"Nobody here in the nation's capital except for the occasional starry-eyed RNC intern believes that Boehner is serious. If he really wanted to fight amnesty, he could have done so in the omnibus spending bill."...
12/16/14, "In Defense of the Senate Revolt," Jeffrey Lord, American Spectator
"Cruz and Lee lead the real conservatives."
Every army has disagreements among its leaders, but they must agree on tactics to effect their strategy. Every football team must agree on the next play if it is to work. In the Senate, caucus leaders are chosen precisely to make such decisions. The weekend's events demonstrate that some Republicans are not playing on the same team. This was not a simple, common occurrence of senatorial independence, but rather open defiance of caucus strategy — a decision by junior officers that their own tactical decisions take precedence over those of generals who were chosen for the job.Say what? Losing again and again? One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the thought that after decades of establishment “victory” the country is $18 trillion in debt and the government more bloated than ever. Now Republicans have, over the last few days, openly allied themselves with President Obama and conceded the power of the purse for half of the entire next session of Congress in which they will hold majorities.
When this happens, games and battles are lost. Before Republicans take the majority in the Senate next month, they should make up their minds about who is in charge. Otherwise, they face the prospect of losing again and again.
This is a pluperfect example of what we have already discussed in this space more than once. That would be what Margaret Thatcher called the “socialist ratchet." As she wrote of her own Conservative Party:
I could not help noticing a curious discrepancy in the behavior of my colleagues. What they said and what they did seemed to exist in two separate compartments. It was not that they consciously deceived anyone; they were in fact conspicuously honorable. But the language of free enterprise, anti-socialism and the national interest sprang readily to their lips, while they conducted government business on very different assumptions about the role of the state at home….Their rhetoric was prompted by general ideas they thought desirable, such as freedom; their actions were confined by general ideas they thought inevitable…In fact, this is exactly what was on display with House and Senate Republicans this last week.
Almost all the policies hawked by ‘practical’ men on ‘pragmatic’ grounds turned out in the end to be highly impractical. Yet this fact never seemed to dent their enthusiasm…
Over at the Daily Caller, columnist Matt Lewis hails the Examiner, citing one of my columns in which I discussed the "ruling class” Republicans’ attack on Delaware conservative Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell. Now writes Lewis of Ted Cruz, who might be described as Margaret Thatcher in pants:
The impulse to applaud a politician who embraces the cult of action is understandable, but should we make a hero of the guy who wants to win the football game so much he accidentally scores a touchdown for the opposing team?…Got it. We're professional conservatives who are in this for the money. But all those K Street Republicans who have their hooks into Thad Cochran's career as Senate Appropriations Big Guy? Naaaah. No profit motive there.
I’m interested in the way politicians can frame obvious losses as victories, and the way their fans now live in a sort of alternative universe — a state of willing denial — where the very facts are in dispute. This works, partly because of an infrastructure. While many of Cruz and Lee’s boosters are grassroots conservatives who are fed up with Washington, others are professional conservatives who exploit this “game” for profit (or simply because it’s part of their branding shtick).
And the business of how Cruz “accidentally scores a touchdown for the opposing team”? This is what establishment Republicans do every day, all day. It is precisely why Ronald Reagan called them “fraternal order” Republicans.
Yet Lewis goes on to complain:
In any event, the larger problem is that if conservatives are afraid to say “the emperor has no clothes,” then we will continue rewarding the wrong things, which means conservatives will continue losing. Is it wise to look the other way? It doesn’t do much good to pretend that the touchdown counts for your team when it was scored in the wrong end zone, but what if even after watching the game film, we still decline to tell our star player he cost us the game?Well, I’m all too happy to say “the emperor has no clothes.”
This raises a question: Who cares more about something, the guy who ignores its faults or the guy who wants to address them? An animal lover will get his dog to the vet the minute he turns away from his kibble. The car lover won’t ignore that pinging sound because he loves his Ford Mustang too much to say something about it. The coach or sports commentator who ignores the botched play makes it more likely the offending player will do it again. Yet, in the conservative movement, blind loyalty seems to be demanded. It’s ironically a form of protectionism. Of escapism.
For now, the choice is to either speak out and be beaten down, or to remain silent. Of course, as was the case with the O’Donnell criticism, intellectually honest commentary tends to look much better in hindsight. But at the time, daring to question even a given strategy or tactics employed by the conservative darling of the moment is fraught with danger.
Kudos to the Examiner for a profile in courage. Kids, don’t try this at home.
Which is to say that there are far too many members of the GOP in the House and Senate who have sold their souls to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to out-and-out crony capitalists and corporatists. To think that there’s no coincidence between the GOP Senate and House caving on amnesty and the Chamber’s support for amnesty is frankly preposterous.
Critics of Cruz and Lee complain that the pair's move has given Harry Reid an opening to push through a slate of up to 23 of Obama's appointees. Lee answered that point specifically on Fox this morning by saying in response to questions from Bill Hemmer:
Lee: That’s not true, that’s not true. Look this is an outgoing Democratic Senate Majority Leader. It would have been political malpractice for him to adjourn for the year without getting these things through.The GOP complaint about Harry Reid is that he regularly manipulates Senate rules. He is, after all, the Senate Majority Leader who triggered the so-called “nuclear option” that forbade filibusters for most presidential nominees. So why exactly, in the waning days of his power as majority leader, would Reid not do everything in his power to confirm every last Obama nominee?
Hemmer: That includes the Surgeon General?
Lee: Correct.
This is typical timid acquiescence to the socialist ratchet. Find an excuse…any excuse…and give up.
The goal here is to win the day for limited government — and that goal will never be achieved when your own side is deliberately sabotaging the team. Hence the need for conservative Senate candidates — Christine O’Donnell over Mike Castle or Ted Cruz over David Dewhurst or Rand Paul over Trey Grayson or Marco Rubio over Charlie Crist. Yes, sometimes there will be losses. But make no mistake, better a loss to a liberal than a win with a faux conservative.
Barely a month after the November elections — elections in which every GOP candidate campaigned on repealing Obamacare — the Republican leaders of the House and the Senate fully funded the law for the entire first half of the next Congress. Senators like — to pick one — Pat Toomey of my own Pennsylvania put out statements like this one, made November 20th, on amnesty. (Hat tip: Brent Bozell, For America, and Heritage Action.)
I strongly oppose the President’s latest overreach of his legal authority and his decision to dictate sweeping immigration policy changes without legislation. America’s immigration system is badly broken and cries out for reform, including stronger border security and adequate opportunities for legal immigration. Regrettably, President Obama’s unilateral and legally unauthorized actions will do nothing to fix our broken system, and could encourage even more illegal immigration.”But Saturday night there was Pat Toomey on the floor of the U.S. Senate, reported by Breitbart to be “whipping” his colleagues to support the CRomnibus, which funds amnesty and funds Obamacare.
There is no excuse for this kind of thing, which has gone on long enough. This is why Reagan told Los Angeles Republicans, “We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals of our opposition and seek our support. Turning the party over to the moderates wouldn’t make any sense at all.”
Reagan got exactly the reaction from the establishment that Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are getting now. His challenge of Gerald Ford was greeted with exactly the same reaction. Four years after Ford lost to Jimmy Carter the ex-president and was busy telling the New York Times that Reagan was too “extreme” to get elected. That November Reagan carried 44 states and clobbered Carter. The more things change, the more they stay the same."
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Added: Regarding "nominees" cry of Daily Caller and Wash. Examiner: "All Obama nominees are objectionable...yet the Senate eventually caves to Obama on more or less all of them. Any Senate that can confirm a full-on racist, pro-terrorist, America-hating, kooky, in-your-face Marxist like Tom Perez as labor secretary is going to give its blessing to just about anyone Obama sends over."
12/16/14, "Ted Cruz was right, again," American Thinker, Matthew Vadum
"The usual suspects are attacking Ted Cruz for doing his job.
Republicans and a chorus of conservative commentators are dumping on the sole conservative Republican senator from Texas because–the horror!–he dared to force his Senate colleagues to publicly take sides on President Obama's shameful extralegal unilateral immigration amnesty.
Apologists for Republican cowardice claim to be upset with Cruz because, as they claim, his parliamentary maneuvers to stymie the amnesty somehow allowed some objectionable Obama nominees to move forward in the confirmation process.
Of course, they're lying. All Obama nominees are objectionable–remember, our president is a red diaper baby–yet the Senate eventually caves to Obama on more or less all of them. Any Senate that can confirm a full-on racist, pro-terrorist, America-hating, kooky, in-your-face Marxist like Tom Perez as labor secretary is going to give its blessing to just about anyone Obama sends over. Who really cares if a few bureaucrats who will be approved anyway by the incoming Republican Senate in the new year get to work a few weeks or months early?
What really infuriates namby-pamby Republican senators is that Cruz forced them to take a public stand on the president's unilateral amnesty. They know that the Republican Party base is mad as hell over the amnesty, and they don't feel the need to answer to mere hoi polloi. Bought off by the crony capitalist lobby, they support amnesty but don't want to face the electoral consequences for their betrayal of the American people. Just as Democrats don't want to get rid of poverty, Republicans in leadership don't want to stop the amnesty (or get rid of Obamacare, for that matter). They need villains against which to rail.
The country just went through congressional elections that gave lawmakers an undeniable, thunderous mandate to oppose Obama's radical left-wing juggernaut, and in particular, his odious immigration amnesty that will benefit 5 million or more illegal alien lawbreakers. On Nov. 4, the GOP flipped control of the 100-seat U.S. Senate, with a new total of 54 seats. The House GOP increased its majority, totaling at least 246 out of 435 seats. Republicans will be calling the shots in the new Congress that will be seated in January.
Yet when Cruz gave Republican senators, who campaigned against the immigration amnesty, an opportunity to do something about it, 20 Republican senators gave American voters the one-finger salute.
While Congress was considering a spending bill to keep the government funded through the end of the federal fiscal year on Sept. 30, 2015, Cruz objected, raising a constitutional point of order against the $1-trillion-plus monstrosity that, if it had been sustained, would have returned the fiscal legislation to the House to remove amnesty funding.
There was never, after all, a reason to rush an all-encompassing bill funding the federal government before appropriations ran out on Dec. 11. Instead of giving Obama virtually everything he wanted despite his party's historic drubbing at the polls last month, lawmakers could easily have drafted a stopgap spending bill to carry them over to January, when Republicans will control both chambers of Congress and have greater bargaining power in negotiations with the president.
But they didn't. After hours and days of arm-twisting, they rammed an abominable spending bill through Congress that funds Obama's Democrat voter-importation program.
It was an easy vote. A gimme.
But to their everlasting shame, 20 Republicans voted to reject Cruz's point of order, waive the Constitution, and green-light Obama's amnesty....
(Hey, master strategist Ann Coulter: do you still believe that McConnell is opposed to amnesty? Just nine months ago you viciously attacked conservatives for questioning McConnell's bona fides on the issue. You wrote that the senator "may be the only thing standing between us and a scheme to import 30 million new Democratic voters.")
In the end, the bill funds all of the federal government through the fiscal year-end except for the Department of Homeland Security, which enforces immigration laws. DHS funding runs out Feb. 27, 2015.
The idea, according to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), is to revisit the amnesty issue next year when Republicans are in a stronger position. "Without a threat of a government shutdown," Boehner said, "this sets up a direct challenge to the president's unilateral actions on immigration when we have new majorities in both chambers of Congress."
Nobody here in the nation's capital except for the occasional starry-eyed RNC intern believes that Boehner is serious. If he really wanted to fight amnesty, he could have done so in the omnibus spending bill.
Cruz said as much on the Senate floor Friday.
"I would note that a whole lot of citizens across this country feel a little bit like Charlie Brown with Lucy and the football, wherein fight after fight, leadership in Congress says 'we'll fight next time,'" Cruz said. "Not this time, no, no, no."
"There comes a point when Charlie Brown has kicked the football and fallen on his rear end one too many times," he said. "When our leaders say as a commitment we will fight and we will stop President Obama's illegal amnesty, I take them at their word, but I am confident the American people will hold them to their word."
Just about nobody in the conservative punditry seems to be getting the story right. They are regurgitating an easily digested talking point generated by Democrats and the Senate's RINO establishment. If it hadn't been for Cruz, a slew of Obama nominees would still be sucking their thumbs in a state of constitutional limbo, they'd have us believe.
And as usual, they're wrong about Cruz.
Rick Moran of PJ Media went on and on in a column about Cruz, sprinkling it with ugly personal insults. Cruz is a "demagogue" who suffers from a "narcissistic compulsion to make everything about him." He "lacks the judgment and temperament necessary to hold the highest office in the land." Moran sneers that "[h]is is simple, nihilistic obstructionism."
Paul Mirengoff of Powerline also doesn't get it but is much more polite. "Cruz and (Utah Sen. Mike) Lee accomplished nothing in terms of the spending bill or the executive amnesty," he wrote. "Ted Cruz's heart is in the right place, but once again, his judgment must be questioned."
Former Bush 43 speechwriter and anti-conservative Michael Gerson, a man whose rhetorical expertise helped to fuel an orgy of federal overreach, overspending, and fiscal irresponsibility that laid the groundwork for the Obama presidency, smeared Cruz and his supporters on Face the Nation.
Cruz's "wing of the party is writing the book on how to lose friends and alienate people. This is – they got a vote eventually, 22 people supporting it. They're really undermining their own cause. And you can question the reason whether that's fundraising or foolishness."
George Will, an increasingly tedious defender of the GOP establishment, trashed Cruz on Fox News Sunday. "Elizabeth Warren and Ted Cruz together at last. No one knows what they were trying to accomplish, but that doesn't seem to matter to them."
Say what you will about Warren, Democratic senator from Massachusetts, but she knew exactly what she was doing and was abundantly transparent about it. Warren was livid about provisions slipped into the bill repealing Wall Street regulations.
She urged lawmakers to oppose a "deal negotiated behind closed doors that slips in a provision that would let derivatives traders on Wall Street gamble with taxpayer money and get bailed out by the government when their risky bets threaten to blow up our financial system."
That's Warren's privilege, whether Will likes it or not.
In any event, Cruz was right about amnesty, just as he was right about last year's government shutdown. The last shutdown, which the GOP establishment blamed Cruz for, was a resounding success that helped to make last month's electoral bloodbath possible.
Elected Republicans won't acknowledge that the last shutdown in October 2013 was an unmitigated public relations success for Republicans, even though it might not have felt that way at the time. Setting aside the relentless media propaganda that falsely painted the shutdown as a massive Democratic tactical victory, the episode sent the unmistakable message that GOPers were champions of freedom of choice in health care.
The shutdown caused GOP public approval numbers to surge, helped to revive the fight against Obamacare as millions of Americans were having their health insurance policies abruptly canceled, and helped to set the stage for the Republicans’ historic trouncing of the Democrats in congressional elections.
The shutdown was a wonderful civics lesson, an extended, cost-free infomercial for the GOP that reminded Americans that Republicans were on their side on an issue that mattered to them. In other words, it derailed what had seemed like an unstoppable leftist narrative that the always unpopular Obamacare was a done deal and that resistance to it was futile.
Sens. Cruz and Mike Lee of Utah vow to continue the fight against the Obama amnesty in the new year. Let's hope it's not too late." via Free Rep.
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"They’re so disdainful of what Mr. Cruz and Mike Lee did over the weekend, because it exposed our GOP emperors have no clothes."...
12/15/14, "For conservatives, it’s all about 2016, and that starts in 2015," Washington Times, Steve Deace
"Republicans won big in the 2014 midterm election, but it already looks as if conservatives still lost.
Just look at what’s transpired the past few weeks:
- The GOP establishment moved quickly to retain all their leadership positions before the new Congress is convened in January, thus shutting conservatives completely out of the mix.
- That same GOP leadership has already funded every Obama scam they promised the American people during the campaign they would stop, scheming alongside a president they keep describing as “lawless” to pass the so-called “Cromnibus.” "...
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For Daily Caller's information, the GOP E didn't reach out to stray journalists for the millions it needed. What it cost the Establishment to beat us in the 2014 Mississippi GOP primary:
Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran campaign spending chart, OpenSecrets.org:
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6/30/14, "The Ruling Class Went Down to Mississippi," Angelo M. Codevilla
Dr. Codevilla on the 2014 GOP Mississippi primary
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Image: Ted Cruz, "Screen shot, 12/15/14, 6:49pm," from American Spectator
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12/16/14, "What Really Happened This Weekend," "Why I tried to block Obama’s amnesty." Politico, By SEN. TED CRUZ
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Comment: Senators Cruz and Lee have both been law clerks to Supreme Court Justices, Cruz to Rehnquist and Lee to Alito among other accomplishments prior to the Senate. Lee has been a Senator for 4 years, Cruz for 2. It's unlikely their Constitutional point of order was undertaken without serious foundation. Why doesn't the media write about how John Boehner and the GOP E have attempted to nullify part of the Constitution by denying its existence? Numerous GOP E have falsely claimed publicly and to other members that the House doesn't have unilateral power of the purse. They claim all House defunding has to be approved by the Senate and White House which of course is false.
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