Posted on 02/12/2014 7:27:11 PM PST by cotton1706
Way back in early February, we heard that Ted Cruz had decided to start playing nice with his fellow Republicans.
What a difference 10 days make.
After Speaker John Boehner moved Tuesday to pass a "clean" debt-ceiling increase, relying on Democratic votes in the House, it looked like the increase could have an easy path through the Democratic-controlled Senate. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the nation would hit the debt limit at the end of the month, and with Congress on recess until February 25, Wednesday's vote was almost do or die.
But the freshman senator from Texas had other ideas, as he often does. Instead of consenting to pass the increase with a bare majority, Cruz announced he'd filibuster, requiring a 60-vote threshold to invoke cloture on the measure. Perhaps sardonically, he told Politico he didn't think that would annoy his GOP colleagues.
You can see where this is going. When the cloture vote came up Wednesday afternoon in the Senate, Democrats voted for it en masse, but the measure still needed a few votes to pass. After a tense hour, and with the nation's full faith and credit on the line, it fell to Republican Senators Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn to, well, pick your cliché: swallow the bitter pill, take one for the team, walk the plank. Once it was clear there were enough Republican votes to invoke cloture, several of their GOP colleagues joined them and voted for cloture. The final vote was 67-31, not even close. A short time later, the Senate passed the increase 55-43, in a vote that required only a simple majority.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Time to primary Cornyn.
good
That headline makes me giggle like a schoolgirl.
“Time to primary Cornyn.”
The primary’s on March 4th with early voting starting next Tuesday 2/18. All Texas has to do is keep him under 50%. then there’s a runoff on May 27th, with the Kentucky primary on May 20th. We can remove both leaders in one fell swoop!
let’s continue the misery, shall we?
He just turned a light in their direction.
/johnny
Good!
Very enjoyable.
I can just picture these RINO’s staring at each other wondering who
was going to be the sucker to provide that 60th vote for 45 minutes.
It sounds like pure panic broke out because of I brave man, Mr. Cruz.
Smoke em out.
“That headline makes me giggle like a schoolgirl.”
I know! Hee hee. And all he did was deny unanimous consent and make them vote. Not complicated. He did nothing at all to them but make their real will known to all, in public.
Cornyn came out saying how he voted against the bill. Voting for cloture was voting for the bill. I just blasted him by email. Wife and I will be voting against him next month.
Ted Cruz is the only guy in Washington that has a spine of steel. The rest have taken a liking to the Kool Aid.
This should be good for the Steve Stockman campaign.
In this story, the people who REALLY piss me off are: the followers. Why would a bunch of other Republicans want to “rush in” and vote with the leaders? After the fact??
suck ups... that’s why.
McConnell and Cornyn deserve to pay the price for not representing their constituents. But, at least... they had the BALLS to step up and vote.
Stockman needs to capitalize on Corny’s latest act of betrayal. I hope he runs ads off of this. Haven’t seen any, though, in the last few days.
And... GOD BLESS Ted Cruz.
Sunlight is GOOD. Make the bastards vote. How else can we know who they REALLY are?
One of Cornyns opponents in the March 4 primary, Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Clear Lake, used the cloture vote to reiterate a campaign attack that Cornyn repeatedly has stabbed Cruz in the back on conservative agenda items.
John Cornyn is treating Ted Cruzs back like his own personal cutlery holder, Stockman tweeted after the vote.
Cornyn focused on the fact that he voted against raising the debt ceiling, rather than on crucial procedural vote that cleared the way for the Senate majority to win the day.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.