Ted Cruz Declares Parliamentary War in the Senate [+video]

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Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has tied the Senate in knots into the weekend with his parliamentary maneuvers on a bill funding highway programs. The U.S. Senate is embroiled in a battle between leadership and conservatives that is getting ugly and personal.

Sen. Cruz has offered something called a “Third Degree Amendment.” That means nothing to most people. In plain English – Senator Cruz is digging in to lead the fight against the Senate Republican leadership to end the Export Import Bank and the Third Degree Amendment is his tool to fight.

New fronts in the battle are expected to be opened up on the highway bill this weekend over the issues of repealing Obamacare, Planned Parenthood funding and President Obama’s Iran deal. Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rand Paul (R-KY) are expected to join the fight. The leadership will be using allies in the media to fire away at Cruz and his band of Senate conservatives.

How did we get here?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is in the process of trying to check off two items on his to-do list for the year. First, he wants to pass a long-term highway bill. Second, he wants to help extend the life of the crony Export Import Bank – a bank that is anathema to conservatives. These are both leadership priorities. Senator Ted Cruz is using Senate procedure to fight the Export Import Bank extension that has been added as an amendment to the highway language in the bill. It is that simple.

The House has passed a short-term highway bill and they are insisting that the Senate just take up and pass a bill that will only last for a few months. That bill does not contain any extension for the Export Import Bank (EX-IM). The option remains for the Senate to take up the House passed highway bill without EX-IM if this fight results in a stalemate.

Procedurally this bill is getting complicated. It is important to note that many times, procedure is king because if a Senator can use procedure to gum up the works, all too often that Senator can use the procedure in the Senate to kill legislation. Here, the goal is to kill the EX-IM amendment to the highway bill and to get the Majority Leader to make the calculation that he wants a long-term highway bill more than he wants EX-IM.

McConnell has avoided one procedural blockade. The Senate Majority Leader has attached the highway bill to an unrelated bill from the House to make sure that he does not violate the Constitution.

Leader McConnell called up a House passed bill and added the text of the highway bill to it, then he called up an amendment that allows the Export-Import Bank to continue. This married an unrelated House bill to the highway bill and EX-IM. But then Senator McConnell did something that was unexpected.

Next, Senator McConnell offered an amendment for a full repeal of Obamacare. This seemed to be an attempt to intimidate the Tea Party faction in the Senate to take the vote on a full repeal of Obamacare and walk away from the fight over EX-IM. The problem is that nobody believes the Obamacare amendment to be anything other than meaningless vote.

McConnell then proceeded to use a parliamentary maneuver, abhorred by many conservatives and Senate procedure strict constructionists, to block all other amendments to the bill. This tactic, known as “Filling the Amendment Tree,” enraged many members of the Republican caucus who wanted to offer their own amendments to the bill. When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) ran the Senate he frequently filled the amendment tree as a way to block Republicans from ever offering amendments. This obstructionist tactic still rubs many conservatives the wrong way and is still considered by many to be an abuse of power.

Enter Senator Ted Cruz. Cruz took to the floor and offered an amendment to condition the Iran deal on Iran recognizing the right of Israel to exist and calling on Iran to release Americans held hostage. The Cruz amendment violates the Senate’s rules, because, under the current scenario, only certain amendments are allowed.

Senator Cruz’s amendment relating to Iran is out of order and not allowed by Senate precedent. Yet, the great thing about the Senate precedents is that they can be voted on and determined by the full Senate. That is, every voting member of the Senate gets to decide if Senator Cruz gets to offer the amendment on the Iran deal, or on anything else. This option is open to every member of the Senate.

Senator Rand Paul has vetted the idea of offering an amendment to defund Planned Parenthood – that could be the next third degree amendment. Senator Mike Lee might also get into the act with another third degree amendment. The full Senate will get to decide if their colleagues – Senator Cruz, Senator Paul, Senator Lee and potentially others – should be able to add their amendments to the underlying bill. If there is any question as to where Senators stand on defunding Planned Parenthood, recognizing Israel, and forcing Iran to release American hostages, the votes this weekend will make their positions clear.

Senator Cruz is going into parliamentary war with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

This weekend’s Senate skirmish translates directly to the epic fight we are expecting in the Presidential nomination contest between the Tea Party faction, most loudly led by Donald Trump these days, and the establishment faction, led by the establishment poster boy Jeb Bush. Senator Cruz’s fight with Majority Leader McConnell typifies the struggle of the Republican Party to define itself and what it will stand for. Will the Republican Party prioritize handouts to big corporations over defunding an organization that traffics baby body parts? Thanks to the efforts of courageous Senators like Ted Cruz, we will soon find out. (Published with permission from the author, “Ted Cruz Declares Parliamentary War in the Senate”, originally appeared HERE)

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State Forbids Pastors Calling Homosexuals ‘Sinful’

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The state of Kentucky has begun imposing a religious test on volunteer pastor counselors in its youth division, insisting that they refrain from calling homosexuality “sinful” and dismissing those who cannot bend their religious faith to accommodate the state requirements.

The policy was uncovered by Liberty Counsel, which has sent a letter to Bob Hayter, commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice, demanding that the state religious test be dropped and that a dismissed counselor be reinstated.

“Liberty Counsel writes regarding the blatantly unconstitutional revocation of volunteer prison minister status of ordained Christian minister David Wells, who has provided voluntary spiritual counseling and mentorship to juvenile inmates under the control of the Department of Juvenile Justice. … This revocation was issued by Warren County Regional Juvenile Detention Center on the basis of the April 4, 2014, DJJ Policy 912, which mandates full DJJ support of homosexuality and transvestism.

“With no evidence of any violation of DJJ policy on Mr. Wells’ part, his volunteer status was revoked by the Warren RJDC superintendent because he could not sign a state-mandated statement that homosexuality was not ‘sinful,’ among other things,” the letter said.

The policy states that DJJ staff, volunteers and others “shall not imply or tell LGBTQI juveniles that they are abnormal, deviant, sinful or that they can or should change their sexual orientation or gender identity.” (Read more from “State Forbids Pastors Calling Homosexuals ‘Sinful'” HERE)

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US Marshals Raid Sheriff Joe’s Office

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By WND. A judge on Friday ordered the seizure of identification documents and computer hard drives from Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office, and chastised his attorneys for failing to turn over the evidence, requested months ago in a racial-profiling case against the Arizona lawman.

The U.S. Marshals Service later raided the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

U.S. District Judge Murray Snow ordered the raid after a court-ordered monitor reported the sheriff’s office failed to hand over more than 1,400 identification documents – driver’s licenses, passports and identification cards – as part of a misconduct investigation involving the sheriff’s office.

Arpaio’s immigration smuggling squad and other deputies are accused of regularly pocketing items from people during traffic stops and busts of safe houses used during illegal-immigrant smuggling.

Court monitors claim the IDs belonged primarily to people of Hispanic descent. (Read more from “US Marshals Raid Sheriff Joe’s Office” HERE)

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Federal Judge Orders Information Be Seized From Arizona Sheriff

By Reuters. A federal judge on Friday ordered U.S. marshals to seize documents from the office of controversial Arizona lawman Joe Arpaio as part of an ongoing racial profiling case.

U.S. District Judge Murray Snow issued the order at an emergency hearing he convened after a court-appointed monitor reported that the sheriff’s office had failed to turn over information being sought in connection with the case.

In a brief order, Snow required that 1,459 identifications apparently taken from people by sheriff’s deputies during law enforcement actions and which were about to be destroyed be produced for federal marshals.

The judge also ordered that computer hard drives, documents and other materials related to an investigation involving the judge by a confidential informant be given to marshals by the end of the day on Friday.

Arpaio, the longtime Maricopa County sheriff, did not attend the last-minute afternoon hearing held in U.S. District Court in Phoenix. (Read more from “Federal Judge Orders Information Be Seized From Arizona Sheriff” HERE)

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Seattle’s Nanny State Is “Deputizing Trashmen as Secret Police” to Snoop Through Wastebins

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If the cops in Seattle want to dig through a city resident’s garbage to look for evidence of a crime, they have to go get a warrant first.

But garbage collectors in Seattle are not only allowed to dig through the trash without a judge’s consent, they’re actually required to do so.

Seattle is on the cutting edge of nanny state-ism with a new citywide ban on throwing any compostable material into the trash, no matter how gross, smelly or disgusting it might be. The city government is serious about this — so serious that they have deputized the trashmen as a sort of secret police who are being ordered to rat on residents’ trash habits to the nannies at Seattle Public Utilities.

If this sounds like an arrangement that violates a whole bunch of amendments to the U.S. Constitution (and the Washington State Constitution too, in the event you’re familiar with it), well, you’re not alone.

The Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit law firm that loves challenging ridiculous government regulations like this one, filed a lawsuit Thursday asking a state judge to shut down the Seattle trash-snooping program. (Read more from “Seattle’s Nanny State Is “Deputizing Trashmen as Secret Police” to Snoop Through Wastebins” HERE)

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Rand Paul To Try To Block Planned Parenthood Funding During Rare Sunday Voting Session

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Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican presidential candidate, said Sunday that he’ll try this afternoon on Capitol Hill to force a vote to block federal funding for Planned Parenthood, following the release of videos showing group officials discussing how they provide aborted fetal organs for research.

“I really think the time has come in our country to have the debate on whether taxpayer money should still be spent on this,” Paul told “Fox News Sunday.”

Paul is one of several Republican lawmakers or presidential candidates who have said they want to eliminate Planned Parenthood’s federal funding, which they so far have failed to do. Paul said he will try a long-shot legislative maneuver — submitting a “discharge position” — to force the vote when senators return Sunday to Washington to vote on a transportation and transit funding bill set to expire in a few days.  Full story.

US Government Caught Cooking Meth? Meth Lab in Federal Building Explodes in DC

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By Conservative Refocus. Rumors have abounded for at least a generation over an out-of-control US government’s involvement with illegal drugs, along with far too many other things that most Americans haven’t even the slightest clue about.

In fact, many believe that wars have been started and ended over the government’s voracious appetite for money, via the illicit drugs that are a quick and easy way towards rounding up billions of dollars.

However, now, the US government’s alleged operation of an apparent meth lab, that exploded in a government building, has even Congress asking a lot of questions.

This particular story, surprisingly enough, comes to us from MSN, dutifully noting that whenever a liberal news vendor writes an unusually short article on a subject, especially one such as this, it’s not generally something they truly wish to be reporting:

“Police discovered signs of a meth lab in a government building on Saturday after an explosion injured a federal security officer and threw a blast shield 25 feet. The explosion occurred in a small lab at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland, where the Department of Commerce conducts experiments. (Read more from “US Government Now Under Investigation for Housing Illegal Meth Lab That Exploded” HERE)


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Likely Meth Lab Explodes in Federal Building, Congress Demands Answers

By Alexandra Ossola. Yesterday, Congress requested more information about a July 18 explosion in one of the buildings operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology outside Washington, D.C. There’s reason for Congress to raise an eyebrow; based on evidence collected at the scene, investigators suspect that the room was being used to develop illegal methamphetamines.

The explosion occurred in NIST Building 236, far from the majority of the labs, so it didn’t damage any research endeavors. It happened in a room that had been emptied of equipment, as one experiment had recently ended and another was slated to begin. The blast occurred on a Saturday, so luckily few employees were around, but it did injure a security guard who was on duty. (He quit his job the day after the incident.)

So the question on everyone’s mind is: how was there a meth lab in a government building, and who was operating it? Paul Starks, a spokesman for the local Montgomery County police, would not comment on whether any chemicals or equipment used to make the drugs were found on the property. But NBC Washington reports that the security guard was found with burns on his arms and hands, igniting suspicion that he might have been involved in making the meth. (Read more from this story, “Federal Government Caught Cooking Meth?” HERE)

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Exposed: This Plot Against Donald Trump Was Brewing in the Republican Party

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Members of the GOP establishment floated a plan over the weekend to keep presidential candidate Donald Trump from the debate stage in Cleveland on August 6.

The New York Times reports that there is a lot of frustration with the billionaire candidate and his bombastic ways. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus called Trump in early July to ask him to dial back his rhetoric regarding illegal immigrants, after he suggested the Mexican government was sending “rapists” and other criminals into the United States.

A new Quinnipiac Poll of swing states published this week finds Trump with the worst favorability ratings for any Democrat or Republican presidential candidate: 31 – 58 percent in Colorado, 32 – 57 percent in Iowa, and 32 – 61 percent in Virginia.

The New York Times reports:

One idea that came up was to urge three leading candidates — Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor; Mr. Walker; and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida — to band together and state that they would not participate in any debate in which Mr. Trump was present, using his refusal to rule out a third-party bid as a pretext for taking such a hard line. The thinking, according to a Republican involved in the conversations, was that the lesser-funded prospects who have been eclipsed by Mr. Trump would follow suit, and the TV networks airing the debates would be forced to bar Mr. Trump in order to have a full complement of candidates.

But none of the campaigns have shown any appetite for such solidarity, for reasons ranging from their strategic interests and not wanting to make Mr. Trump a martyr, to fear of making an enemy of Fox News, the preferred cable network of conservatives and the host of the first debate.

(Read more from “Exposed: This Plot Against Donald Trump Was Brewing in the Republican Party” HERE)

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Obama: ‘Most Frustrated’ That I Couldn’t Take Away Americans’ Second Amendment Rights

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In a Friday interview with BBC, President Barack Obama admitted that the biggest frustration of his presidency has been not having passed stricter gun control laws.

OBAMA: If you ask me where has been the one area where I feel that I’ve been most frustrated and most stymied, it is the fact that the United States of America is the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient, common sense gun laws, even in the face of repeated mass killings. If you look at the number of Americans killed by terrorism since 9/11 by terrorism, it’s less than 100.

(Read more from “Obama: ‘Most Frustrated’ That I Can’t Take Away Second Amendment Rights” HERE)

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Hillary Could Soon Get Blindsided by a Criminal Investigation From an Unlikely Source

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The scandal surrounding emailgate — then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account managed on a personal server — has just been escalated to a higher level that could prove extremely damaging to Mrs. Clinton’s hopes for the White House.

The New York Times reports that the Justice Department has been asked to open “a criminal investigation into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state, senior government officials said Thursday.”

And it’s not a Republican politician or a conservative watchdog group that’s requesting the criminal probe of Mrs. Clinton’s email practices. It’s two inspectors general working for the federal government who have reportedly asked for the inquiry into whether Hillary included classified information — sensitive government secrets — in the emails she sent. Mrs. Clinton has denied that she ever included any classified material in her many thousands of official emails when she was the country’s top diplomat.

However, as The Times article points out, when Mrs. Clinton turned over to the State Department the digital communications she had held and controlled on her private server, the review of those emails raised serious and troubling questions.

In the course of the email review, State Department officials determined that some information in the messages should be retroactively classified. In the 3,000 pages that were released, for example, portions of two dozen emails were redacted because they were upgraded to “classified status.” But none of those were marked as classified at the time Mrs. Clinton handled them.

(Read more from “Hillary Could Soon Get Blindsided by a Criminal Investigation From an Unlikely Source” HERE)

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Obama’s Pentagon Wants Individuals to Stop Guarding Recruiting Stations

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Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said in a statement that Secretary of Defense Ash Carter “is currently reviewing recommendations from the services for making our installations and facilities safer – including our recruiting stations” following the July 16 attack that left four Marines and a Navy sailor dead.

“While we greatly appreciate the outpouring of support for our recruiters from the American public, we ask that individuals not stand guard at recruiting offices as it could adversely impact our mission, and potentially create unintended security risks,” Cook added.

In the days following the attack, citizens groups, veterans, local law enforcement and the National Guard have stood watch outside of recruiting offices across the country. It’s also raised questions over a 23-year-old federal policy that leaves service members unable to defend themselves on Pentagon property. (Read more from “Pentagon Wants Individuals to Stop Guarding Recruiting Stations” HERE)

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