One way you know you’ve gone completely off the rails is when large numbers of your own party run as fast as they can away from you; the other way is when members of the opposition party reserve a front row seat to watch the exodus. That chuckle you hear is Harry Reid's response to Ted Cruz’s "request" for the majority leader to “amend” Senate rules to require 60 votes to pass a continuing resolution. If I were Ted, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for a yes. Suffice to say the junior senator from Texas is not having a good week.
Of course Ted Cruz can thank himself for the predicament he and his party are now in. After spending the better part of the summer goading the more gullible members of the House GOP into pushing for a defund provision to be put into their spending bill, it finally dawned on shit-for-brains that he didn't have the votes in the Senate to actually pull off his little stunt.
So he had a rare moment of transparency and pronounced that the House bill he pushed for would never make it through Harry Reid's Senate. [Even worse, all Reid needs is a simple majority - 51 senators - to strip the defund measure and send it on its way back to the House.] All this has caused a great deal of consternation among his House colleagues who understandably felt stabbed. Apparently they didn't have a calculator either.
Not to be deterred, Captain America called on his Senate colleagues to filibuster the House bill. That's right, Ted Cruz wants Senate Republicans to filibuster a House funding bill that defunds Obamacare. Ostensibly, Cruz is calling for a government shutdown. All he needs to do is get another forty Republicans to join him on his suicide crusade.
Except, unlike the dimwits in the House, most Senate Republicans weren't dumb enough to fall for his red herring. They ran for the hills quicker than you can say Sarah Palin. The prevailing logic, I guess, was that Cruz made this bed; he could lie down in it.
Which is exactly what Cruz has decided to do, covers and all. As we speak, Jimmy Stewart is holding forth on the floor of the Senate, pledging to stay there until he loses his voice, which we can only pray becomes a permanent state. Apparently, the more isolated and ostracized he gets, the more determined he becomes.
The irony here is that this delay tactic - and that's what it is, nothing more - will mean that the Senate might not be able to pass its resolution until late Sunday, giving House Republicans only a day to either allow an up or down vote or make additional changes to it.
In other words, Ted Cruz, by virtue of his self-aggrandized stunt, will have managed to fuck the Speaker of the House and his fellow Tea Party brethren not once, but twice.
Sweet!
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/24/government-shutdown-ted-cruz_n_3984135.html
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