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Bid To Defund Obamacare Gains Momentum In Senate GOP

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

This week it appeared Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee would wage a lonely war over their threat to hold up a continuing resolution to fund the U.S. government if they are not given a vote on a budget amendment to defund Obamacare. Now, it’s not quite so lonely. Sens. Marco Rubio and James Inhofe have joined Cruz and Lee, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday that he “looks forward to supporting” the amendment.

It’s a significant step forward for Cruz and Lee. But the Senate Republican caucus remains deeply divided about defunding Obamacare. Sources say that at a Republican caucus lunch a few days ago, several GOP senators expressed opposition to Cruz and Lee’s proposal. And of course, the 55-member Democratic majority will not give it the time of day. But Cruz and Lee are determined to keep up opposition to Obamacare, even though it has flagged in some other quarters of the Republican Party.

And in Rubio, the two have an ally sure to bring a higher profile to the cause. The continuing resolution fight is “a perfect opportunity for us to have a debate once again on Obamacare,” Rubio told radio host Hugh Hewitt Friday. “I don’t think there’s been enough attention paid to it. It’s been awhile, we’ve moved onto these other issues, but there is, right now out there, probably nothing more damaging to our economy in the short term than this implementation of Obamacare.”

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Establishment GOP Wages War On Newcomers

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Photo Credit: WND

Old guard Senate Republicans are using the term “wacko” to describe new members promoting the tea party call for smaller government and accountability, and a congressional source for WND says it’s a sign of an emerging inter-party clash.

Referring to the fallout from the filibuster this week by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a top Republican aide said there “could not have been a starker contrast in terms of the new reformers of the Senate, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, all fighting the overreach of this executive, versus on the handful of senators having dinner in one of the most expensive hotels in the country.”

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who both criticized Paul for his nearly 13-hour filibuster of the vote on John Brennan for CIA director, were among the Republican leaders who dined with Obama. According to the Huffington Post, McCain referred to tea party Republicans, including Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., as “wacko birds.”

“I don’t think you could get a clearer and starker vision of what one side thinks Washington should be doing versus the other,” the source said. The energy generated by Paul’s filibuster and the stances taken by Sens. McCain and Graham show why “they don’t have the backing and support of the American people,” the source said.

In the hours after Paul’s filibuster, both McCain and Graham launched deeply critical attacks against Paul, claiming that, fundamentally, the American people have nothing to fear from their government. Paul, Cruz and Lee raised alarm when the Obama administration wouldn’t immediately assure the public it would not kill an American citizen on home soil with a drone.

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Video: Ted Cruz Grills Eric Holder

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Senator Cruz grills Attorney General Eric Holder on drones, enforcement of federal law, and more.

It is refreshing to see someone actually try to hold this administration accountable. And the Attorney General’s obfuscation illustrates why we need folks like Ted Cruz on the Hill.

Watch Cruz have to ask repeatedly to get a straight answer from the Attorney General.

RebRANDing: New GOP Emerges

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Photo Credit: Breitbart On Wednesday, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) served notice to both the Republican establishment and to the Democrat-Media Complex: conservatism isn’t gone. It’s not even on vacation. The new wave of conservatives is here, and they know how to play the game.

At approximately 11:47 a.m. EST, Paul took to the floor of the Senate to filibuster the nomination of counterterrorism czar John Brennan for CIA Director. Paul stated his reason specifically and clearly: the Obama administration has refused to answer question as to whether they believe it is acceptable under the Constitution to kill American citizens on US soil using drones if those citizens are not engaged in an immediate terrorist threat. Paul was broader than that, actually – he simply asked the administration for a set of rules that could be used to limit their power to execute American citizens here at home. Over and over again, the administration refused to turn over the legal memos detailing its policies.

And so Paul talked. And boy, did he talk. For nearly 13 hours, he talked, taking breaks only when spelled by Senators including fellow Tea Partiers Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Pat Toomey (R-PA). Even an honest Democrat – apparently the only one in the chamber – got into the act: Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR). Citing everyone from left to right, Paul pointed out the hypocrisy of an administration ripping into waterboarding of terrorists but happy to target them for death from the skies. He asked repeatedly why the administration could not answer his simple question about the boundaries of government power. And the American people listened.

It was an astonishing demonstration of the power of ideas. Paul spoke directly to the American people from the floor of the Senate. No media interrogators. No Obama functionaries. No spin machine. He was not strident, but he was firm. “No American should ever be killed in their house without warrant and some kind of aggressive behavior by them,” said Paul. “To be bombed in your sleep? There’s nothing American about that … [President Obama] says trust him because he hasn’t done it yet. He says he doesn’t intend to do so, but he might. Mr. President, that’s not good enough … so I’ve come here to speak for as long as I can to draw attention to something that I find to really be very disturbing …

“I will not sit quietly and let him shred the Constitution …. The point isn’t that anyone in our country is Hitler. But what I am saying is that in a democracy you could somehow elect someone who is very evil … When a democracy gets it wrong, you want the law to be in place.”

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Cruz: Defund Obamacare Through Spending Bill

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller Texas Republican Sen.Ted Cruz declared Wednesday that he will reject any government spending bill that does not directly cut off funds to the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature piece of legislation.

Cruz said “he will offer an amendment to delay the flow of funds to implement the healthcare law when the Senate takes up a continuing resolution to fund the federal government,” the Hill reports.

“I believe we should continue to delay such funding at least until economic growth returns to historic averages, and I intend to object to consideration of any continuing resolution that does not include a vote to delay funding of Obamacare,” Cruz said in a statement.

Cruz’s comment comes on the heels of a continuing resolution to fund the government, including money set aside for Obamacare.

After the GOP’s hopes of easily repealing the national health care law were lost with the 2012 election, some in Congress have said that they will work to use creative tactics to chip away at the law.

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Cruz Goes After Holder About Constitutionality Of Using Drones To Target Americans On US Soil

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Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreAttorney General Eric Holder and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, got into a heated discussion during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about the use of drones against American citizens.

Questioning Holder about a letter he sent to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in which the attorney general said it would take an “extraordinary circumstance” to use a drone to kill an American on U.S. soil, Cruz asked if such lethal force would be constitutional.

“If an individual is sitting quietly at a café in the United States, in your legal judgment, does the Constitution allow a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil to be killed by a drone?” Cruz asked Holder.

Watch video here:

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Video: Ted Cruz On America’s Economic Problems – ‘An Awful Lot of Republicans Failed To Stand For Principle And Contributed To Getting Us In This Mess’

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore Sen. Ted Cruz: We’ve got a job and right now I think the U.S. Senate is the battlefield. Unfortunately, Republicans are in the minority. This last election did not turn out as I had hoped, but I nonetheless think that if we had principled, effective conservatives who make the case that the most effective engine, for economic opportunity, the most effective engine for climbing the economic ladder, for helping those with nothing to achieve anything has been free markets, has been limited government has been the incredible, American system. If we make that case, we can preserve that system. And I think that’s what the stakes are.

And so, my focus every day is on the substance of winning the fight, stopping the out of control spending and deficits and debt so that our kids aren’t crushed with those debts and getting the economy growing again. You know in the last four years under President Obama, our economy has grown 1.5 percent a year. That’s less than half the historical average. The historical average since World War II has been 3.3 percent. If we can’t get the economy growing, we can’t solve any of these problems.

If you want to get the 23 million people who are struggling to find jobs back to work, get the economy growing. If you want to transform our federal balance sheet, change it from the train wreck it is right now, get the economy growing.

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Dictatorship Of Hypocrites: The Media’s Crusade Against Cruz

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Photo Credit: Breitbart The liberal media have their knives out for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) after his textbook cross-examination of Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel at the latter’s confirmation hearing Jan. 31. Jane Mayer of the New Yorker seized on a speech Cruz gave three years ago in which he asserted that when he was at Harvard Law School, shortly after Barack Obama, there were twelve Marxists on the faculty and one Republican.

That, Mayer alleges, is evidence of Cruz’s innate McCarthyism–and hence, she implies, ought to discredit Cruz’s inquiries into Hagel’s beliefs and financial backing. That’s rich coming from the New Yorker’s resident Koch-obsessive, who launched a McCarthyist assault on the Tea Party in 2010, asserting it was mere Astroturf for the “billionaire Koch brothers’ war against Obama,” and demanding more scrutiny of the Kochs’ ties to it.

Her current campaign against Cruz is a pure political vendetta–a fact she does not even try to deny. In her latest offering, she defends her sudden interest in the 2010 speech as follows: “…Cruz’s hostile questioning of Obama’s nominee for Defense Secretary, Chuck Hagel, and insinuations about Hagel’s loyalties had provided a fresh context for looking more closely at the nature of the accusations he has leveled at political opponents.”

In terms of accusations against one’s opponents, it’s hard to top Mayer’s suggestion that millions of conservative Americans are paid stooges–or Obama’s numerous attacks on opponents using false accusations and innuendo. Remember the doctors who cut out kids’ tonsils for no reason except greed? The Republican presidential nominee who just might be a felon, and may have killed a man’s wife? Few complaints from Mayer there.

In fact, Mayer gave positive coverage to the anti-Bain Capital ads that ran against Romney in Ohio. In a post-election article on Nov. 19, 2012, “Seeing Spots,” Mayer noted that the ad about a worker’s dead wife was inaccurate. She nonetheless celebrated the company that made it for another ad in the series, “Stage,” which helped “to float the image of Romney as a coldhearted fat cat” and gave Obama a decisive advantage in the polls.

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Texas ‘Cruz Missile’ — Senator Standing By His Principles, Ready To Take The Heat

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Photo Credit: APTexas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has earned a few nicknames in the brief seven weeks he’s been in Congress – including the unflattering “Senator No.” But nobody can say the freshman senator has broken his campaign promise to shake up Washington upon arrival.

The Tea Party-backed candidate has so far made good on vows to be combative and uncompromising in his adherence to conservative principles.

The 42-year-old Cruz has already voted against Senate rule changes to modestly curb filibusters, aid for Superstorm Sandy victims and the Violence Against Women Act.

He also was one of only three “no” votes against Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry’s nomination to be secretary of State. And he publicly skewered President Obama’s nominee for Defense secretary, former Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel.

All of that has helped Cruz earn such nicknames as “Cruz Missile,” “Senator No” and even “The GOP’s Nasty Newcomer.” He also was featured in the past few weeks by Politico and The New York Times.

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Scary Ted Cruz Labeled the New McCarthy in Leftist Freakout

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Photo Credit: New YorkerLast week, Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s prosecutorial style of questioning Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee for Defense Secretary, came so close to innuendo that it raised eyebrows in Congress, even among his Republican colleagues. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, called Cruz’s inquiry into Hagel’s past associations “out of bounds, quite frankly.” The Times reported that Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, rebuked Cruz for insinuating, without evidence, that Hagel may have collected speaking fees from North Korea. Some Democrats went so far as to liken Cruz, who is a newcomer to the Senate, to a darkly divisive predecessor, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, whose anti-Communist crusades devolved into infamous witch hunts. Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, stopped short of invoking McCarthy’s name, but there was no mistaking her allusion when she talked about being reminded of “a different time and place, when you said, ‘I have here in my pocket a speech you made on such-and-such a date,’ and of course there was nothing in the pocket.”

Boxer’s analogy may have been more apt than she realized. Two and a half years ago, Cruz gave a stem-winder of a speech at a Fourth of July weekend political rally in Austin, Texas, in which he accused the Harvard Law School of harboring a dozen Communists on its faculty when he studied there. Cruz attended Harvard Law School from 1992 until 1995. His spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request to discuss the speech.

Cruz made the accusation while speaking to a rapt ballroom audience during a luncheon at a conference called “Defending the American Dream,” sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a non-profit political organization founded and funded in part by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch. Cruz greeted the audience jovially, but soon launched an impassioned attack on President Obama, whom he described as “the most radical” President “ever to occupy the Oval Office.” (I was covering the conference and kept the notes.)

He then went on to assert that Obama, who attended Harvard Law School four years ahead of him, “would have made a perfect president of Harvard Law School.” The reason, said Cruz, was that, “There were fewer declared Republicans in the faculty when we were there than Communists! There was one Republican. But there were twelve who would say they were Marxists who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government.”

“We are puzzled by the Senator’s assertions, as we are unaware of any basis for them,” Robb London, a spokesman for Harvard Law School, told me. London noted that Cruz had contributed “warm reminiscences“ of the school by video for a reunion of Latino alumni. “We applaud the fact that he has pursued public service, as so many of our graduates have done. We are also proud of our longstanding tradition of freedom of speech and the robust range of views and debates on our campus.”

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