I'll be honest. I had started to wonder whether this Slaughter Rule business was a bait-and-switch. I couldn't imagine that, with the pounding Democratic leadership have taken over the deem-and-pass strategy, there was any profit left in pushing it. After all, the point was to provide Democrats with political cover, via procedural obscurity, for a vote in favor of the Senate bill. But the procedure is no longer obscure and the cover is now a fig leaf.

That's why I find it genuinely amazing that the House just defeated a Republican measure to block the Slaughter Rule by a vote 222 to 203.

I...will...not...comply.

It's getting close to gate-stormin' time folks.

Russ