EXCLUSIVE–TED CRUZ: DEMOCRATS 'HAVE BECOME AN EXTREME PARTY'

EXCLUSIVE–TED CRUZ: DEMOCRATS 'HAVE BECOME AN EXTREME PARTY'


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by MATTHEW BOYLE
20 Sep 2014,

In an exclusive interview, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said Thursday will go do as a "dark day" in Senate history, with Senate Democrats blocking GOP legislation addressing the Islamic State (ISIS) and President Obama's threat of executive amnesty.

“Unfortunately the Senate Democrats have become an extreme party,” Cruz said in an interview backstage at the Liberty Political Action Conference (LPAC) in Alexandria, Virginia. “They have become a party that has abdicated their responsibilities. Under Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats, we have a do-nothing Senate. There are over 350 bills the House of Representatives has passed and they’re all sitting on Harry Reid’s desk. He will not allow a vote on them.”
The interview with Cruz aired on Breitbart News Saturday on Sirius XM Patriot.

Cruz has introduced two pieces of legislation designed to protect Americans both from U.S. citizens who join the terrorist organization ISIS and from President Obama’s amnesty. The ISIS bill would revoke U.S. citizenship from any American who joins ISIS, a concept that enjoys support from almost everyone in politics, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). But when Cruz sought unanimous consent to bring the bill up for debate and a vote, Senate Democrats—through Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI)—blocked it.

“So the legislation I introduced was to address this crisis we’re facing with ISIS. ISIS is the face of evil,” Cruz told Breitbart News. “They are crucifying Christians, they are beheading children, they are beheading American journalists—and they have pledged to take jihad back to America to murder Americans here at home. There are roughly 100 Americans fighting alongside ISIS who have taken up arms in jihad against America."

"The legislation I introduced was legislation that said if you take up arms with ISIS, a terrorist group, you have constructively forfeited your U.S. citizenship," he explained. "We’re not going to allow ISIS terrorists to come back to this country with a U.S. passport and walk in freely and commit acts of terror murdering Americans here at home. This ought to be an issue that brings everyone together.”

A few years ago, Sen. Scott Brown—who represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate but is now running against Shaheen in New Hampshire—introduced a similar bill alongside then Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent who caucused with Democrats. Brown has hit Shaheen hard on the campaign trail in New Hampshire over the issue, asking her publicly to sign onto the bill. Shaheen’s spokesman, Harrell Kirstein, said in a statement to theBoston Globe earlier this week that Shaheen “believes that anyone who fights with ISIS is a traitor and should lose their citizenship,” but when push came to shove on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Shaheen stood by as her party killed Cruz’s bill. Her office hasn’t responded to a request from Breitbart News about how she did nothing to help the bill.

“If we were dealing in the realm of common sense it ought to be an issue that brings Republicans and Democrats together,” Cruz said. “But unfortunately when I introduced the legislation and asked for Unanimous Consent, the Democrats came out and objected and killed the bill because they're simply so extreme that they’re unwilling to do anything productive to actually protect Americans. It was a sad day in the U.S. Senate."

"And I will say, if God forbid we see some of these terrorists come back and carry out some horrific act, this day will prove a dark day in Senate history—when the Senate stood in the way of decisive action to protect the American people,” he warned.

Later on Thursday, during a floor fight that Cruz, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), and Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) led, Senate Democrats banded together to kill another of Cruz’s bills: One that would block the president from granting executive amnesty to millions more illegal aliens, as he says he plans to do.

Cruz, Lee, and Sessions defined a key procedural vote that would have allowed them to force a vote on Cruz’s measure—one that ends the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive amnesty and blocks the president from expanding it. All 45 Senate Republicans voted with them, and five Senate Democrats—Shaheen, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR), Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV)—joined them, leaving them one vote short of being able to force a vote on Cruz’s measure. That theme—that Republicans are so close to blocking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama—looms large heading into the final stretch of this year’s midterm elections.

“It is incredibly close. It is hanging in the balance,” Cruz said. “I believe Republicans are poised to retake the Senate and retire Harry Reid as Majority Leader."

"The vote today concerned the crisis at the southern border. I represent the state of Texas. I see this every day. It is tragedy. The president is right when he says it is a humanitarian crisis, but it is a crisis of President Obama’s own creation," he declared. "It is the direct consequence of President Obama’s lawlessness and amnesty. The president has promised the American people he intends to illegally grant amnesty to five or six million more people but just a week ago he told us he’s going to do that but he’s going to wait until after the election.”

Cruz argued that amnesty for illegal aliens is not the right policy because it’s not “compassionate” and that President Obama’s decision to delay his executive amnesty order until after the election is close to if not the most “cynical conduct” he’s ever seen.
“Now I got to say, we’ve seen a lot of cynical conduct in Washington but that ranks really near the top because what he’s saying is he recognizes the American people don’t want amnesty—and that by the way cuts across party lines, that’s Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Libertarians—amnesty is the wrong policy. It’s not compassionate. It’s not consistent with rule of law,” Cruz said. “He recognizes the American people don’t want amnesty so he simply says he’s going to do it but not until after the election because he thinks the American people aren’t paying attention enough to understand he’s made this election a referendum on amnesty.”

Instead of standing against the president’s planned executive amnesty, though, Cruz noted that Senate Democrats stood in the way of efforts to block it. That, Cruz said, is the message he has for voters heading into November: to prevent Obama’s amnesty plans, Americans need to vote for Republicans to unseat Reid from the seat of Senate Majority Leader.

“The Senate Democrats had the opportunity to stand with me and to stand with the House of Representatives,” Cruz said. “I introduced legislation in the Senate to prohibit President Obama’s amnesty. The House of Representatives stood up and led. It took the legislation I introduced and it passed it. But the Senate Democrats stood as one uniform block and said ‘no, we will do nothing to stop amnesty.’"

"In my view, it makes the decision very easy for the American people," he stated. :If you support amnesty, you should vote for the Democrats. If you support rule of law, if you don’t want to see the president illegally and unconstitutionally granting amnesty to 5 or 6 million more [illegal immigrants], the direct thing you can do is work between now and election day to defeat Senate Democrats and to retire Harry Reid as Majority Leader.”

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/09/20/Exclusive-Ted-Cruz-Thursday-Dark-Day-In-Senate-History-Democrats-Have-Become-An-Extreme-Party

The Democrat party has become the party of radicals, this has occurred over the past 20 years, at one time the blue dogs had some common sense but that era has passed but we hear little of that on national media rather they seem content to call the Tea Party radical.

Sessions, Cruz, Lee and Paul Shame GOP Establishment on CR

By CHQ Staff | 9/19/2014




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Yesterday, the four "tigers," Senators Jeff Sessions, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul stood tall in opposition to the Continuing Resolution negotiated by Capitol Hill’s establishment Republican leaders and, although they lost the final vote, they left us with some hope the national Republican Party can still be called back to conservative principles.

Earlier this week Senator Jeff Sessions set the stage for a showdown on Obama’s deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA) and the rest of Obama’s lawless immigration policy with a great address in which he said “the entire Senate Democratic Congress has surrendered the jobs, wages, and livelihoods of their constituents to a group of special interests meeting in secret at the White House. They are surrendering them to executive actions that will foist on the nation what Congress has refused to pass and the American people have rejected. They are plotting at the White House to move forward with Executive action no matter what the people think and no matter what Congress—through the people's House—has decided. “ (link to the full text of Senator Sessions’ truly awesome address at the end of this article)

Sessions, Lee and Cruz then engaged Democrats in an epic battle over funding for DACA and executive amnesty as debate on the CR proceeded. (Hat tip to Brietbart’s Tony Lee for the best summary of the debate available on the web)

"What about what's in the interest of the American people?" Senator Sessions asked. "America is not an oligarchy. The masters of the universe... don't get to meet at the White House and decide how to run this country."

He noted that when the "American people learned what was in the Senate amnesty bill and guest worker bill that doubled the number of guest workers, for which every single Senate Democrat voted, the people said 'no, no, no.'"

"So I have a message today to all the special interests, the global elites, the activists, the cynical vote-counting politicians, plotters that are meeting in secret at the White house, and this message is this: You don't get to sit in a room and rewrite the laws of this United states of America. No, sir. Congress writes the laws," Sessions said. "You may not be... used to people telling you 'no,' but I'm telling you 'no' today."

Sessions said that it is "critical that our Senate Democrats are willing to say 'no,' too, today when we vote."

Sessions also had a message for the American people: "You have been right from the beginning. You have justly demanded that our borders be controlled, our laws enforced and that, at long last, immigration policy serves the needs of our own people first."

"For this virtuous and legitimate demand, you have been demeaned, even scorned by the governing class," he continued.

Sessions mocked the "cosmopolitan elite" who think "they know so much" and "want you to believe that your concerns are somehow illegitimate, that you are wrong for being worried about your jobs or your schools or your hospitals or your communities or your national security."

"These elite citizens of the world speak often of their concern about people living in poverty overseas and yet they turn a blind eye to the poverty and suffering in their own country. They don't want you to speak up either," he said. "They don't want you to be heard. They don't want you to feel you have a vote, but you do have a voice, American people. And your message is being heard. And I'm delivering that message to the senate today."

As Breitbart’s Tony Lee reported, Sessions, Cruz and Mike Lee came one vote short of forcing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to allow amendments to the continuing resolution and bring up a vote on the House bill that would defund Obama's future executive amnesty. Obama, after delaying his executive amnesty to help Senate Democrats retain control of the Senate, has promised he would act on executive amnesty by the end of the year.

Lee had concerns similar to Sessions’ and noted that the continuing resolution would fund "any other executive amnesty the president may choose to implement illegally." He said that the most important thing Obama can do to stop the crisis at the border and the exploitation of illegal immigrant juveniles is to end the Deferred Action program.

"He also needs to involve an effort to resist the temptation to further expand DACA to millions of additional adults," Lee said.

Lee also said that "by announcing to the world that he will not enforce our nation's laws," Obama is only "encouraging hundreds of thousands of children and adults to make a very dangerous journey to the U.S. illegally."

"He's encouraging families to pay coyotes controlled by drug cartels thousands of dollars to smuggle their children into this country," Lee concluded.

“I cannot vote to empower our lawless president to continue his plans that threaten the economy and our national security,” said Sen. Cruz. “The Continuing Resolution funds Obama’s Amnesty, it funds Obamacare, and it funds military operations in Syria that are not authorized by Congress and are dependent on unreliable actors in the region.”

“I have offered several amendments to make America more free, strong, and safe, but the sad fact of the matter is that Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid’s do-nothing Senate refuses even to allow vote on them,” said Sen. Cruz.

“Given that this Continuing Resolution does nothing to secure the border, give Americans any relief from Obamacare, or commit President Obama to a clear strategy against ISIS that protects U.S. interests, I cannot in good conscience vote for the Continuing Resolution," said Sen. Cruz. "It is my fervent hope that Americans will speak loud and clear in the next few months, elect a new Senate majority, and give the new Congress a strong mandate to reverse the disastrous decline orchestrated by President Obama and the Senate Democrats."

Senator Paul said before the Thursday vote that there should be a separate vote on the authorization to aid Syrian rebels, but Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) objected leaving the vote to in essence go to war in Syria as a minor part of a short term Continuing Resolution.

"The inescapable irony is that someday the arms we supply would be used against us, or Israel," Paul said on the floor Thursday. "It is also ludicrous to believe that we know where all of the money, arms and ammunition will end up, or who will end up benefitting from these shipments."

Ted Cruz echoed Paul’s argument that weapons given to rebels could wind up in hands of terrorist groups in Syria.

Where were GOP “leaders” during that debate? Nowhere to be found, that’s where.

Sure, some of them may have voted for the positions of Sessions, Cruz, Lee and Paul once or twice, but in the end, while Sessions, Cruz, Lee and Paul led the floor fight and were all to vote “NAY” on the CR, the Republican “leaders” of the Senate, such as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Minority Whip John Cornyn and Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Thune all voted “YEA” and were all but absent from the debate, leaving the four tigers as the defacto Republican spokesmen for conservative principles.

Here’s a link to Senator Jeff Sessions awesome address on executive amnesty and the destruction illegal immigration has wrought on the American middle class.

http://www.conservativehq.com/node/18312

Could we not have hired mercenaries to fight in Syria I believe I would trust paid fighters over anyone in Syria and I'm certain it would have been cheaper.