Question: when is the law the law?
Answer: When the dictator says it is. Now shut up.
The Obama administration will delay a crucial provision of its signature health-care law, giving businesses an extra year to comply with a requirement that they provide their workers with insurance.
The government will postpone enforcement of the so-called employer mandate until 2015, after the congressional elections, the administration said yesterday. Under the provision, companies with 50 or more workers face a fine of as much as $3,000 per employee if they don’t offer affordable insurance.
[…]
The delay in the employer mandate addresses complaints from business groups to President Barack Obama’s administration about the burden of the law’s reporting requirements.
“The administration has finally recognized the obvious — employers need more time and clarification of the rules of the road before implementing the employer mandate,” Randy Johnson, a senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobby, said in an e-mail.
Valerie Jarrett, a senior Obama adviser, said in a blog post announcing the move that the administration decided on the delay so officials could simplify reporting requirements and give employers a chance to adjust their health-care coverage.
So goes the official spin.
Look, it’s obvious to political junkies that what the Obama Administration is doing here is hiding the consequences of what is a disastrous law from the public until after the 2014 midterm elections. They hope that by granting — so beneficent is our kindly and goodly king! So caring! — the delay, the Administration can not only garner for the Party the support of some grateful businesses (while taking the pressure of panicked Democrat candidates), but that taking the issue off the table for Republicans robs the GOP of anything real to run on in 2014, save their support for “comprehensive immigration reform,” which will alienate their base and lead, again, to many voters simply staying home, while gaining them no additional support from Hispanics.
This is cynical. And it can’t be legal. And even if it is, it is decidedly unethical.
But then, that’s who they are. It’s what they do.
The goal here is obvious: the Democrats see the factional fighting among the Republicans. They see, therefore, a real chance for suppressed voter turnout on the GOP side in 2014, particularly with the effects of their albatross of a health care law off the table, and the GOP’s feckless leadership’s near constant attacks on the Party base rather than the ostensible political opposition. And because of this, the progressives are eying an opportunity to relive the supermajority they had for 2-years prior to the TEA Party revolution, a period they would then use to ram through the last bits of the Obama agenda “fundamentally transform” the US, from gun-control measures to cap-and-trade to the bureaucratic crippling of private industry, be it small farms, traditional power and fuel (while seeking to make frakking onerous and cost-ineffective), and small businesses by way of additional tax burdens.
The question is, will the American people fall for it?
The ruling class GOP, I’m convinced, doesn’t much care if it winds up in the minority. Because while they would prefer to hold power in the House, obviously, given the choice between minority status as a permanent ruling class, or majority status under constant assault from the base insisting they act on behalf of the will of the people rather than their own political fortunes — which would require a decrease in their power and influence and personal wealth — they’d happily opt for the former.
I hear tell that Roger Simon wrote of a potentially revolutionary gust sweeping over the American consciousness. Good for him.
I love it when the influential conservative outlets with their influential “conservative” spokespeople — I don’t recall, did Simon back Romney? — finally begin catching up.
We call that outlaw here, Roger. And we’ve been doing so since back in the days before I was booted from the messaging apparatus for being such an unhelpful provocateur.
Grab a helmet and fall in.
Summed up more or less perfectly. The GOP party wants to be the old folks and nerds that “Lose More Slowly!(tm)”
Pathetically bad politics.
Confirms what we were saying all along, this is about control and not healthcare. They can keep offering us relief from the ACA and never actually implement it.
Now that this has been taken away from Repubs as a campaign issue, there’s absolutely no reason for them not to go ahead and defund it.
Waiting for that announcement from Repub Central any moment now….
Any moment…
Gayle, you may want to pack a lunch while you’re waiting. ; )
To repeat.
All waivers need to be denounced as what they are, bribes to support being ruled by the whims of one man not by law. A law that empowers one person to decide what is to be legal today and then can be changed by them tomorrow is not law, it is simply a tyranny with a veneer of legalism which is how all modern tyrants do it.
By waiving the employer mandate but not the individual one they have created a wedge to use, a scapegoat to blame, and a distraction from their own ownership of the ACA.
If everyone gets hooked on waivers then everyone will have that waiver as a ring right through their nose and the administration will hold the rope that is attached to it.
The income tax code has long been set up the same way but it had to have legislation passed for each “waiver” aka exemption. This ACA is much simpler as it only needs just a proclamation by the executive branch to make or break anyone or any group. The waivers are the water of this water empire.
Employer mandate delayed by executive fiat, although there’s no language allowing for such in the law.
The Individual mandate, on the other cloven hoof, goes into effect as planned, forcing lots and lots of people out of their employer-financed plans and into the government corral.
YEE HAW! Head ’em up, MOOOOOVE ’em out!
It’s official: I’m a prophet.
Is that anything like a propheteer? One Percenter!
If they were really clever, they would outlaw abortion to keep the pro-lifers happy and then offer waivers. Imagine lines of teenage girls lining up at the local congressman’s campaign HQ to offer a donation and other campaign services.
Crap. I just got flagged by the NSA.
Obama’s blessing is the law.
It’s not so bad McGehee. They flagged me years ago. Here, I saved you a seat.
Mcgehee? trust me, we all already were. Gayle? Don’t hold your breath.
Malor says this may or may not be legal. I’m not a lawyer and I was nowhere near a Holiday Inn last night, but to me it seems illegal. A law passed by congress, with specific time frames and other bullshit ( I’m not a lawyer ) couldn’t possibly be changeable at the whim of the executive, could it?
Oh wait…There are hundreds of ” The secretary ( Sebelius *spit*) shall. Maybe it is?
If I were a business right now, I’d be terrified. The IRS pulls all sorts of retroactive crap — they could “waive” the reporting requirement now and then come back in January 2015 and slap every business with 13 months’ worth of fines and penalties for not reporting on the employee healthcare thing. Not fun. I’m not saying they will do that, but the fgact that the IRS could (and could do it selectively) would definitely be one of my big thoughts.
So who’s going to bring the lawsuit to make Obama-Sibelius-Holder make employers do what they never wanted to do in the first place? And what’s the likelihood the Courts would make Obama et. al. make employers do it? And then what’s the liklihood that Obama et. al. would defer to the courts?
And by the time all of that got sorted out, won’t it be 2015 anyways?
Hospitals to Obama: Spare us, too
I’ve thought of that Ernst. No private citizen can bring a lawsuit. Maybe congress? And you’re right on the other end too. Way too late to do anything about it.
Gutless repukes in congress will NOT impeach, which every day needs more doing.
No surprise, really. They’ve always said they wouldn’t enforce laws they didn’t like.
Just kind of funny in this case, since they own Obamacare.
That is, funny in a pathetic-and-not-at-all-humorous sense.
And I’m not sure I have the scratch for a decent bottle of single-malt.
Hell Tresspass, Jack and coke works in a pinch.
And coke….
And this is the pinch, innit?
Nah Tresspasser, we’re not there just yet. Well, maybe a pinch, but we’re not quite well into a full body crush by Old Man Willow.
There is a Bombadil out there, just not sure where.
Recall he was worthless to the cause; so for-shit useless that he didn’t make the screenplay. Like most GOP senators save Cruz.
Hhhmmmm… who, exactly SHOULD he have backed ? Herman Cain ? Rick Santorum ? I mean, seriously, are you SHITTING me ? One of those two boobs was going to beat Barrack Obama, the mainstream media, AND the non-existent but oh so life threatening war on women and gays !?
Give me a fucking revisionist history loving break.
And when, exactly, did PJ media and the likes of Instapundit and Roger Simon suddenly become part of the GOP establishment or the ruling class or whatever stupid BS is being peddled here.
Rant all you want, but try and aim at the actual people that deserve it.
Right, dead — it’s our fault for having no more faith in Romney’s chances than Romney had.
Worst thing the GOP could have done was nominate somebody who STOOD FOR SOMETHING. Got it. Thanks.
darleen says if wishes were fishes then we would have beggars riding on horsies saying giddy up horsey giddy up like how Johnny Depp’s character Tonto does in the smash hit film the Lone Rangers now in a theater near you
Cripes, rody. Are you still pouting? Romney was a shitty candidate. Just like McCrazy. Just like Bob Dole. Just like Jeb Bush or Chris Christie is going to be.
Pardon the hell out of us for looking elsewhere for a winner.
that Mitt Romney goof-ass was and is an out of touch massholio weirdo
he did perform the service of revealing Paul Ryan’s utter and complete fecklessness as a debater and as a candidate generally
I would never have guessed that in a million years
For that service of Mitt’s, I will be eternally grateful.
Point I believe jg was making (and I might not be correct) was that Roger Simon would’ve backed anyone the GOP decided to push. Had the GOP trotted out as favorable anyone else for serious consideration, early on, instead of their having obviously decided well before the process even started that Romney was their ‘chosen one’, Roger Simon would’ve likely tagged right along behind the GOP’s favored weasel, wagging his tail. Because Roger Simon, then, wasn’t thinking of anything but GOP Party First.
Now we see Roger Simon possibly reconsidering his premature tail waggings, perhaps realizing (finally!) that the GOP is a Party that’s built to lose, forevermore. The GOP could care less what we, outside the elite corridors of power looking in, think of the already-proffered candidates (Bush III and Fat_Ass).
So. #AbandonTheGOP.
Roger, if you decide to tag along, join us! But please don’t come around in 2016 with your nicely creased hat off, begging monies for the GOP’s Bush – Christie ticket.
#Nevermore.