Posted on 02/13/2018 4:52:12 AM PST by iowamark
On Monday, Senator Ted Cruz was the only senator to vote against Senator Mitch McConnell’s plan for the Senate this week: a so-called “free-for-all” open debate about immigration on the Senate floor.
Fears of a Democrat-leaning deal on DACA are rampant among Republican activists, and with conservative websites calling this the “amnesty debate”, Senator Cruz’s solitary objection gives voice to the thousands of voters who believed what they were told on the campaign trails of 2016.
His office released a statement Monday night (below.)
The unusual debate period this week will of course focus on DACA and family immigration, among other issues, and begins in earnest Tuesday.
From the New York Times::
The highly unusual debate, expected to unfold throughout the week, will test whether a series of legislative concepts and proposals championed by President Trump and a variety of Republicans and Democrats can garner 60 votes, the threshold for a measure to pass the Senate. No one has any idea how it will turn out.
“Whoever gets to 60 wins,” Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, told reporters last week. “And it will be an opportunity for 1,000 flowers to bloom.”
The process kicked off Monday evening with a procedural vote on an unrelated House-passed measure that will serve as a shell for building an immigration bill. By a vote of 97 to 1, with only Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, dissenting, senators took the first step toward consideration of the underlying measure, as expected.
As McConnell said, 60 is the game now. The objective is to reach that number before recess on Friday. “This is Sen. (Dick) Durbin and Democrats’ opportunity and so far they kind of seem to be a little confused about what they’re planning on doing — but they better get it done quick because it’s this week or not at all,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn said this week. “People had better get to work because the clock is ticking.”
Senator Cruz voted against, and he explained why in a statement from Catherine Frazier, his Senior Communications Advisor.
“Sen. Cruz believes it would be a serious mistake for Congress to pass legislation that grants a path to citizenship for those here illegally. Such a policy is inconsistent with the promises that he and Republicans have made to the voters, and is in fact further to the left of President Obama’s position.”
“The solutions that we should pursue should focus on securing the border and building the wall, as well as passing Kate’s Law and the El Chapo Act, both introduced by Sen. Cruz.”
“Respectively, these bills will provide for mandatory minimum prison sentences for aggravated felons who repeatedly enter the country illegally and require that any assets seized from convicted drug lords go towards building the wall and other border security assets.”
On Tuesday, the Senate will nevertheless take this up and the actual debate is expected to begin. Republicans have not outlined a plan, but several senators promised media that Tuesday all would become clear.
There will be a lot of news from this process throughout the week. Read RedState to keep up to date. And make sure to watch Sen. Cruz’s Twitter timeline. If the many amnesty ideas floating around start making headway, you can bet he’ll tweet about it.
It’s how amnesty sausage is made.
We’ve seen it before and yes, we’ll probably see it again—until our country is completely done in.
Agreed that the DACA criminals are coddled.
But they really aren’t sympathetic—if a spotlight is shown on their overall demographics, including their age upon arrival, their poor to often nonexistent mastery of English, their gang and crime profiles, their access to “chain migration”, their use of taxpayer-provided benefits now and projected through their lifetimes, etc.
If the uniparty and Ivanka weren’t fully behind them, we could have a much more accurate picture presented and, at most, 50K of the truly “sympathetic” covered to some degree.
And the same argument is constantly made from the left about our President. Cruz has consistently supported Pres. Trump’s agenda. McConnell is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory....again.
Think of what would happen if ALL taxpayer benefits were denied of all immigrants? This is not rocket science. Stop paying them to come here. Mexico has very strict requirements of those coming to Mexico. Simply use the same criteria and the problem is solved.
The private sector would likely be happy to fund the wall and if we would simply stop paying people to come here, perhaps we don’t even need the wall.
It's all fun&games until some self imported jihadi starts sawing heads off! The OTM's are why we need the wall.
Mexico has very strict requirements of those coming to Mexico.
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Aren’t a large number of the illegals coming in thru the southern
border coming from south of Mexico and even Cuba? If so how do
they do they get legal passage thru Mexico?
Also data is now showing that Visa overstays are becoming a larger
portion of the illegals. Many of these come from the Far East, etc.
All said and done we do have a major problem that must be addressed.
We have just 4 Senators that are on the side of the citizens and the rule of law.
Cotton, Cruz, Grassley and Perdue.
That’s it.
We need new Senators.
Flake, Corker, Hatch, Heller, Alexander, Graham, McCain, Murkowsky, Hoeven, Rubio, Tillis, Burr, Lankford, Gardner, Cornyn, Cochran, Collins, Sasse, Kennedy, Shelby, Ernst, Blunt, McConnell, Wicker, Portman, Isakson, Johnson, Toomey, Rounds, Thune, Barasso and Enzi are all Bush League Republicans. Basically undocumented Democrats in R jerseys.
All he has to do is enforce current law.
We do not need to pass anything in Congress to do that.
I don’t hate Ted Cruz, I still think he could be a good Senator.
Anwar Al-Awlaki’s kids born in Yemen to one American parent are as eligible to be President as Ted Cruz.
He should not have run.
All true. He wasn’t qualified.
Democrats don’t want it addressed.
I don’t see a DACA bill passing the Senate. If passed Trump will never sign and there are not votes to override a veto. So don’t worry about it.
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The wall is 4th for me among the priorities. E-Verify, Chain Migration and Visa lottery are all higher priorities.
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Rather see:
1) Termination of Welfare State (restore the Rights of ALL Citizens)
2) Enforcement of existing Law (faithfully & dutifully)
3) Correct reading, and APPLICATION, of the plain English w/in the 14th A. (no ‘anchor baby’)
4) Ending lottery\chain migration
5) Prosecution of all entities (beginning w/ govt) whom aid/abet the silent invasion.
There is no eVerify, Fedzilla has NO authority. And, if *anyone* believes Fedzilla, whom can’t track the EXISTING Visa holders, can faithfully execute eVerify are beyond naive. Lastly, Citizens don’t need PERMISSION from their servant to work and biz isn’t obligated to do the job Fedzilla refuses (but they sure do make an easy scape-goat).
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“standing up for the one thing Trump promised and is now wobbling on.”
You people and that stupid narrative you keep pushing.
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Wow, your counter argument is sure...compelling /s
Did he NOT run on DACA being illegal (but extended it anyway, no?)?
He was bustings Bush’s\Rubio’s chops in the run-up for his current ‘proposal’.
As THE chief Executive, I have failed to note any mass arrests (oh, a hundred here and another 4 mo. later. Woohoo), crackdown on S.Cities. Hell, even informing the IRS/DHS/etc. to data mine and track down the illegals (no more multiple filings, identify theft, etc.)
Doesn’t help the (R)N(C) did no favors by KEEPING the illegal EITC in their ‘cuts’
So, yes, ‘wobbly’ would be highly appropriate for the double-speak now coming from the W.H.
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Any so called DACA deal is going to pi$$ off somebody. Get used to it. It is how senate sausage is made.
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Complete and utter dog-squeeze. Congress need not do a DAMN thing on the *ILLEGAL* DACA program. It will ‘expire’ (no thanks to the Prez. for his capitulation there too) on its own. The illegal criminal alien invaders will....CONTINUE to be illegal criminal alien invaders.
OR, D.C. will give (another) amnesty.
What you WON’T be hearing is anything related to ENFORCING the existing Rule of Law, as our immigration is *note* “broken”, merely abused and neglected.
What Law can the Citizenry break w/o fear of repercussions? I haven’t heard of Fedzilla being so kind to We the People, the taxpayers or those abused by these (new favored) criminals [ask how much someone whose identity has been stolen how much ‘love’ they’re getting from Fedzilla to right said wrong].
That would be nice. Sure, they get free medical care at the clinic - one time - and ICE arrives before they leave. Sure, they get free schooling for one day, and ICE picks them up at the end of the day to take them to their real homes instead of a school bus taking them to their temporary homes. I’m good with that! Sure, they get a free SNAP/welfare meal paid for by the taxpayer - delivered by ICE on the bus to their real home.
>> Let a thousand flowers bloom is a common misquotation of Chairman Mao Zedong <<
I’m not persuaded by this article.
A literal, word-by-word translation of the actual Chinese characters might say something like, “Thousand flower let bloom.”
But then when a translator tried to put the quote in context, he might render it as any of the following:
“To let one thousand flowers bloom is . . . .”
(Using the whole prepositional phrase as the subject of a sentence.)
Or:
“Letting a thousand flowers blossom is . . . .”
(Using the the whole gerundic phrase as a sentence’s subject.)
Or:
“Let a thousand flowers bloom.”
(An imperative sentence.)
And there might be other renderings.
In any event, you’d need to study the original Chinese characters to make a good judgment.
(I can’t do so, because I have forgotten most of the characters — and looking them up in a dictionary would take far too much time for me.)
Their image in the media is sympathetic. I’d like to use that to our advantage. I’ll trade year-by-year legal DACA status, with no path to citizenship, for strict year-by-year enforcement against all other illegals who have criminally invaded our country. These DACA criminals are so sympathetic that the democrats would have to be cold-hearted to refuse.
But he did and there is no way he didn’t know that he is not a Natural Born American citizen.
And ^that^ is why I have trouble not hating him.
He and obama both crossed a line that we, the people, don’t cross and, as lawyers, they knew better and did it anyway.
Ultimately, I see individuals and humanity as a whole as currently being in an all out war to the death against Satan and his for our world and for our very souls.
Going all the way back to the first parents in the Garden, we see how our rewriting God’s Laws and definitions in our own image, as well as the ideals and standards that naturally flow from them, is all Satan’s stuff.
Satan is the Deceiver who is insanely good at getting us to deceive ourselves so that we do bad.
I see Cruz as having followed the Deceiver’s path to personal glory by rewriting his POTUS eligibility qualifications in obama’s image and in defiance of the Constitution, while at the same time claiming to be our Constitutional savior.
To me, this is a means justifies the ends approach that we often see in the “global warming/climate change” debate, where the belief/feeling is the stakes are so high it’s okay to lie, because the lie is to do good and telling the truth wouldn’t get ‘er done.
Confession is said to be good for the soul and I confess that I was for the early, pre-Senator version of Cruz and donated to his campaign.
But, as it is now, I have zero trust for Teddy Cruz and I have to work at not hating him the same as I do with obama.
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