Rush mentioned this on the air as his show opened.

It comes from the Associated Press, in a later paragraph of an Obama cheerleading item ("Obama pitches health plan in spirited appearance"; AP picture at right is from that story) by Julie Pace and David Espo.

The paragraph in question opens by giving readers the impression that either Pace, Espo, or another AP person has actually seen language in whatever iteration of ObamaCare happens to be floating around House chambers these days. But then it backs down and says it’s only "described by a Democratic aide," meaning that the wire service is willingly serving as a trial-balloon enabler:

In a new change sought by House Democrats, the fix-it bill would require businesses to count part-time workers when calculating penalties for failing to provide health coverage for employees. Smaller businesses would be exempt. The Senate bill would count only full-time workers in applying the penalties, but under the change, described by a Democratic aide, two part-time workers would count as one full-time worker. Businesses say that’s unduly burdensome, but Democrats contend it would prevent businesses from avoiding penalties by hiring more workers part-time.

A graphic of the paragraph in question, in case it’s revised, is here.

This would serve to penalize business that rely almost entirely on part-time or seasonal help. Just a few examples: amusement parks, fast-food operations, much of retail, and call centers. These businesses would have to pay a tax for not offering health care coverage to employees who are not and never have been eligible for full-blown company-provided benefits.

This is beyond bizarre. It’s as if there’s something wrong with having employees who have of their own free will committed to not working 40 hours a week.

As to the expected business reaction of going to more part-timers in the absence of such a provision — My gut reaction is that this idea would destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and and thousands of businesses and more than a few industries in one fell swoop, meaning that there would be few businesses of any kind to worry about, period. It’s almost as if they want to accomplish just that.

I’m sure commenters will have other insights based on their understanding of the circumstances of other businesses.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

RIP, Irving Kristol. Condolences to his family and his family and friends, along with intense gratitude from those who believe in individual freedom and liberty.

The Wall Street Journal has a compendium of key passages from Kristol’s essays during his time there. The Weekly Standard’s blog has links to several of his later columns. 

The Associated Press’s Hillel Italie wanted to make sure that everyone reading the wire service’s late Friday Kristol obituary (saved here in full for fair use and discussion purposes) came away knowing that "political writer" Kristol was a neoconservative.

It’s almost as if AP has a once-a-month minimum on employing the word. Apparently hampered in using it since the election of Dear Leader last November, Kristol’s passage gave Italie the opportunity to clean out the closet. Forms of the word "neoconservative" appear a remarkable 12 times in the obit’s roughly 1,400 words, accompanied by eight appearances of forms of "conservative." Geez, we get it already, Hillel.

By contrast, AP’s David Espo referred to the late Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy as "liberal" twice in roughly 2,000 words in his late-August Kennedy obituary (saved here).

Here are the first five paragraphs from Italie’s report, followed by additional paragraphs with "neocon" labeling:

Additional paragraphs with labeling: 

…. Former Vice President Dick Cheney was a longtime admirer and former President George W. Bush, whose administration was heavily populated by neoconservatives, awarded Kristol a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002, praising him as "a wide-ranging thinker whose writings have helped transform America’s political landscape."

Kristol himself would regard neo-conservatism as a job well done, a "generational phenomenon" that was "pretty much absorbed into a larger, more comprehensive conservatism." But the Iraq War and the poor economy badly damaged the right’s unity and credibility over the past few years.

…. Unlike such earlier advocates of the right as Sen. Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley, whose National Review journal Irving Kristol found "insufficiently analytical and ‘intellectual,’" most neoconservatives were not lifelong Republicans.

Ironically, "neoconservative" was not coined by a neoconservative, but is credited to socialist author-activist Michael Harrington, who used the term in a 1973 essay about Kristol and other former liberals.

Active in publishing for more than half a century, Kristol wrote essays and reviews for The New Leader and Commentary; released several books, including "Neo-Conservatism: The Autobiography of An Idea," and co-founded a seminal neoconservative journal, The Public Interest.

…. His reach kept expanding. In the mid-1970s, he acquired a powerful new champion: Cheney, then chief of staff under President Ford and an enthusiastic reader of Kristol’s work. Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980 and countless neoconservatives would become government and judicial leaders in the following decades.

"So I deem the neo-conservative enterprise to have been a success, to have brought elements that were needed to enliven American conservatism and help reshape American politics," Kristol wrote in 1995.

Also, Italie referred to Kristol twice as a former radical. Espo, in his Kennedy obituary, never used the word.

I’ll leave it to others to discuss Italie’s other not-so-subtle digs.