text). But it’s not the substance of the article regarding cosmic inflation that led me to quote it—it’s the idea that disagreements over the nature and meaning of scientific data are commonplace and expected in many fields.

The area of cosmology is relatively non-political compared to climate science. At least as far as I know, there is no pressing legislative initiative depending on the findings of cosmologists. People care about cosmology, however, in part because arguments about cosmology sometimes segue into religious matters (for example, I’ve read articles on how cosmology supposedly impacts on people’s religious beliefs). And although I have no doubt that there are political issues in cosmology relating to who gets grants and what satellites are launched and what those satelllites will endeavor to study, those things are not as highly popularized, pressurized, and politicized as the ramifications of the field of climate science.

And yet, in cosmology there are apparently consensus views, press conferences promoting those consensus views, and dissenters (such as the authors of that article). And that should be no surprise.

The Scientific American authors go on to say the following [emphasis mine]:

In the years since [that initial 2013 announcement], more precise data gathered by the Planck satellite and other instruments have made the case [against the commonly accepted inflationary theory] only stronger. Yet even now the cosmology community has not taken a cold, honest look at the big bang theory or paid significant attention to critics who question whether inflation happened. Rather cosmologists appear to accept at face value the proponents’ assertion that we must believe the inflationary theory because it offers the only simple explanation of the observed features of the universe. But, as we will explain, the Planck data, added to theoretical problems, have shaken the foundations of this assertion.

Sounds pretty dramatic and pretty unsettled, as science goes.

Obamacare and GOPcare: getting reconciled with the process of reconciliation

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Frog” asks:

…I do not understand.

If the Obamacare bill was passed in the Senate via reconciliation…, why cannot it be rescinded in the Senate via reconciliation? Is this more Alice In Wonderland?

The question is a reasonable one, and it highlights how very complex the legislative process often is. House and Senate (especially the Senate) have their own arcane and often puzzling rules and arcane and often puzzling strategies/tactics involving those rules. It makes the rest of us scratch our heads and doubt the motives and abilities of our legislators.

It’s not that those in Congress are such well-meaning geniuses, either. There’s plenty of room to doubt and plenty of reason to doubt. But sometimes there is a more innocuous (although complex) explanation for what they’re doing, and I submit that the GOP’s use of reconciliation to deal with Obamacare is one of those times.

For anyone who wants to try to understand the ins and outs of this, I recommend this and this, and this. From the latter [emphasis mine]:

The reconciliation process can only be used to pass bills that affect spending and revenue ”” budgetary matters, in other words. It was created in the 1970s to make it easier for Congress to keep a budget, by giving the Senate tools to more easily change laws regulating big mandatory spending programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and the like.

Last year, Republicans passed the Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act, a repeal bill that uses the reconciliation process. The Senate parliamentarian ruled that all the parts of Obamacare that it repealed ”” Obamacare’s insurance subsidies, Medicaid expansion, the law’s tax increases, and its mandate to purchase coverage ”” could be dismantled through reconciliation…

There’s basically nothing that Democrats alone can do to stop this. Budget resolutions can’t be filibustered, so if Republicans vote to include reconciliation instructions for Obamacare repeal, there’s nothing the opposition can do about it. And, of course, they can’t filibuster the actual repeal bill; that’s the whole point of using reconciliation.

So if the plan doesn’t work, it’ll have to be because there are Republicans defections.

That was written in January, and of course the dissension in the Republican ranks is pretty clear right now.

If we have an Alice in Wonderland situation in terms of process (“curiouser and curiouser”), it’s because of the way the bill was passed in the first place and the way the Senate works. The GOP senators are constrained by a number of things, and not all of them have to do with the extreme difficulty of crafting a health care law that is not exorbitant, does not restrict liberty unduly, and yet doesn’t raise a furious hue and cry about gazillions of uninsured Americans. Some of the constraints have to do with the way Congress is structured and the necessity of getting around the filibuster—a filibuster that would give the Democrats the power to block any repeal that is not accomplished through reconciliation, and which prevents an outright and total repeal that doesn’t use reconciliation.

In other words, to answer Frog’s question (at least as I understand the question and the explanatory articles): full repeal cannot use the reconciliation process and would subject the bill to Democrats blocking it. The GOP is using the reconciliation process, which means the repeal is somewhat piecemeal in that it does not and cannot include all items, but it gets around the filibuster difficulty.

Now, some of you might say “Away with the filibuster entirely!” I don’t think the GOP is eager to do that, and it’s not just for lack of cojones. The filibuster, with its protection of the minority party, has stood the test of time to a large extent because each party knows it could be the minority next time. And to those who say “The Democrats would do it in a heartbeat, so the GOP must do it first!” I would answer that I sometimes think that myself, but I am given pause by the fact that the Democrats didn’t do it when sorely pressed during the time they were trying to pass Obamacare.

Why didn’t they do it then? Because (a) even they were afraid to cross that line for fear it would come back to haunt them; and (b) they felt they didn’t need to do it, because they could pretty much accomplish what they wanted through reconciliation.

I believe the Republicans are reasoning the same thing at the moment.