Ted Cruz Takes On GOP Leadership in Fiery Speech
“It’s time to break the #WashingtonCartel”
Ted Cruz has long criticized career politicians in both parties for not listening to the American people; indeed, he started a Twitter hashtag #MakeDCListen on this very issue and has taken to the Senate floor on a number of occasions to urge DC to listen to the people who elected them.
His pleas, like ours, fall on deaf ears, but that doesn’t stop him from voicing what so many of us have come to believe:
#MakeDCListen: It’s time to break the #WashingtonCartel: http://t.co/PVsiCtsMqj pic.twitter.com/lp07uDyniy
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 24, 2015
Yesterday, Cruz once again took to the Senate floor to berate career politicians in both parties, particularly Republican leadership. The Washington Post reports:
Firebrand Republican senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz did something surprising in the Senate on Friday: He accused the head of his party, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, of lying to his colleagues.
“We know now that when the majority leader looks us in the eyes and makes an explicit commitment, that he is willing to say things that he knows are false,” Cruz (Tex.) said. “That has consequences for how this body operates.”
Cruz’s remarks laid bare, in the most august of settings, simmering tensions between the conservative activist wing of the Republican Party and the mainstream GOP establishment. In his 20-minute speech, Cruz accused McConnell (Ky.) of running the Senate in much the same manner as his Democratic predecessor as majority leader, Harry M. Reid (Nev.).
Cruz has led the charge on a number of issues that matter to conservatives, from Israel to immigration to ObamaCare, but he keeps hitting the same brick wall: Mitch McConnell and GOP leadership. As the National Journal reports:
The decision by establishment leaders to hold off on a repeal-focused agenda, however, isn’t likely to sit well with the Senate’s and House’s most conservative members, who have built their legacies on obstructing Obama on the budget, on immigration, and especially on health care. McConnell’s reluctance to spend the next two years embroiled in Obamacare repeal votes could lay the groundwork for the kind of intraparty fighting in the Senate that, up until now, has only been the trademark of the House. Eventually, the schisms between the Far Right and the center of the party could spill into public view.
Despite the 2010 shellacking and the 2014 shellacking 2.0 which gave Republicans a majority in both houses of Congress, nothing has been done to address the issues that these Republicans were elected to address, that they ran their campaigns on.
Americans are becoming increasingly frustrated with this pattern of career politicians making empty promises to get elected, and so is Ted Cruz.
Watch his full remarks; they’re remarkable:
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Comments
He has to compete with Trump now for the Very Angry LIVs, when he thought he had locked them up with his phony Obamacare filibuster and bogus “petition” (never presented to anyone, of course, just a ruse to induce the gullible to give him their email addresses) which netted a mailing list of 1.5 million suckers.
It’s not like he has ever shown an inclination to work with colleagues at all. He doesn’t attend weekly caucus meetings, ran ads attacking 25 GOP Senators for not joining his filibuster grandstanding when he had never asked them to. If you think that shows leadership, congratulations: you are Cruz’ target audience.
The sole Constitutional power Congress has to use against this lawless President, short of impeachment, is that of the purse. Cruz goes to use that power against Obamacare, and you gratuitously characterize that as “phony”? In that case, the more often such “phony” actions are taken, the better off we’ll all be.
He didn’t “ask” fellow Senators to join his “phony” filibuster? All the rest of us knew about it, but they were, what, watching the Ranger game?
It’s not like [Cruz] has ever shown an inclination to work with colleagues at all.
You go girl! These days what the Senate needs most are more go-along-to-get-along and say-one-thing-and-do-the-opposite politicians. Nothing is as important to the future of America as getting invited to the Very Best cocktail parties thrown by the Very Best Washington insiders. “Give me a vacuous Washington Post puff piece or give me a slobbering MSNBC interview by Rachael Maddows!” should be Cruz’s rallying cry!
Estragon, are you Rince Prebus posting under an alias?
Could be. Estragon could also be just a JEB! shill. Just like he was as Romney shill. But WE are the LIV’s, right?
@Estragon LIV? moi? Surely you don’t mean low-fo voter . . . you must mean luscious, intelligent voter. 😛
Cruz’s throwing a grenade into McConnell’s lap is yet one more piece of evidence that Cruz isn’t B-S-ing. Everything wrong with America is self inflicted, and while most of the inflicting is done by Democrats, there are some Republicans worthy of special mention. McConnell and Boehner come first to mind.
Count me in as a member of the very angry Cruz target audience. McConnell lied not only to Cruz but, more importantly, to the voters. Glad that he is being called on it by Cruz and hope to see others in the Senate speak out. We need new leaders in both houses of Congress who will fight against the rot that is destroying our great country.
Cruz spoke the truth, no matter what some think of his record or his motives.
I’ve come to the conclusion estragon works for Boehner or McConnell.
If not, he should.
That’s possible, I suppose.
My theory is that it’s likely Estragon is a beneficiary of some sort of corporate welfare who has gotten fat feeding at the public trough thanks to the GOP establishment. Someone who is worried that the gravy train he’s riding on may run out of gravy if a true reformer like Cruz ever comes to power.
It’s just a theory. But if the theory is true that makes Estragon the absolute worst of the GOP voting bloc.
Well we know the Democrat Trolls are working the site, so why not the Democrat-wannabe-Republican Trolls?
I can’t help but think this is a reaction to Trump’s success with anti-establishment rhetoric. Cruz sees that working for Trump on immigration, so he’s doing it himself with the Obamatrade deal. That’s not a criticism by any stretch – I think a lot of folks would love to see some of the candidates take a more aggressive and unapologetic stance on a lot of issues.
Except that Cruz was advertised by the MSM to be the Republican “extreme” candidate prior to Trump hitting the campaign trail. Trump is not only good for America in general, for being willing to put the spotlight on one of the most important self inflicted problems America has today, but also good for Cruz, because the MSM can’t declare all the Republican candidates “extreme”.
…the MSM can’t declare all the Republican candidates “extreme”.
Wanna bet? Headline – Entire GOP Jumps the Shark-“No discernible difference between them and the Nazi Party” says Hillary
Hillary Clinton is like a raving street-person: we hear her squawk as we pass by, but no one takes her seriously, except the cops.
Soon, it seems, the cops may be taking a serious interest in Clinton:
http://news.yahoo.com/attorney-general-loretta-lynch-faces-potential-minefield-hillary-170521492.html
We’ll soon find out if Loretta Lynch is as corrupt as the deranged Eric Holder was.
The GOP leadership is comprised of a bunch of corrupt bums. All of them.
We have no real similarity to them other than neither of us are democrats.
A third party just might take this time around, and permanently.
“A third party just might take this time around, and permanently.”
Like how the Republicans took it in 1860, the last time a third party was victorious?
Funny how third party candidates since then always give victory to the party most distant from them.
Ralph Nader took enough votes from Al Gore to give GWB the win.
Ross Perot took enough votes from GHWB to give the unpunished forcible rapist of Juanita Broaddrick the win.
Eugene McCarthy made enough trouble for LBJ that LBJ chose to retire in favor of HHH, giving the win to Nixon.
And the grand-daddy of all third party candidates, Teddy Roosevelt, took enough votes from Taft to give Woodrow Wilson the win.
You know the line. He who will not learn from history…
Of course you are right, historically. But —
This also might be the time we make history. The modern, corrupt GOP is far more insidious than the Whig Party the GOP replaced in the 1860s.
Boehner, Prebus and McConnell are the absolute faces of the GOP, as well as a perfect views of it’s rectum. Then you have powerful clowns like McCain and Graham — and those are only the scumbag faces we actually see.
The GOP is so rat-infested, so whored-out to special interests who have no interests co-joined to this nations’s, that nothing shy of burning the GOP to the ground and starting over with a new party will provide us with the protections our party should be providing us from the lunatic left destroying our way of life.
Frank, here’s the history lesson we REALLY need to learn: cooperating with the what is now the GOP will surely get us President Mad-woman, or whoever the democrats replace her with (which will be happening shortly.) The Dole, McCain, and Romney elections should prove that. If not, there’s the George H.W.Bush re-election that he LOST. Then there’s the George W. Bush re-election that he won by a hair – literally. (As an incumbent president, both Bush’s should have won re-election by wide margins. They (can you say, ‘Karl Rove?’) didn’t. Despite getting re-elected, W’s asinine passivity to leftist derangement ((can you say, ‘Karl Rove?’) gave us Obama. W also worked to wreak havoc on the conservative part of the party – the ever-continuing war on conservative patriots by bought-and-paid-for rinos.
Who says the Conservative Party and the GOP can’t form a voting bloc against the left? I think we’ll find out the GOP is actually as corrupted as most news organizations are, as well as corrupt as most federal agencies have become under the frightening absurdity of the Obama presidency. The GOP is not merely not with us, they are as waging war against us as much so, if not more, as the democrat party is.
Try joining the democrat party and see how far your conservative interests get. No different than the GOP.
A new/third party now is not merely a vanity. It’s a must, if we are to survive as a ‘two-party’ nation.
Right historically BUT???
You are right, logically, rationally, but most of the electorate is neither. If we want to win, we must take over the GOP. Always easier to take someone else’s bridge than build your own. Come to think of it, it’s not their G-D bridge! It’s our G-D bridge!
“He [Cruz] has to compete with Trump now for the Very Angry LIVs…”
Hah, that’s funny Estrabegone. Both Cruz and Trump know they cannot reach LIVs like you.
BTW: Cruz is not concerned about Trump one iota. Cruz like Trump is his own person.
You OTH Estrabegone are one of the lemmings aka LIVs who daily parade their naiveté in public until they reach the cliff. At the cliff they gleefully follow each other over the cliff into the mindless LIV abyss.
Cruz and Trump are willfully not constrained by the shackles of conformity of business as usual in Washington. And, neither will cower to bellowing LIVs, like Estrabegone, or to Low Bar Politicians (LBPs)-both of these short-sighted groups have never “shown an inclination to work” through the consequences of their decisions (e.g., Obamacare; “We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.”)
Both Cruz and Trump respect each other’s outspokenness on similar issues.
Cruz has sought Trump’s support in the past for his own campaign and will likely receive again if Trump does decide to drop out.
OK Arrogancegonemad, read these recent articles:
Ted Cruz: ‘I Salute Donald Trump’
“I salute Donald Trump for focusing on the need to address illegal immigration,” the Texas senator said on NBC’s Meet the Press in an interview that aired Sunday. “The Washington cartel doesn’t want to address that. The Washington cartel doesn’t believe we need to secure the borders. The Washington cartel supports amnesty and I think amnesty’s wrong, and I salute Donald Trump for focusing on it.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-05/ted-cruz-i-salute-donald-trump-
Ted Cruz and Donald Trump to Meet in NYC
“This will not be the pair’s first meeting, however. Cruz traveled to Trump Tower in November 2013 to seek the businessman’s support as he weighed his White House bid.”…
“Trump, for his part, praised Cruz for his support, telling CNN this month: “I shouldn’t say this because, I assume, he’s an opponent, but the fact is he was very brave in coming out.””
http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/ted-cruz-donald-trump-meet-republicans/2015/07/14/id/657090/
“schisms between the grassroots and Establishment wing – ”
“No no no, style guide says we must marginalize”
“Oh right, my bad… schisms between the Far Right and the center of the party could spill into public view.”
Hacks.
“Not good enough.. try ‘Extremist Ultra-conservative far Right’… and if you could draw horns and a tail on Cruz, that would be cool too”