[savedbygrace]

You are mis-reading and misunderstanding. I will number each example.

1) Only Congress can make U. S. law. The Court might have allowed the results of the two examples to remain, but the Court did not call it law.

2) It is true that Congress is the only entity that can make U.S. law and nothing about TPP or TPA could change that. Neither TPP nor TPA is a treaty, so your argument with regard to treaties is moot.

3) I suspect this President would not abide by the 60 day rule, so I’ll give you that one. Still, Cruz did not say the Obama would definitely abide by it, so it’s still a lose for you.

4) You mis-read this one. He said there are two ways to make LAW. Only one of the two ways is with regard to treaties. Also, once again, neither TPP nor TPA is a treaty, so your point is again lost.

5) Isn’t TPA for a specified number of years?

[nathanbedford]

I think we live on different planets. Congressional-executive agreements i.e. laws between the United States and foreign countries have been routinely upheld by the Supreme Court. These have been upheld but nevertheless are substitutes for treaties requiring two thirds approval by the Senate. My view and the view of Lawrence Tribe (proving that law as well as politics makes for strange bedfellows) is that this is an unconstitutional act. My view and Lawrence Tribe's view is distinctly minority.

These are "laws." In addition to this manner of making laws there is a so-called "executive agreement" these are commitments made by the president of the United States without authority from Congress. The Supreme Court has upheld these naked executive agreements countless times and they have the effect of "law." I refer you to the 1983 Hofstra Law Review article which I cannot cite but which you can simply Google.

The main problem with all of this is that we know it is a flimflam. Once fast-track is made law on this trade agreement, the final product is inevitably going to be approved by the reduced majority required for the Senate and in the House. We have seen these omnibus bills with increasing frequency, a notorious example of which is Obamacare. Another example: the empowerment of the federal bureaucracy through the Environmental Protection Agency. If you deny that the Environmental Protection Agency has made "law" over the subsequent decades we do indeed live on a different planet.

I decline to reason backwards from admiration of an individual candidate. I prefer to form my political judgments about candidates reasoning from their position on issues toward the individual.

Ted Cruz has paved the way for this omnibus legislation which no doubt contains environmental and immigration provisions with which the executive will make law just as the executive is making law under the environmental protection act and under Obamacare. Now that fast-track has been approved with the help of Ted Cruz, it is all over.

Ted Cruz will now vote against the final TPP and claim that he has opposed it all along.

Many will believe him.