Thread: Senator Cruz Filibuster

Defunding ObamaCare Debate a Win for GOP, Tea Party

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by Mike Flynn 24 Sep 2013, 10:06 AM PDT 61 post a comment
Most of Washington has decided that the ObamaCare defunding debate, led by Sens. Cruz and Lee, is a disaster for the Republican party. It is unlikely to succeed, they argue, and risks a government shutdown, which will be blamed on the GOP and hurt their chances in 2014. The argument is plausible, but very short-sighted. Two important things have happened as a result of this debate which benefit the GOP.

First, all anyone in politics or the press is talking about right now is ObamaCare and the Republican push to defund it. Against this backdrop have been countless stories about the problems coming to light as ObamaCare nears implementation. One company after another are dropping or scaling back health coverage. Even governments are making moves to move their employees or retirees onto ObamaCare exchanges.
Premiums are increasing more than expected for many people. Those with the most affordable coverage will have limited choices of doctors and providers. Most of the health exchanges scheduled to open next week aren't ready or will have serious bugs to work out.
How is it bad for the GOP to have a big national debate on getting rid of ObamaCare on the eve of its implementation, just as the public is again paying attention to the issue? It benefits the party to remind voters that Republicans will go to almost any length to defund a law who's unpopularity is likely to grow. It also benefits the party to remind voters that Democrats will go to almost any length to preserve the law.
Second, while the political world is consumed with ObamaCare funding, it isn't debating spending levels in the Continuing Resolution. The House-passed measure assumes the sequester cuts and sets discretionary spending at $967 billion, a level not seen since before Obama took office. While the sequester has numerous flaws, especially as it relates to the military, that is a significant and real spending cut.
Without the ObamaCare debate, Democrats and the media would be brow-beating Republicans to increase spending or even restore the cuts that have already been made to the budget. The Senate budget called for a big spike in discretionary spending. Harry Reid, however, is expected to agree to the lower level of spending in the House CR as an inducement for the House to pass a Senate version restoring ObamaCare.
Personally, I was never really a fan of the ObamaCare defunding fight. Over 70% of ObamaCare is funded by mandatory spending and can't be defunded through congressional appropriations. Most of the law would march on, even if Congress defunded it.
Politically, though, it is looking more like a winner for conservative Republicans and the Tea Party. Democrats may come to regret that they fought so hard to preserve funding and defend ObamaCare.

Senator Dick Durbin [D] questions Senator Cruz

Reciprocity prays that Senator Jeff Session does not retire

make DC listen https://twitter.com/search?q=%23MakeDCListen&src=hash

Lee: Defunding Obamacare Battle Like Revolutionary War

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by Tony Lee 24 Sep 2013, 9:36 AM PDT 55 post a comment
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), one of the architects of the defunding Obamacare strategy in the Senate, compared the the battle to defund Obamacare to the Revolutionary War.

“I would remind your listeners out there that the Revolutionary War was fought and won with the support from what was initially a minority within a minority of Americans,” Lee said on Mark Levin's radio show on Monday evening, according to Roll Call. “There are lots of fights that we have fought as Americans where we were the underdog, or where not everyone was on board, but a select few [believed] that it was worth fighting, and eventually they persuaded others to go along and eventually they won.”
Proponents of defunding Obamacare have been employing this analogy at various points in the fight, especially after the House passed a bill to fund the government and defund Obamacare after months in which pundits and even the Republican leadership had said such a bill would not come to the floor.
“This is one of those moments where we as Americans have to stand together and where the Congress needs to stand with the American people who are calling in in overwhelming numbers saying please, keep the government funded, but defund Obamacare," Lee said.
Lee and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) have insisted that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) adopt a 60-vote threshold for amendments to the House bill so that Reid is unable to insert an amendment to fund Obamacare with a simple majority.

Finger Lickin’ Frauds

By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | September 24th, 2013 at 09:11 PM | 4
RESIZE: AAA


Within hours of Liz Cheney, now a candidate for the Senate in Wyoming, announcing her support of Ted Cruz’s filibuster, Senator Mike Enzi, who Cheney is primarying, took to the floor of the United States Senate and declared he stood with Ted Cruz.

Pat Roberts, the elderly Senator from Kansas who may soon be getting a stiff primary challenge, stiffly stood on the floor of the United States Senate to show he too stood with Ted Cruz.
Rand Paul, after NBC News reported he may disagree with Cruz’s filibuster threat, went to the floor of the Senate and stood with Ted Cruz.
Meanwhile, John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell and Lamar Alexander and other Republican Senators are leaking attacks against Cruz on background. They complained to reporters about Cruz suggesting they were cowards. They did so off the record and in the shadows.

Ted Cruz and Mike Lee will not get the forty-one votes they need to sustain their filibuster. They will be betrayed by Republican senators who are willing to fund Obamacare while claiming to vote against it. But in this filibuster and in their brilliant strategy, they have exposed Republicans who will not fight. They have exposed Republicans who are so desperate for their own reelection they will say or do anything when they could not bother in off years. They have shown Republicans that there are Republicans who are willing to stand up to Barack Obama and to the cowards within their own party.
They have also exposed a lot of people on the outside as frauds. To be sure, there are conservatives who have legitimate reasons to disagree with this strategy. But there are a whole lot who have been exposed as finger lickin’ frauds — willing to put their finger to the wind of beltway opinion to chart their course.

The Beltway Republican pundits bellyaching over Cruz and Lee fighting the fight others promised to fight is just a fart in the maelstrom of conservatives united against both Democrats and the finger lickin’ frauds within the Republican Party who talk a good game then fold like cheap suits.

Many of the Republicans who told conservatives to be good team players for Romney have shown that they will say and do anything to cut deals to undermine conservatives during this fight. Cruz and Lee are exposing them.

Cruz and Lee have brought anticeptic sunlight to the fight within the Republican Party. They are the men in the arena. If Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and with them Marco Rubio and others win this fight, they will be triumphant. But if they lose, at least they “shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Had Cruz and Lee not done this, the ending position for the Republicans would be far worse than what it would otherwise be. Had conservatives not pushed Congress to the brink on the debt ceiling, sequestration would never have happened. Because Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, and their House counterparts have shown just how far conservatives are willing to go now, House and Senate Republicans know they cannot cave for table scraps.

But they have, in this, been exposed as willing to otherwise settle or table scaps.

I swear I cannot walk away from the TV. He has taken on the whole government, Democrat and Republican and he doesn't care. I wish every American was listening. I was so mad today over Pelosi meeting with illegal immigrants and proceeding to lecture Americans on being unAmerican. I was questioning who listens to Americans why do illegal immigrants count more than we Americans. Well now at least I feel that Ted Cruz does care what Americans think. Everyone keeps saying we need a third party, well maybe we just needed someone to champion the American People.

Lee just took the floor and stated his office has received 11,000 emails in the lst 12 hours, Cruz has been reading tweet's from Americans from all districts, all ending with "Make DC Listen". The Senate is not there to hear Cruz, but evidently Americans across the country are listening.