No time for blinking

The notion of funding all of the government except FHer-care has been codified into legislation:

Republican Rep. Tom Graves and 42 House cosponsors introduced a budget plan Thursday to defund Obamacare without forcing a government shutdown, placing pressure solely on the shoulders of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Graves’ Security, Stability, and Fairness Resolution is a continuing resolution budget bill that offers a fiscal year 2014 budget that keeps the government open but does not fund Obamacare. The Obama administration has already delayed the law’s employer mandate until 2015, after the 2014 midterm elections.

I was pleased to see my representative, Luke Messer, on the list of 42 co-sponsors.

But the Freedom-Haters in the Senate are wasting no time breathing down John Boehner's neck, trying to encourage his symptoms of Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome:

Reid met with Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, and the other top congressional leaders for about 45 minutes on Thursday morning to discuss ways to deal with the looming deadlines on government funding and the debt limit. Reid and his Democratic leadership team followed the meeting with a news conference.

“As we all know, the speaker has a problem, how to get the government funded,” Reid said. “I told him very directly that all these things they’re trying to do on the Obamacare is just a waste of their time.”

Reid repeated what he’s said many times before: He is sympathetic to Boehner and will provide as much help as he can as Congress tries to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running, as well as another hike in the debt limit.

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin was more direct.

“I sometimes sympathize with Speaker Boehner, but the fact of the matter is, if he wants to lead for the good of this nation he has to step beyond the tea party faction in his caucus,” the Illinois Democrat said. “If he would call our farm bill on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, it would pass. I believe if he called our immigration bill on the floor of the House of Representatives, it would pass. If he would call on the floor a basic funding level of the Senate budget resolution, it would pass.”

Instead, Durbin said, “He has bowed to this willful minority in his own caucus at the expense of this government and of this nation.”

Will the Speaker remember that this is a war for America's soul?