Datum 1--Massachusetts fills its Senate seat, come hell or high water:

Until 2004, Massachusetts law empowered the state's governor to fill an unexpected Senate vacancy. But the state had a Republican governor that year, and Sen. John Kerry won the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.
Worried that a Republican might be appointed to replace Sen. Kerry if he were elevated to the White House, Bay State Democrats, enjoying large legislative majorities, changed the rules to mandate that any vacancies be filled via special elections.
Fast forward five years. A Democrat now sits in the governor's office. Sen. Kennedy loses his life fighting brain cancer. It will be at least four months before Massachusetts can hold a special election, and Democrats are one vote short of a filibuster-proof 60 in the U.S. Senate as they race to pass a radical agenda.
Solution? Massachusetts Democrats rewrite the rules again.
On Tuesday, the state Senate voted 24-16 to allow Gov. Deval Patrick to select Mr. Kennedy's successor. The House passed the bill last week.
End of story? Nope.
Turns out that under the state constitution, laws passed by the legislature take effect 90 days after they're signed by the governor -- unless lawmakers attach a so-called "emergency pre-amble."
Such emergency measures must be approved by a two-thirds majority -- a benchmark lawmakers failed to achieve in ramming through changes in the succession process.
Not to worry.
The president of the Massachusetts Senate argues that the governor can get around the two-thirds problem by writing a letter to the secretary of state declaring his own "emergency." Presto--This has already been done and the seat is 'safely' and unconstitutionally filled so that the Democrats can maintain a 60 seat majority to pass through their agenda without Republican delays or even debate.

The lesson all this nonsense sends to schoolchildren is clear. Maintaining power is the primary purpose of political life. And if politicians don't like the rules or constitutional restrictions that stand in their way, they simply change them -- and if they can't change them, they ignore them.

Datum 2--Meanwhile, back in the Senate:

Senators are negotiating on Senator Max Baucus' health care proposal and it hasn't even been written yet. Of course, to state the obvious, the fact that they're negotiating on something that hasn't been written means no one has read it yet either. And, to add even more insult to injury, it's now clear they have no intention of letting you read it. You read that right. On an almost straight party-line vote, Democrats in the Senate Finance Committee squashed an amendment by Senator Jim Bunning that would have required Baucus' health care bill to be posted on the Internet – for all Americans to read – for 72 hours prior to the Committee voting on it.

Not only that. Bunning's amendment also called for requiring the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office's official tally of how much Baucus' health care proposal will cost the American people and what the real impact will be on health costs to be released before the it was voted on.

So here is my question--What is going on in our constitutional process and government of, for, and by the people in the name of trying to get health care to the people?

What is your conclusion?