ANTI-GAY BIGOT TED CRUZ RECEIVES DISHONORABLE 2014 AWARDS FROM THE ADVOCATE, PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY

Ted Cruz is undoubtedly making Papa proud. 

The anti-gay Texas tea party senator, whose bigotry at times seems matched only by his father Rafael's, has managed to capture both The Advocate's Phobie Of The Year Award and People For The American Way's Equine Posterior Achievement Award for 2014. 

The Advocate, which previously named Russian President Vladimir Putin its Person Of The Year, says it tapped Cruz for the Phobie honor based on his introduction of the State Marriage Defense Act, also known as "DOMA 2.0," in February: 

Now if a same-sex couple gets married in New York, for example, and then moves or visits Cruz's home state of Texas, the federal government continues to recognize their marriage as legal. But Cruz says those couples should only be considered married when within the borders of a state that recognizes marriage equality.  

As you might expect, the Tea Party favorite has blamed federal marriage recognition on President Obama and "an out-of-control administration" that is "trying to force gay marriage on all 50 states." 

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Cruz took his idea even further in October, after the Supreme Court refused to overturn lower court rulings favoring marriage equality, and he promised to introduce an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would bar courts or the federal government from ever overturning a marriage law made at the state level. 

Other 2014 Phobie Awards went to Gambian president Yahya Jammeh, televangelist Pat Robertson, reality TV stars Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, Texas Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert, U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman, Phil Robertson of "Duck Dynasty," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, Florida Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi, Colorado Republican State Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt, Republican National Committee member Dave Agema, Kansas Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, radio commentator Linda Harvey and the Minnesota Child Protection League. 

Right Wing Watch reports that Cruz captured the Equine Posterior award for the second consecutive year by a 21-point margin in a poll of PFAW members and RWW readers: 

An anti-gay crusader, Cruz threatened civil disobedience to block the enforcement of gay rights measures, introduced new measures to prevent marriage equality, said same-sex marriage is “heartbreaking” and causes his heart to weep and alleged that gay rights laws will put pastors in prison.

Science-Denying Troglodyte Ted Cruz to Chair Senate Science Subcommittee

With the GOP takeover of the Senate, all the leadership positions will be filled by Republicans after the first of the year. Two of the most frightening changes will be on the Environment and Public Works Committee and the Subcommittee on Science and Space which will likely be chaired by James Inhofe (R-OK) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) respectively, two of the most adamant climate and science deniers in congress.

Cruz told CNN’s Dana Dash in February that facts contradict what climate scientists have told us about climate change and claimed that the “so-called scientific theory” is designed in such a way as to fit every scenario that may arise.

“The last 15 years, there has been no recorded warming. Contrary to all the theories that – that they are expounding, there should have been warming over the last 15 years. It hasn’t happened,” He told her dusting off the thoroughly debunked myth so often cited by climate deniers.

“Climate change, as they have defined it,” Cruz said, “can never be disproved, because whether it gets hotter or whether it gets colder, whatever happens, they’ll say, well, it’s changing, so it proves our theory.”

Of course, that is false. While there are ups and downs in the short-term, the trend over the last century has been steadily upward.

Cruz does have a solution:, he would remove all environmental regulations and allow drilling anywhere at any time for oil, fracking for gas and unlimited burning of coal.

Inhofe has cited the Bible as evidence that we need not worry about climate change which he has referred to on many occasions as “a hoax.”

“Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that ‘as long as the earth remains there will be seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.’ My point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”

These are the men we are going to have in charge of making policy decisions on science for at least the next two years.

Ted Cruz: It’s Obama’s Fault Republicans Left America Without A Surgeon General To Address Ebola

On CNN, host Candy Crowley on Sunday interviewed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and asked about how the sequester hurt funding for the Centers for Disease Control and how the National Rifle Association’s opposition to President Obama’s nominee for surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, also hurt the response to the Ebola virus.

Republicans in the Senate had blocked the appointment of Dr. Vivek Murthy and Cruz still points to President Obama as the problem.

“We haven’t had a Surgeon General — who is the nation’s leading public health official, at least the voice of it — for a year. Some Democrats and some Republicans had opposed the particular surgeon general the president had nominated. Do you think it would have helped,” Crowley remarked.

“Of course we should have a surgeon general in place,” Cruz said.. “And we don’t have one because President Obama, instead of nominating a health professional, he nominated someone who is an anti-gun activist.”

“And a doctor,” Crowley said.

Cruz said that while it’s true Murphy is a doctor, he’s also a “crusader against second amendment rights.”

The NRA, the nation’s largest gun rights lobby, has continually refused to allow any measures to implement gun sense laws even to the point of leaving this country without a surgeon general — but it’s Obama’s fault somehow.

Ted Cruz’s A.G. fight already misguided

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) does not believe in wasting time. Less than 24 hours have passed since Attorney General Eric Holder announced he’s stepping down, and at this point, no one seems to have any idea when the White House will announce a successor or who he or she will be.

But for Cruz, that just means now is a good time to start drawing battle lines.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) issued a political call to arms for conservatives, saying that outgoing senators should not vote on the nominee during the post-election lame-duck session. “Allowing Democratic senators, many of whom will likely have just been defeated at the polls, to confirm Holder’s successor would be an abuse of power that should not be countenanced,” Cruz said in a statement.Perhaps more so than usual, Cruz has no idea what he’s talking about.

As Kevin Drum noted in response, “Unless Cruz is suggesting that they should be banned completely, then of course business should be conducted during lame duck sessions. What else is Congress supposed to do during those few weeks?”

Right. Members of the Senate are elected to serve six-year terms. The Constitution, which Cruz usually loves to talk about, is quite explicit on this point. Article I does not say senators’ terms end after 5 years and 10 months, with the final two months designated as goof-off time.

Indeed, if Cruz is still confused, he can look to very recent history to understand that nominating and confirming cabinet officials during a lame-duck session is the exact opposite of “an abuse of power.”

In November 2006, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced he was stepping down at the Pentagon. Almost immediately thereafter, then-President George W. Bush nominated Robert Gates as Rumsfeld’s successor, and during the lame-duck session, the Senate held confirmation hearings, a committee vote, and a confirmation vote on the Senate floor.

Gates was confirmed, 95 to 2, and he was sworn in the week before Christmas 2006. Some of the senators who voted in support of the nominee, to use Cruz’s language, had “just been defeated at the polls,” but it didn’t make a bit of difference.

Why not? Because they were still senators who had a job to do. Indeed, 2006 was an especially important year: the Republican majority in the Senate had just been voted out in a Democratic wave election, in large part because of the Bush administration’s national-security policy. And yet, the Senate still moved quickly and efficiently to consider and confirm a new Pentagon chief.

This wasn’t an “abuse of power.” It was just the American political process working as it’s designed to work.

The same is true now, whether Cruz understands that or not.

Of course, there’s another scenario the far-right Texan may also want to keep in mind: the longer Cruz and his cohorts delay the process, the longer Eric Holder will remain the Attorney General. Indeed, Holder made it quite clear yesterday that he intends to stay on until his successor is ready to step into the office.

Under the circumstances, and given the right’s uncontrollable hatred for the current A.G., shouldn’t Cruz want the Senate to vote on Holder’s replacement during the lame-duck session? Has he really thought his current posturing through?

Ted Cruz Gets Asked Hard Question by Fox News, Makes a Fool Out of Himself with his Answer

The Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Obama in March of 2010, has now been the law of the land for over four years. But even before it became law, Republicans had already spent an inordinate amount of time doing everything they could to sabotage and slander it.

Even as the marketplace had been open for a few months and millions of people began signing up for health insurance, Republicans still continued with their futile efforts to repeal the law. They’ve voted 50 times to repeal all, or parts, of the law in the last four years. Hell, they even shut down the government trying to “stop Obamacare.”

One of the most vocal opponents of the health care law has been Ted Cruz. There’s really no need to listen to him talk about Obamacare because all he does is spout off every right-wing talking point Republicans have been using since day one. Besides, almost everything he says about the health care law is an outright lie.

Well, during an interview with Fox News he was asked to provide his alternative to Obama’s signature law, but all he ended up doing is making a complete fool of himself.

Cruz led off with his usual rhetoric, saying that the Affordable Care Act is “the most profoundly unpopular law we have seen in modern times.” A statement that’s utterly ridiculous. Even the worst polls show nearly an even split between those who support the law and those who don’t. But even in those polls a decent amount of those who oppose the law do so because they don’t believe that it is liberal enough.

But then he said something even more ridiculous than that, “We need to delink health insurance from employment so that if you lose your job, you don’t lose your health insurance. Just like you don’t lose your car insurance or life insurance or health insurance or your house insurance. And if you do that, then health insurance becomes personal, portable and affordable. That’s the sort of reform that empowers consumers.”

That statement is ridiculous because that’s exactly what the Affordable Care Act does. It allows people access to health insurance outside of their employer. If anything what his comment does is defend what Obamacare is. It’s a means for people to purchase insurance on their own, for it to be affordable and gives consumers the power to shop around for health insurance.

It seems to me that Republicans actually love Obamacare – just as long as it’s called anything but Obamacare.

Sen. Ted Cruz To Join Anti-Gay Activists In Honoring His Father

Next month, Rick Scarborough's Vision America will host its annual "Heroes of Faith Gala" where the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins will receive the 2014 "National Hero of Faith Award" and Rafael Cruz, a Religious Right activist and father of Sen. Ted Cruz, will be honored with the "Don Wildmon Award," named for the founder of the American Family Association.

Today, Vision America sent out an email urging activists to register for the event, revealing that the senator is also going to be in attendance, picking up the Don Wildmon Award on behalf of his father and delivering remarks:

As we have noted before, Ted Cruz has great admiration for Scarborough despite Scarborough's long history of rabidly anti-gay bigotry.

In recent years, Scarborough has defended Russia's anti-gay laws, claimed there should be no such thing as Gay Pride Month because "those who engage in unnatural acts should hang their heads in shame," insisted that gay people should always be referred to as "sodomites," and called for a class action lawsuit to be filed against homosexuality.

What Ted Cruz Gets Wrong About the First Amendment

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is shrewdly aware that Americans of every political persuasion are disgusted by big money in politics. He knows that hundreds of elected officials representing millions of people and 16 states have already endorsed a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and related court decisions. And because he knows that defending the ability of corporations and a few billionaires to spend millions upon millions of dollars influencing elections is no winning position, he has taken to framing these efforts as plots to repeal the First Amendment.

The constitutional amendment that was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week will not, as Sen. Cruz claims, allow legislators to ban books or silence political opponents. But Sen. Cruz is trying to replace logic with hyperbole, saying that if you’re for this amendment, you’re against the First Amendment. His overheated rhetoric is an attempt to ignore an important truth in the history of our Constitution: We have always had balancing tests for every amendment. No amendment is absolute.

Sen. Cruz’s argument at a Judiciary hearing that any restriction on speech will cause an inexorable slide into censorship and tyranny defies the constitutional tradition of balancing the right to free speech with other important ideals like safety, privacy and democratic equality. The first balancing test is safety: Does Sen. Cruz really believe that everyone should be allowed to falsely cry “fire” in a crowded theater? Another is privacy: Libel laws protect against the use of speech to defame or slander without evidence. Anti-child pornography laws are an eminently justifiable regulation on the First Amendment for both safety and privacy reasons. Does Sen. Cruz oppose those? A third balancing test for the First Amendment should be a political system that has an equality of speech, which is why campaign spending limits are so important.

The constitutional amendment we propose will not infringe on citizens’ First Amendment rights; rather, it will restore the constitutional legitimacy to laws that set reasonable limits on spending in our elections. If anything, such an amendment should be seen as a bulwark for the First Amendment, which seeks balance among the cacophony of voices that exist in a free society. If Sen. Cruz believes so strongly in free speech, he should be concerned about billionaires from both ends of the political spectrum drowning out the voices of average Americans. Because it is not with the same dearness that we hold the right to get up on a soapbox and make a speech, or to write for a brochure or a newspaper, as we do to put the 11,427th negative ad on the air or to make sure that all the ad space is bought so your opponent can’t get on the air. With billions of dollars cascading into the system and distorting our politics, this false equivalency — likening the free speech of an individual to the campaign spending of a multibillion-dollar corporation — is dangerous and insulting to the American voter.

Indeed, Americans’ free speech rights flourished throughout the 20th century alongside numerous laws aimed at shielding government from the influence of well-funded special interests. Sen. Cruz must know that there was no book burning, no voter intimidation or disenfranchisement caused by these campaign finance restrictions in the period before Citizens United. These laws simply tried to protect the voices of average citizens from being shoved to the margins by the overwhelming power of moneyed interests to broadcast their message, which is stronger than ever. And now Citizens United has opened the floodgates to billions of dollars coming into the system undisclosed, unregulated and unanswered. Today, in terms of the ability to influence officeholders, the scales are tilted heavily in favor of corporations over voters, and wealthy individuals over middle-class families.

Giving corporations and a few hundred individuals — whether it’s Sheldon Adelson or George Soros — the right to buy unlimited influence in our elections undermines our entire system of elected representation and self-government and could force elected officials to spend more time courting donors and avoiding corporate attack ads than listening to the needs of their constituents.

It is clear that, throughout history, the application of the First Amendment has always required a balancing test, and there is no more important balance to be achieved than the noble goal of making sure our democracy works in an equal and fair way. That is what our amendment would do — it would restore some semblance of the principle of one person, one vote, and help us move toward the level of equality that the Founding Fathers sought in our political system.

Ted Cruz Wants to Allow Selling of National Parks, Strip Government of Federal Lands

I guess it’s safe to say that Ted Cruz is a fan of welfare rancher (and racist) Cliven Bundy. Well at least if you go by his amendment to the Sportsman Act of 2014 that would prevent the federal government from owning more than 50 percent of the land in any one state. It would require that they turn over management of the excess land to the state itself.

States where the federal government currently owns over 50 percent of the land are Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Oregon and Alaska.

If this amendment passed, the burden of maintaining these lands would then fall to the state’s taxpayers or be sold off to private interests.

You know, for things like fracking, drilling, mining and logging.

And that’s really what this is all about. It’s not about “giving the land back to the states.” It’s about trying to sell much of this land to private corporations so millions (or even billions) can be made by ruining some of the most pristine land in this country.

It’s about taking some of our national parks and wildlife refuges and turning them into wastelands for oil and gas drilling. It’s about turning forests into barren fields where thousands of trees once grew. It’s about masking greed under the guise of “giving the land back to the people.”

Luckily this amendment has almost no chance at passing as this “movement” to sell off public lands is really only supported by the far-right fringe of the Republican party. Even several of the Republican sponsors of this bipartisan bill that passed 82-12 stopped the progress of the bill once Cruz added his amendment.

But leave it to Ted Cruz to take a simple bipartisan bill and turn it into some ridiculous attempt to strip land from the federal government. Not only that, but waste time and taxpayer money in the process as the Senate is now forced to go through the process of dismissing this amendment before the bill can move forward.

When Ted Cruz runs for president in 2016 (trust me, it’s happening) I’m actually looking forward to his campaign. It’s sure to be one of the most ridiculous, radical, right-wing pandering propaganda campaigns in the history of presidential primaries. His aversion to facts and truth is staggering. While fact-checkers are sure to earn their money during the 2016 GOP primary, I wouldn’t be shocked to see some demanding bonuses for covering Ted Cruz’s campaign.

And while he stands next to no chance at winning his party’s nomination, it should make for great entertainment.

Ted Cruz's Father Defends 'Ex-Gay' Therapy, Says Homosexuality Is A Choice

Rafael Cruz, father of Canadian-Texan Tea Party wingnut Senator Ted Cruz, is shoring up his rabid, homophobic bigotry bona fides on the airwaves in a panel discussion at the National Religious Broadcasters convention. Sitting across from great thinkers such as Jay Sekulow, Todd Starnes and Craig and Janet Parshall, Cruz expressed his support for the right of business to discriminate based on sexual orientation, and for demonstrably destructive "ex-gay" therapy for minors, all because he believes homosexuality is a choice. He opposes gay rights for the same reason, because no federal law exists to protect chosen behavior, evidently. Incidentally, one tends to believe homosexuality is a choice when one has the capacity to make a choice on account of being attracted to both genders.

It all comes from a place of love, though. Cruz ensures everyone that he supports the systemic discrimination and abuse of homosexuals because he loves them, which makes as much sense as Bryan Fischer wanting gays jailed because he loves black men. You can listen to the panel discussion below.

Tea Party Senators Introduce ‘You’re Not Married Anymore’ Bill To Nullify Same-Sex Marriages

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) have introduced a Senate version of the “State Marriage Defense Act,” a bill that would prohibit the federal government from recognizing same-sex couples’ marriages if they live in a state that doesn’t recognize them. This “You’re Not Married Anymore” bill would mean that families would lose all their federal protections simply by crossing the border into another state.

The legislation is a workaround since the Supreme Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act last year, reasoning that the federal government could not refuse to recognize legally valid marriages performed in the states. Since then, the Obama administration has been using a “place of celebration” standard, meaning that as long as a same-sex couple’s marriage was valid where it was performed, it continues to be valid for most federal purposes (like tax benefits, etc.), even if they travel or move to a state that bans same-sex marriage.

According to Cruz, state authority should supersede the legal protections of these families:

CRUZ: I support traditional marriage. Under President Obama, the federal government has tried to re-define marriage, and to undermine the constitutional authority of each state to define marriage consistent with the values of its citizens. The Obama Administration should not be trying to force gay marriage on all 50 states. We should respect the states, and the definition of marriage should be left to democratically elected legislatures, not dictated from Washington. This bill will safeguard the ability of states to preserve traditional marriage for its residents.

Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX) introduced a similar bill in the House last month, admitting that he hadn’t even read the Supreme Court’s decision before he filed it. The National Organization for Marriage has praised the bills because the values of citizens who voted to ban same-sex marriage are “continually under threat.”

Ironically, this tactic to undermine marriage equality directly contradicts the principles of another attempt, the so-called “Marriage and Religious Freedom Act,” which would allow religious individuals to disregard state definitions of marriage if they wished to discriminate against same-sex couples.

Watch: CBS and Bob Schieffer Cut Off Ted Cruz’s Wacky Obama Conspiracy Theories

It’s about time! Finally, a mainstream news network and anchor have mustered the courage to put an end to Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) ridiculous Obama conspiracy pony-show, refusing to air his rambling conspiracies.

CBS and Bob Schieffer, on Face the Nation, rightfully edited Ted Cruz out of the segment when he took an unrelated question (whether or not he’s going to run for president) and decided to answer it by spouting off his usual Benghazi hoax conspiracy theories.

Adding insult to injury, Cruz also had the audacity to accuse Pres. Obama of illegally targeting conservative “filmmaker” and professional far-right conspiracy theorist, Dinesh D’Souza, even though he has been rightfully indicted by the Justice Department for making an illegal $20,000 donation to a U.S. Senate candidate, which amounts to election fraud.

Not only did CBS completely cut off Cruz’s tired conspiracy theories, host Bob Schieffer also laughingly dismissed the Republican Senator, “We’re going to leave this for another day, Senator!”

Big Kudos to CBS and Bob Schieffer for doing the right thing and refusing to allow this Tea Party fraud to spout his dangerous conspiracy theories about President Obama.

Please watch the video below and spread Sen. Ted Cruz’s Shame on social media forums. (Audio quality starts off poor, but improves greatly a few seconds into the clip.

Glenn Beck Makes Asinine Claim about Time Magazine Choosing Pope Francis as Person of the Year

And the attacks on Pope Francis just keep on coming. 

Then again, following the news that Time magazine has chosen the Pope as their “Person of the Year,” you knew that was going to tick off quite a few Republicans.

This time it was Glenn Beck who went off on a rant about the audacity Time magazine showed with its selection of Pope Francis over someone like – Ted Cruz.

Yes, this buffoon really believes Ted Cruz deserved to be “Person of the Year.”  I mean, why not, right?  After all, his biggest accomplishment this year was staging a fake 21-hour filibuster and heading a government shutdown that accomplished absolutely nothing.  How “remarkable” of him.

Beck claimed the reason why Time didn’t choose Cruz is because they “didn’t want to give him any more power.”  I’ll be honest, I actually laughed when I read that part.  He also reminded his audience to, “Remember, progressives are fascist.  They are for fascism.”

But of course we are.  Then again, this is Glenn Beck we’re talking about.  He’s obsessed with fascism and Nazi Germany.  A good asinine rant from Mr. Beck wouldn’t be complete without some kind of reference to fascism.

What his rant basically says to me is that he’s fully embraced the belief that Pope Francis, the leader of the Catholic Church, is a full-fledged fascist.  Amazing, isn’t it?  All he has to do is point out that trickle-down economics does nothing but give more to the rich at the expense of everyone else and suddenly he’s a fascist.

It still makes me laugh that Pope Francis actually behaves more like an actual Christian — based on the teachings of Jesus Christ — than any other Pope in recent history, and it’s driving conservatives crazy.

Here’s a fun fact: Before trickle-down economics, and in decades such as the 50′s and 60′s when we had much higher taxes and stronger unions, we were still a nation based on capitalism.  Opposing massive tax breaks for the rich doesn’t equate to fascism.  Unless of course these people are insinuating that presidents like Eisenhower and Kennedy were fascists.

Then again, most of these fools who yell words like fascism, communism or socialism don’t even know what they mean.  They’ll happily drive on public roads – to a meeting to complain about how horrific all forms of socialism are.  Not understanding that those roads built by the government, paid for by tax dollars, are socialism in action.  

Glenn Beck is just another in a growing list of well-known conservatives who continue their attack of Pope Francis.  If they keep it up I can promise you this — it’s not going to turn out well for the Republican party.

Watch Lying Tea Partier Ted Cruz Left Speechless On Obamacare! Must See!

A heated debate erupted on Wednesday morning as Senator Ted Cruz insisted that America “start over” on health care reform. During an appearance on CNN’s New Day, Chris Cuomo pressed the health reform issue, causing Cruz to argue that the law simply “isn’t working.”

“How can we say it’s not working when it isn’t implemented yet?” Cuomo asked. “How can you say premiums are skyrocketing when they haven’t put the plans into effect yet?  You’re being a little dangerous with how much political spin you put on something that’s so central to the well-being of so many families?”
“Well, I appreciate the adjective you tossed my way,” Cruz fired back.

Cruz then proceeded to tell dramatic stories of people across Texas who had individual policies that have lost their healthcare as a result of the Affordable Care Act. In many cases, that’s because the plans no longer meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. When Cuomo asked the senator about his solutions to help these people, Cruz was completely shook and at a loss of words. He had absolutely no idea how to respond.

 “You don’t think that you have a responsibility as a U.S. Senator to do better than that in terms of offering  solution on what to do next?” the host asked.

“Well, I appreciate you’re trying to lecture me in the morning,” Cruz said. “Thank you for that.”

Ted Cruz must be living on another planet if he thinks that providing healthcare for millions of people that don’t have coverage is a better option than not having insurance. The 5 million people that have lost their insurance that Cruz is claiming, is merely an estimate. No exact figures have been provided. Not to mention that these people will be able to purchase a new plan, which in most cases will be better than their previous plan. His statements are nothing more than pandering to the obvious right-wing listeners. Let’s not quickly forget that Cruz was the man who championed the government shutdown in an attempt to stop Obamacare. As a result, he wants to pretend his actions had nothing to do with the slow roll out of the plan. You don’t get to force a government shutdown, then complain about the problems that arise as a result of your childish and unprofessional behavior.

Watch the video here:

Pete King calls for a Republican war on Ted Cruz

Rep. Peter King thinks Republicans in the House could have bargained for much more than they're getting in a pending Senate deal, if only the House had kept the government open in September and focused on negotiations over the federal debt limit.

"Instead we look like the crazies," King, a Republican from Long Island, told me this afternoon from Washington. "Shutting down the government, throwing barricades against the White House, and having Ted Cruz reading Dr. Seuss, this is like the theater of the absurd. Except that it's serious."

King has been a fairly lonely (and ineffectual, so far) voice of dissent within the Republican conference, loudly criticizing the party's strategy of allowing a group of hardline conservatives to dictate a shutdown in the hope of pressuring President Obama to make changes to his signature health care law.

For that King blames Cruz, the freshman senator from Texas, who King believes Republicans need to target, starting now.

"I don't mean this in an egotistical way, I'm the only one who's been going after Cruz by name," King told me. "And there's a purpose for that, because this is going to come back again in two or three months, whether it's January 15 or February 7 or whatever, there's going to be a threat of another shutdown.

"And he's going to be coming back, rewriting history, saying, 'We were on the verge of victory back in October, and we could have won if we'd just stayed in there another week.' And he's going to have phone calls being made, and he's going to have town hall meetings. And he's going to have all those support groups out there, threatening to downgrade people on their scorecards and all that stuff." 

To King, the fault doesn't lie broadly with Congress, but falls squarely on Cruz and his 30 or 40 "acolytes," who put pressure on other Republicans.

"I think it's important for people in the Republican Party around the country not to just come in at the end and say, 'Congress was dysfunctional,' or 'Congress screwed up.' That's too easy to do," King said. "Say who it was. Because it wasn't Congress. It was one person who was able to steamroll Congress and unless we target him for what he is, he's going to do it again. So I'm hoping other Republicans will join me and start going after this guy, and say we're not going to let it happen again."

Republican leaders, including 2016 candidates like Chris Christie, Scott Walker and Jeb Bush, have criticized the dysfunction to varying degrees, but none have specifically attacked Cruz, who has become a darling of the Tea Party constituency that could be a big factor in a future primary.

King said the "business community, other people, guys running for president, governors around the country, retired members of Congress, elder statesmen, whoever considers himself to be a leader in the Republican Party should be out there" making the case against Cruz.

King said he wouldn't "second-guess" House Speaker John Boehner's role in the impasse, and that the conservative faction doesn't have the votes to topple him.

"They may try," he said. "But they don't have the ability to go after John Bohner. What they can do is create enough chaos, which maybe makes it difficult for him to govern, and then it's important for the rest of us to stand by him."

"There's nobody out there they could get behind who could take over right now," King added. "John gave these guys enough rope to hang themselves, and if other Republicans aren't smart enough to see that these guys did hang themselves and pretty much hung the Republican Party while they're at it--I think we should stand behind Boehner. He warned this was going to happen all along."

Cruz said today that he won't delay the Senate vote, and criticized the Senate for not helping change the outcome.

"Unfortunately, the Senate chose not to follow the House and in particular, we saw real division among Senate Republicans. That was unfortunate," Cruz said, according to TPM. "I would point out that had Senate Republicans united and supported House Republicans, the outcome of this, I believe, would have been very, very different. I wish that had happened, but it did not."

Ted Cruz Admits Budget Standoff Was All About Building Fundraising Lists

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) conceded on Wednesday that he would not hold up a vote on an emerging Senate deal to re-open the federal government and avert federal default, but admitted that the three-week long budget standoff — which began with his 21-hour speech on the Senate floor — was nothing more than an effort to build up his fundraising list.

“My focus is, I think, where the American people’s focus is, which is what are we doing to provide real relief to the people who are hurting because of Obamacare and today,” Cruz told reporters after meeting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), before reiterating his commitment to repealing the health care law.

Asked what he has gained from holding-up a deal for weeks, Cruz pointed to a political petition he has been promoting for days:

CRUZ: We have seen a remarkable thing happen. Months ago when the effort to defund Obamacare began, official Washington scoffed. They scoffed that the American people would rise up. They scoffed that the House of Representatives would do anything and they scoffed that the Senate would do anything. We saw first of all, millions of millions of American people rising up across this country, over two million people signing a national petition to defund Obamacare. We saw the House of Representatives take a courageous stand listening to the American people that everyone in official Washington said wouldn’t happen.

Watch it:

But while more than two million people added their names to a website run by The Senate Conservative Fund — a political PAC that supports Cruz– urging Congress defund the Affordable Care Act, popular support for the health care law has actually increased since the shutdown began on Sep. 30. The Gallup poll reported on Tuesday that “half of Americans today want the Affordable Care Act repealed or scaled back, down from 57 percent in January 2011.”

In three week period following Cruz’s speech — even as GOP’s national approval ratings plummeted — conservatives frantically built their fundraising lists and campaign coffers. In the last quarter, Cruz’s political action committee raised in $797,000, nearly twice what it pulled in the quarter prior, and Heritage Action — which has pressured conservatives to vote against any bill that does not undermine Obamcare — collected $330,000.

Unfortunately, the rest of the country hasn’t fared nearly as well. Economists predict that the country lost thousands of jobs, billions in economic output, diminished consumer confidence, and the prospect of a lower credit rating.

Republicans Blame Republicans For Shut Down!

This video captures the madness in Washington, D.C. perfectly! Even Republicans are blaming each other. Now Canadian born Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wants to shut down the government over the debt ceiling. This man will not be happy until he causes the complete collapse of the American economy! 

Is the GOP finally imploding?

It’s certainly been…entertaining at times, to watch the nascent GOP intra-party civil war.

On the one hand, we have the Republicans in Congress and elsewhere who simply want to be in charge and to have their policies implemented. Ruthless up to a point, but within limits. The ones who are happy to go on “making sausage” as the old saw goes, with respect to legislation, policy, and budgets. In recent years, they don’t like to compromise, but they will when they’re forced to. Besides, it keeps the pork-barrel spending going.

There’s also a baseline sense of civil responsibility among many of them. I personally don’t like John McCain, but he seems to me to typify this type of Republican. He and others like him won’t refuse to participate in the government just because they can’t get 100% of what they want. Sure, there are lots of us who feel what the McCain Republicans want is unreasonable, ill-advised, and often plain wrong — but that’s what elections are about. Even they still respect those, to enough of a degree to make a difference and keep the whole country from falling apart.

Then there are the Tea Party Republicans. Not only do they hate anybody who isn’t them, half the time they can’t even agree on what it means to be an ideologically “pure” Tea Party member. Just witness the intra-party sniping over Senator Ted Cruz’s “Fauxlibuster” this past week. He really is not liked among most of his fellow GOP Senators, and if reports are to believed, they’re miffed that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid let Cruz be the public face of the Republican party for an entire news cycle.

The Tea Baggers, as I prefer to term them, using their own original name for themselves, actually don’t care about elections; all that matters is winning. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, outright theft of elections when it can be gotten away with — it’s all cool. The ends justify any and all means, to them. Losing an election also doesn’t matter; it’s just an obstacle to be overcome.

And their ends aren’t just unreasonable or ill-advised — they’re often monstrous. Like cutting food stamps. Or no disaster aid to stricken communities (especially if they didn’t vote GOP). Or insisting that the free market is just fine for poor, sick people without insurance. A lot of them will deny what they have in mind is a disaster in the making, but when you can get them to admit it, it’s like, “Yeah, that’s not a bug — it’s a feature.”

Irrationally, the Tea Baggers want the United States government to shut down and to default on its public debts. For some reason, they don’t think it’ll result in a global economic disaster that’d make the Great Depression look like a mild head-cold.

Read more!

Senator Cruz Unwilling To Make Sacrifice For American People

"He 'had no intention' of giving up his paycheck"

The Daily Beast reports:

After a 21-hour speech where he pledged to stop the upcoming Affordable Care Act or close the government trying, Senator Ted Cruz admitted during a Skype call to an Austin conference that he had not really considered what effect a shutdown would have on his own salary. After being pressed further, he conceded that he "had no intention" of giving up his paycheck if the federal government shuts down. Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced Friday night that 1.4 million U.S. troops will be kept on the job but not paid if a shutdown occurs

WaPo Gives Senator Ted Cruz’s Obamacare Video Three Pinnochios

We all know that popular Tea Party adage, don’t we? “If at first you don’t repeal, lie, lie again.” Perhaps no one personifies their expertise in such matters than the neo-McCarthyite smarm king himself, Senator Ted Cruz. The Canadian Senator from Texas has just released a new one-minute video about his opposition to the Affordable Care Act, known more commonly as Obamacare, and it was so full of lies that The Washington Post gave Cruz three of their “Pinnochios” for his effort. In other words, Cruz’ video is worthless for anything other than propaganda distribution.

Cruz starts by taking Senator Max Baucus ridiculously out of context with a quote from around April of this year where Baucus said the way that information was getting to the public about Obamacare was a “train wreck.” Cruz took that one snippet and just like the Romney campaign did with Obama’s “You didn’t build that” sound byte, he created an entire premise of his video that one of the people who helped craft the bill himself thinks that Obamcare is a “train wreck.”

But that wasn’t all. He lied about large corporations quietly being excused from the mandate (the employer requirement side of Obamacare was delayed for all employers, and the news was anything but quiet). He lied about the teamsters being opposed to the ACA because it would destroy the 40-hour work week. While the quote Cruz used from Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. was correct, the context was once again completely wrong. Hoffa and the teamsters he represents were concerned about regulations and there are economists who say what the unions were pushing for was “double-dipping” into benefits anyway. In any event, the president of the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest labor organization, says that great progress has been made, so pretty much from start to finish this new ad from Cruz is one lie after another…and the sad part is many of his constituents probably have no clue just how mendacious it is.

Canadian-born Ted Cruz says “facts are clear” he’s eligible to be president

Sen. Ted Cruz rejected questions Sunday over his eligibility to be president, saying that although he was born in Canada “the facts are clear” that he’s a U.S. citizen. “My mother was born in Wilmington, Delaware. She’s a U.S. citizen, so I’m a U.S. citizen by birth,” Cruz told ABC. “I’m not going to engage in a legal debate.” The Texas senator was born in Calgary, where his mother and father were working in the oil business. His father, Rafael Cruz, left Cuba in the 1950s to study at the University of Texas and subsequently became a naturalized citizen.

President Obama has been hounded by critics who contend he was born outside the U.S. and, therefore, ineligible to win the White House. Obama was born in Hawaii. But some Democratic critics have taken the same charge against Obama by so-called “birthers” and turned it against Cruz. Both Cruz and Obama share one thing in common — both were born to mothers who were American citizens. The Supreme Court has not definitively ruled on presidential eligibility requirements.  But a congressional study concludes that the constitutional requirement that a president be “a natural born citizen” includes those born abroad of one citizen parent who has met U.S. residency requirements.

“I can tell you where I was born and who my parents were. And then as a legal matter, others can worry about that. I’m not going to engage,” Cruz said in the interview with “This Week” on ABC. Cruz was in Iowa last week, speaking to a group of conservative pastors and a state GOP fundraiser. He’s already been to the early-primary state of South Carolina and is scheduled to headline a fundraiser in New Hampshire next month, fueling speculation that he may be weighing a presidential bid. The freshman Texas senator, who took office in January, said it’s premature to talk about a 2016 presidential race.

In the Senate, Cruz has established himself as a leading opponent of immigration reform that includes a “pathway to citizenship” for millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States. A potential political rival, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, has championed that idea as part of a comprehensive approach to dealing with illegal immigration. Cruz said Rubio “proceeded in good faith” but was wrong. “I think a patch to citizenship for those who are here illegally is profoundly unfair to millions of legal immigrants who followed the rules,” he said.

At one point during the interview, Cruz noted a satirical critique by comedian Jon Stewart, who called him a “dirty syrup guzzler” – a reference to the senator’s birth in Canada. “I will tell you, in response to that, I did send Jon Stewart a letter saying that I rarely guzzled syrup,” he said. “But any time that I did, it was Texas syrup. And I sent him a bottle of Texas syrup and invited him to a syrup festival in the state of Texas.”