Skip to main content

The Cruz Missile

By



Ted Cruz, the outspoken Senator for the Great State of Texas has undertaken an epic filibuster (17 hours and counting) on the spending bill placed before the Senate, because the Democrats have the audacity to take out the de-funding for the Affordable Care Act with a simple majority vote in the second round.  Apparently, dear Ted didn't initially know that this was standard procedure, until he was called out by Chris Wallace on Fox "News."

There seems to be a lot of things Ted doesn't know, like the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose a government shutdown over "Obamacare," which is what would happen were Ted actually able to stall a vote on the spending bill.  I guess his unspoken hero is Wendy Davis, who was able to beat the clock on an anti-abortion bill in Texas, only for the state legislature to reconvene and pass the bill anyway.  One can only assume he too is wearing a catheter.  But, the reality is this fake filibuster has no consequence on the vote.

Mitch McConnell and other ranking Republicans had asked Ted to cease and desist in his folly, but Ted refused to back down.  He saw how Rand Paul's filibuster last Spring vaulted him to the top of the Teabaggers' Presidential Ball, and he wants to join this dance before it is too late.  But, even Rand seems to be sitting this one out.

All this grandstanding leads one to ask what the Republicans are hoping to accomplish by defunding the Affordable Care Act, gutting food stamps and slashing education.  It's like no Republicans are on the dole or need public health and education.  They seem to exist in an alternative reality, like the town of Pleasantville where everyone pulls his own weight and women are tame housewives and children cite the Pledge of Allegiance and the Lord's Prayer before the start of each day of school.

But, Ted is a Harvard grad and obviously knows a thing or two.  He's no innocent, that's for sure, but a shrewd, calculating politician who has his eyes on the top political prize in 2016, knowing that Teabaggers love nothing more than a Congressional martyr, and he seems more than willing to carry their cross if it will give him the Republican nomination.

Comments

  1. James FergusonSeptember 25, 2013 at 6:05 PM

    The most amusing part of this fake filibuster is that it was pre-arranged,

    http://www.businessinsider.com/ted-cruz-filibuster-defund-obamacare-senate-government-shutdown-2013-9

    and a vote for cloture will take place at noon irregardless of his pointless harangue. It's like Reid said to him, if you want to make a fool of yourself go ahead.

    ReplyDelete
  2. James FergusonSeptember 26, 2013 at 10:34 AM

    In case you were wondering why I called him the Cruz missile,

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj9M34DzAKo

    ReplyDelete
  3. avrdsSeptember 28, 2013 at 2:36 PM

    That was very weird. He's also been called Carnival Cruz which also seems apt.

    Everyone keeps acknowledging how brilliant he is and I'm sure he is, but listening to part of his diatribe made me wonder if he might also have a screw or two loose.

    ReplyDelete
  4. James FergusonSeptember 28, 2013 at 11:28 PM

    I have a feeling this whole thing is going to blow up in the Republicans' faces, especially now that Cruz and Lee are actually trying to block the spending bill and cause a shutdown. This Tea Party has become nothing more than anarchists of the worst kind, totally devoid of any principles and determined to create a crisis in this country. Cruz seems to be their all too willing agent.

    ReplyDelete
  5. avrdsSeptember 29, 2013 at 3:44 AM

    For some reason, many in Washington are hoping they do shut down the government to let some of the steam out of the system. Hardly what I would call a reasonable alternative, but I guess many believe Cruz et al. will let the U.S. default which will be even worse.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro
228 comments
Read more

Dylan in America

By
Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan.  Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose.  Looks like only yesterday.  Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.
182 comments
Read more

Team of Rivals Reading Group

By
''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005
293 comments
Read more