He sure is good at marketing himself. For a freshman legislator to get this much clout is astounding.
When it comes to creating policy I would have to say not so much. He is chewing his political capital on something that has about zero chance of working. His own GOP especially the leadership don't like his antics. He forced the speakers hand and the speaker has done an excellent job at pinning it all on Cruz. If the GOP looks bad --again-- because of brinksmanship regarding the budget then they have a prepackaged scapegoat.
Seeing that the senate is comprised as it is, their ploy has no chance of actually working. At least he is making press.
"Liberals are scared less of this guy and that's why they're trying to destroy him"
Cruz is disliked, even hated by Senate Repugs. He is the General Custer of this defund-ACA craziness and will get slaughtered doing it.
Dems simply watching the show with glee.
what Insurance companies and Pharmaceutical companies are really afraid of..............premiums and drugs will go down dramatically and the republicans will lose dramatically in 2014......this will happen and the GOP and their sponsors feel like there is nothing to lose.
^either they will lose because people will see how good it is, or they will lose because they shut the govt down.
This is big business vs people and the GOP is defending the big business to the end.
St Ronnie was a union leader before he got wealthy and started screwing the 99% while enriching himself and his 1% buddies.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/19/john...a_living_ /
New test could expose GOP’s pack of charlatans
Do Cruz, Paul and co. really want to shut the government down over Obamacare? Their farce may soon be revealed
BY BRIAN BEUTLER
Conservatives in the Senate have spent weeks and weeks hectoring House Republicans to stand true to GOP principles and make funding for the federal government contingent upon Democrats agreeing to defund Obamacare.
It’s about to blow up in their faces, and probably turn several of their more moderate colleagues into collateral damage.
Frustrated House Republicans are already demanding that their conservative antagonists in the Senate fight to the bitter end, as they promised they would, to either defund the healthcare law or shut down the government. That means Sens. Ted Cruz, R*Texas; Mike Lee, R*Utah; Marco Rubio, R*Fla.; Rand Paul, R*Ky.; and others will be held to account if they don’t do everything in their power to prevent a government funding bill from clearing the Senate if it doesn’t also defund Obamacare.
There are real steps they can take. But they’re already indicating they don’t plan to put up much of a fight. And if they lie down, it will expose their
Defund Obamacare campaign as a farce engineered by hollow charlatans. The House will vote this week on legislation that temporarily renews funding for the federal government, but prohibits any federal dollars from being used during that stretch to fund Obamacare. If it passes — that remains an if — it heads to the Senate, where arcane parliamentary rules give individual members (read: Republicans) tremendous power over legislative proceedings.
The precise steps conservative members can take to keep the debate chugging until they get their way depend on how the debate itself is structured at the outset. But it’s not as simple as Cruz indicated in a statement Wednesdayight.
“Harry Reid will no doubt try to strip the defund language from the continuing resolution, and right now he likely has the votes to do so,” Cruz said. “At that point,
House Republicans must stand firm, hold their ground, and continue to listen to the American people.”
He and his conservative allies will be under the microscope. If they think they can just sit in their offices until it’s time to vote no, and then claim they did
everything in their power to defund Obamacare, they’re in for a rude awakening.
The first question for these conservatives is whether they plan to engage in battle with the rest of the Senate GOP conference.The bill coming over from the House will be “fully debatable on both ends,” according to a Senate Democratic leadership aide.
That’s technical mumbo*umbo, but it basically means Harry Reid will potentially face at least two filibusters if he wants to pass a final bill. Breaking filibusters
requires 60 votes — which means he’ll need Republican help at some point along the way to fund Obamacare. First, he’ll need Republican support just to begin
debate on the bill. Then he’ll need Republican votes to end it. The rules probably allow him to strip the defunding measure at the end of that process with a simple
majority. But first he has to get there. And the Republican Party has a lot of power over whether he gets there and what happens in between.
Under less contentious cir stances, Reid, in conjunction with agreeable Republicans, could zip right through all this tedium with no real debate. But given the
political valence of this government shutdown fight, that would amount to surrender — to GOP complicity in stripping the defunding measure from the bill.
So the first questions are: Will Lee, Cruz, et al., insist on a real debate of the House bill? If they do, will the entire GOP conference back them up? If not, which
unfortunate Republicans will cast the votes that ultimately give Reid the power to junk the defunding provision? Or worse, which Republicans will cast votes to
junk it themselves? And how much pressure will Sen. Mitch McConnell, R*Ky., the embattled Senate minority leader, bring to bear on the conference to toe the
conservative line.
The answers will be extremely revealing. If the conservatives say nothing, they’ll betray their whole charade. If moderate and mainstream Republicans cross
them, they’ll have to stand up and vote, and thus become sitting ducks on the right. If McConnell slinks into the distance, he’ll have to answer for it in Kentucky.
The real test for these conservatives will come if they lock in extended debate on the House funding bill. In this interregnum, individual members can delay the
inevitable passage of legislation they don’t like by initiating a “talking filibuster” — just like the famous one Rand Paul launched this past March. Except Paul was more or less on his own. The Defund Caucus is about a dozen members large.
“If they were really careful about the way they did it and tag*teamed it indefinitely they could filibuster it indefinitely,” said a Senate Dem aide.
To shut down the government, they’d need to execute the filibuster flawlessly. “That would involve them doing it for over a week with no screw*ups,” the aide said. But conservative activists, not to mention the House Republicans they’ve spent months dogging, will expect them to try. If they pass up the chance, they’ll expose the defund campaign as a sham. And at the end of the process, some Senate Republicans are going to have to vote — at least — to give Reid and Democrats the power to strip the defunding measure. They’ll be damaged goods. Either way, someone loses, and all because conservatives in the Senate thought they could demagogue the issue without ever having to put their credibility on the line.
“All options are on the table,” Cruz’s spokeswoman Catherine Frazier told Salon.
Last night on Hannity, aware that he’d stepped in it, Cruz himself vowed to fight “with every breath” to pass a defunding CR in the Senate.
Today, Republicans are taking a crash course in Senate parliamentary procedure, possibly preparing for some long nights. If there was any doubt that John
Boehner’s latest move was an exercise in calling conservatives’ bluff, this should put it to bed.
If figure Cruz, Lee, Rubio, Wombat Hair all will lose, lose very BIG and very publicly, then be re-elected as winners by their asshole cons uents.
I see Cruz and company playing hardball with Harry Reid, and Dingy Harry running to the microphones every night whining and complaining like he always does.
What's the end game. You and they have already conceded that there is no way to defund The ACA. So what the point? Shut down the government to grandstand?
I don't know what the end game is but Ted Cruz is a smart guy. I believe he's got something brilliant up his sleeve. Yeah, go ahead and laugh, but I say let's wait and see how this plays out.
FACING PRIMARY, LINDSEY GRAHAM NOW SUPPORTS DEFUNDING OBAMACARE
by MIKE FLYNN 21 Sep 2013, 8:29 AM PDT
On Friday, the House voted for a resolution to keep government open but also defund ObamaCare. Within minutes, Nancy Mace, who is opposing Sen. Lindsey Graham in the GOP primary, issued a press release attacking Graham for his past criticism of the defunding strategy. In just two hours, Graham tweeted that he supported the House's efforts to defund the unpopular health care law. Such is the power of primaries.
Lindsey Graham ✔ @GrahamBlog
I support the House-passed bill to Defund Obamacare. #SenateMustAct
11:17 AM - 20 Sep 2013
90 RETWEETS 29 FAVORITES Reply
As recently as July, Graham said that defunding ObamaCare was "a bridge too far for him." Primary opponents do tend to focus a politician's mind.
Graham faces at least three opponents in next year's primary contest. Normally, multiple challengers give an edge to in bents, as opposition is split among several challengers. South Carolina, however, uses a run-off system. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, the top two voter-getters face off in a run-off. Multiple challengers increase the odds that Graham falls below 50% and has to face a run-off.
Graham is no doubt a nice man and would make a good GOP Senator from a state like Maine. His representing South Carolina, however, is a wasted opportunity for conservatives. An East Coast John McCain does a disservice to the Palmetto State.
Graham's tweet in support of the House action indicates he is aware of the challenge before him. Few in bents are so disliked by the grass-roots, both in South Carolina and across the country. A run-off election, with a single conservative challenger, would ignite national interest and possibly create a wave that washes over Graham.
His tweet in support of defunding ObamaCare was a good start. He now has to follow that up over the coming weeks.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...ding-ObamaCare
I expect John McCain to come around shortly.
You realize that the house bill is not being passed by the senate and even if he'll froze over and it did, the president is not signing the bill, right?
you're whooping and hollering from the sideline for political impotence.
I believe it's possible that a tremendous amount of pressure could be brought to bear on the Senate by their cons uents who want 0bamacare defunded, so much pressure that at least 60 Senators vote to pass the House bill as is. 60 votes, as we all know, overrides anything the Community Organizer in Chief wants to do. Am I presenting a realistic scenario or am I high?
you're just delusional and blinded by your unfounded hate for POTUS, imho.
That wasn't one of the choices.
You're delusional if you think there are 60 senators willing to defund The ACA. Most people don't even know that the ACA is even a law or just don't give a . Red team had their chance to scrap the law last year but they lost the presidential election and managed to lose seats in the senate because they ran fringe candidates. You're a part of the fringe. You consume fringe media that tells you what you want to hear. You don't live in reality tbh.
Be that as it may, we'll just have to wait and see how this all plays out.
Be that as it may, we'll just have to wait and see how this all plays out.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
"Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Sunday warned Senate Republicans that refusing to filibuster a bill that defunds President Barack Obama’s health care reform law “is a vote for Obamacare,” and he also advised House Republicans to “shut down the military” if they had to."
“If Harry Reid kills the bill in the Senate, the House should hold its ground, and should begin passing smaller continuing resolutions, one department at a time,” Cruz explained. “It should start with a continuing resolution focused on the military.”
“Send it over, see if Harry Reid is willing to shut down the military,” he quipped.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/2...-the-military/
See you right wing libertarian, tea bag sucking assholes, esp you Texas ing assholes, Cruz' bomb-throwing is YOUR bomb-throwing. May you all lose your jobs in the Cruz/Lee/Rubio/WombatHair govt crippling and/or shutdown.
Palin demands Fox News host turn over the GOP ‘cannibals’ who are trying to ‘trash’ Cruz
In a tweet addressed to Wallace’s Fox News Sunday show, Palin demanded to know who was trying to “trash” Cruz.
“Keep it TRULY fair & balanced.
Release the GOP names encouraging you to trash @SenTedCruz,” she werote. “No more anonymous sources.”
“Someday I’m actually going to tell America what I really think about GOP elephants that would actually turn on a senator who is fulfilling his campaign promises,” Palin told Fox News host Shannon Bream later on Sunday. “Now these GOP elephants that are trying to turn on someone who is trying to fight for the will of the people, for liberty and for economic justice if you will, to have those turn on him is extremely disappointing. It’s not surprising though.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/2...to-trash-cruz/
Fox still showcasing this ignornant, crazy, money-grubbing YOU PEOPLE wanted for vice-president!
sheeple news!
IN POLL ABOUT DEBT-CEILING CRISIS, AMERICANS TOTALLY EXCITED ABOUT NEW IPHONE
In a poll taken over the weekend about the looming debt-ceiling crisis and government shutdown, most Americans said that they were totally excited about the new iPhone 5s.
When asked about the prospect of a debt-ceiling logjam leading to a downgrade of the U.S. economy, seventy-two per cent of those surveyed said that the new iPhone looks like the most awesome iPhone yet.
Questioned about the disastrous impact of the U.S. government defaulting on the nation’s debt, sixty-five per cent agreed with the statement, “I can’t believe I waited on line all Friday for the 5s and they told me they’re sold out until October.”
On the topic of whether the debt-ceiling crisis could plunge the world economy into the most apocalyptic catastrophe since the financial meltdown of 2008, Americans were deeply divided over which color iPhone they would choose, but agreed that all of them looked amazing.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...rowitz%20(170)
Vice President Palin demands that the Senate obey President Cruz
Former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin further stoked Republican turmoil over the weekend by writing on Breitbart News
“It’s time for the Senate to put itself on Cruz Control” and hinting she may endorse the primary opponents of those who defy her.
“A little reminder to Republican senators up for re-election in 2014: Moose season ends soon,
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/0...President-Cruz
pitbull thinks she has any political power to intimidate/threaten Senators into voting with Cruz?
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