by Smitty
Remember, boys and girls: triumph begins with visualization and a peppy soundtrack:

(rest in) Peace Through Bureaucracy

via Rare

by Smitty

Byron York at the Examiner reports:

With Congress moving ahead on a continuing resolution to fund the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year, some Senate Republicans are proposing an amendment to delay funding the implementation of Obamacare — and they are threatening to stop the entire continuing resolution process unless their amendment is given a vote.
The amendment is the work of Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, joined by Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee. “I intend to object to consideration of any continuing resolution that does not include a vote to delay funding of Obamacare,” Cruz said in a press release Wednesday. Arguing that Obamacare will slow economic growth — already just 0.1 percent last quarter — Cruz added, “I believe we should continue to delay such funding at least until economic growth returns to historic averages.”

Slowing economic growth is one thing. The question I have is, if there is no balanced budget, and every time they revise the costs of ObamaCare, it goes up by a non-trivial number, how can we possibly be thinking of letting this monstrosity get funded?

York notes:

In the end, they will lose. It is highly unlikely that Cruz and Lee will receive a vote on their amendment, and even if they did, it would fail in a Senate with 55 Democrats. It is much more likely that Majority Leader Harry Reid would invoke cloture and at least 60 senators would vote to go forward over the Cruz/Lee objections and without considering their amendment. The end of the story, according to one Senate Republican not aligned with Cruz and Lee, is simple: “Reid files cloture and people don’t want to shut down the government.”

It would be a vote that would come back to haunt at least Mark Warner here in Virginia. Make these sunny beaches own the sand they’re kicking into our future.

by Smitty

Heritage notes:

This week, the House plans to take up a bill that would fund the government for the remainder of the 2013 fiscal year. As of March 1, we are now living under the sequester that was passed overwhelmingly by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in the summer of 2011. This continuing resolution would fund the government through September 30 under the sequester while also attempting to mitigate the cuts on defense programs by attaching a defense appropriations bill.

Red State is sounding the alarm:

If nothing is done to stop them, GOP leaders plan to put forth a clean CR that funds Obamacare. This is unacceptable.
With health insurance premiums skyrocketing, employers dumping workers from health plans, and new reports predicting trillions in new debt as a result of Obamacare, we must defund this behemoth before it fully takes effect next year. Many of the new members pledged to defund Obamacare, yet they have dithered for two years in the hopes that it would be struck down by the Supreme Court or that Republicans would win the White House. In fact, 105 current members of the House GOP Conference signed a letter last August committing to defund Obamacare.
Let’s not be fooled, if Obamacare is allowed to take effect for one year, it will be impossible to reform Medicare, roll back dependency, and balance the budget. This is the GOP Waterloo.

Craning the ear toward the future, I hear the GOP leadership saying, “Hey, 2012 was an ObamaCare referendum. Suppositories and elections matter.” There’s not much left to do but link ABBA, AFAICT:

That is, until the whole sorry mess just crashes. The logic of the Progressive Project seems to be that it ain’t done until the last shreds of the Enlightenment are burned to heat this vast Utopia.

Thus, it looks like time to talk about the post-crash planning.

Update: Bill Quick, as usual, comes off as a total GOP apologist:

The GOP has literally become the party of Gutless Old Pussies, terrified to resist the victorious democrats on any significant welfare state issue because they are also convinced of the truth of Mittens Romneycare’s infamous observation about the “47%”:
Romney’s 47% remark – USATODAY.com

WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney told a group of donors in a secretly taped video that 47% of Americans will vote for President Obama because they are “dependent upon government” and “believe that they are victims.”

Hence their new strategy for holding onto their powers and perks is to avoid being seen as offensive to the great welfare plantations currently owned and operated by the Democrat Faction.

Apologist; antagonist: I keep confusing these words. Let me be the apologist: while it’s stirring to see an Ernest E. Evans ring up ‘all ahead flank III’ and go right down the enemy throat, politics is more a game of survival and attrition. The voters opted to relive the 1930s last November, History and Economics be damned. If there is ever to be hope of reform and restoration, then not taking further direct hits is crucial. It looks like the GOP may be striking a balance between letting the facts of Sequestration intrude upon Obama’s narrative, without getting beaten with a Continuing Resolution stick. A maximally brave strategy? Certainly not.
But ObamaCare is the law of the land. It’s likely to succeed in substantially wrecking health care in the U.S. The wiser course would seem to be to drive for gradual market reforms. But the Voters. Must. Demand. Such. and say so at the ballot box.

by Smitty

If you think having the ship list to port is a bad idea, I have news for you about the efficacy of mustering the crew on the port midships quarterdeck to form a union and fight the list:

On Tuesday, CCAC employees were notified that Obamacare defines full-time employees as those working 30 hours or more per week and that on Dec. 31 temporary part-time employees will be cut back to 25 hours. The move will save an estimated $6 million.
“While it is of course the college’s preference to provide coverage to these positions, there simply are not funds available to do so,” said CCAC spokesperson David Hoovler. “Several years of cuts or largely flat funding from our government supporters have led to significant cost reductions by CCAC, leaving little room to trim the college’s budget further.”
The solution, says United Steelworkers representative Jeff Cech, is that adjunct professors should unionize in an attempt to thwart schools seeking similar cost-savings efforts from avoiding Obamacare.

You can have your opinion about forming a union. I have a one-word rebuttal: “Michigan”.

However the issue isn’t so much the idea of unions as Cech’s non-approach to analysis. CCAC isn’t the bad guy here. The pencil-necks of DC that excreted ObamaCare are. The wrong-headed notion that law == magic, and that ObamaCare could somehow has a positive effect, is at the root of the problem. As I had noted in the post “Mini Jobs Blow” we’re seeing nothing other than the importation of failed policy ideas from Europe.

Can’t tell if this is the Hope, the Change, or the Forward.

via Insty

Update, also via Instapundit: “Letter: Employers using loopholes in ACA”

When my better half told me that her boss was thinking about cutting all full-time employees to part time in order to avoid the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act insurance requirements (for full-time employees), my initial response was, “Surely the federal government wouldn’t have allowed such a blatantly obvious way of getting out of the requirement.” But that turned out to be false.

In fact, major names in the service/hospitality industry (e.g., Denny’s, Olive Garden, Red Lobster and Longhorn Steakhouse) are already in the process of going to a part-time employee schedule for all employees. Thus, as a very possible consequence of the short-sightedness of the Affordable Care Act legislators, more people will be working two jobs to make ends meet.

Read the whole thing, and cue Ray Davies

Update: thanks, Instapundit!

Update II: linked at Hogewash.