Still standing with Cruz!

Ted Cruz, accompanied by Lee and several other young conservatives, are still at it after 20+ hours! His time will soon expire, since an agreement was made in which they technically don't want to call this a filibuster (you can guarantee Reid is chomping at the bit to shut his time down). But I just wanted to share a couple of thoughts explaining just what's going on and what this means for the conservative movement.

Ed Morrissey of HotAir writes:

No matter what one thinks of the strategy, Cruz’ performance has been impressive in every sense of the word. The “long speech” — it’s not really a filibuster, since debate has already been limited and a vote scheduled for today — has objectively raised the profile of the opposition to ObamaCare, and whether that would have worked better for a delay than defunding is really moot at this point.

Why is Cruz doing it? Heritage explains why he's standing against Obamacare:

MorningBell: Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) stood on the Senate floor yesterday to speak against Obamacare. He kept speaking all night and well into the morning.

Why? Because Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) wants to use procedural tricks to strip the House-passed bill of the provision that would defund Obamacare.

Reid wants to cut off debate and strong-arm funding for Obamacare, just as he strong-armed passage of this unfair, unworkable, and unaffordable bill three years ago. But if all the Senators who say they oppose Obamacare stand up to him—and stand together—they can stop him from funding Obamacare.

Related links: Cruz Eviscerates Obamacare, over and over and over...
Ted Cruz calls out the media for ignoring substance in Obamacare fight
Ted Cruz trounces Dick Durbin in colloquy on Obamacare

Back to Morrissey's piece...although there's much skepticism about any principled action taken by the current GOP leadership, Morrissey writes that according to Politico (of which there's equal skepticism), Boehner has the delay option ready to go once a bill is passed back to the House.

The House Republican leadership is seriously considering attaching a one-year delay of Obamacare’s individual mandate to the Senate bill to avert a government shutdown, according to senior GOP aides.

If House Republicans decide to go this route, it would all but provoke a government shutdown, since Senate Democrats might not even schedule a vote on a bill that includes that provision, Senate leadership staffers say. Even if the Senate schedules a vote, there might not be time to move the legislation through the slow-moving chamber.

We are talking about Boehner's resolve here, so, there's that. However, such a move would display a reasonable approach towards Obamacare's implementation. Morrissey adds:

A shutdown for a couple of days isn’t going to create a headache, but it might get the Senate to act with a little more alacrity to Boehner’s next submission. Republicans need to push the inequitable delays imposed by the White House against the consumers’ interest to demand an explanation why the whole train wreck shouldn’t be delayed to their benefit.

Related link: A brief history of government shutdowns (or 'scaled-back budgeting')