Yes I did.
TPA (as it’s been pointed out many times over and over again) is a GOOD thing provided it doesn’t have the crap back-room deals that Boehner/McConnell added to it which cause Cruz to drop support for it. For the people that keep bringing this up, it will never satisfy them because they’re hiding their true beliefs of trade protection/isolationism behind opposition. The main issue with conservatives opposing TPA at this time was because it gave Obama the authority to negotiate out TPP, something that’s never come up for a vote and for which Cruz never took a position. That was the main argument people like Levin were driving. Cruz’s reason was that Obama had 17 months left and were a Republican to get in office in 2017, the Democrats backed by the Union thugs would never allow a TPA to be passed which is why he supported it now. He also thought because it dealt with Commerce, the House should naturally have a say in any trade deal as well as the Senate making the threshhold 268 votes combined rather than just the 2/3 in the Senate.
But people like you that have a problem with this won’t be satisfied because you hide behind your real opposition to TPA which is that trade deals and free trade are bad, whereas high tariffs and trade-isolation protect American jobs, something that has been rejected over and over again. Levin even pointed out the difference he had over Jeff Sessions regarding the disagreement, who people that want tariffs and protectionism always cite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4O9az6qr78
In Levin’s archives on Thursday or Friday of this week, he pointed out the folly that some people say there aren’t enough tariffs set up to “protect” US Trade. Look it up in his archive section. It was the monologue from Thursday or Friday’s show.
As for the Corker Bill, the truth is that the GOPe wasn’t going to hold Obama to declaring that the Iran Deal was a Treaty. Obama was planning on bypassing the Congress and taking it to the UN. That of course is just another impeachable offense, but we know Boehner and McConnell wern’t going to do anything because they like a spine. That means that without the Corker Bill, right now, the sanctions could have been lifted immediately after UN approval.
The Corker Bill sucks because it cedes power Congress should have never been ceding in the first, but it put in writing that Obama was obliged to submit the deal to Congress, which if he hadn’t, they could then use that as an impeachable offense because it’s in writing. As Cruz mentioned, he voted against cloture, but when cloture passed anyway, voted for final passage because the Corker Bill would “perhaps slightly” delay the implementation of the disastrous Iran Deal which would buy time to rally enough support against the deal, which if you’ve seen recently there is a rally this week taking place where Cruz and Levin will both speak. Whereas if the Bill didn’t exist and Obama had bypassed Congress, the “Deal” would already be in place. This was all made possible by the GOPe who have refused to decare this a treaty.
Now since the Corker Bill obviously had enough votes to pass, you can argue Cruz should have joined Cotton in declaring the Deal subject to the rules of a Treaty, but his concern was on stopping the deal from being implemented altogether and he made the decision based on the lack of the GOPe to hold Obama accountable for potentially violating the Constitution again.
In both cases you cite, there’s no issue on where Cruz stands. He still supports a clean TPA which is a good thing when it doesn’t have the backroom deals attached, and is vehemently opposed to the Iran Deal.
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/241355-senate-votes-to-approve-Iran-review-bill
Excellent explanation - thanks for posting that.