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Cruz making more enemies daily

Sen. Ted Cruz cannot possibly understand what he’s doing.

The Texas Republican seems to be doing everything possible, all within his power, to alienate the leadership of his party, not to mention the elders of the U.S. Senate where he has served all of nine months.

As Dana Milbank notes in his Washington Post column, Cruz has done what was thought to be virtually impossible, which is create a massive amount of wreckage in record time.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-in-debt-limit-and-shutdown-defeat-ted-cruz-is-one-sore-loser/2013/10/16/d896d180-36b4-11e3-ae46-e4248e75c8ea_story.html?hpid=z7

McConnell brokered a deal with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that reopened the government and staved off a default of our national debt obligations. That wasn’t acceptable to Sen. Cruz, who said the Washington “establishment” caved in. To whom he wasn’t entirely clear.

Cruz then stormed in front of a bank of TV cameras at the very time McConnell was making his own statement about the deal. I am quite certain the Senate’s chief Republican is not going to forget what Cruz said and did any time soon. As McConnell was trying to put some kind of positive spin on what he and Reid accomplished, Cruz was turning the spin in precisely the opposite direction.

Team player? All for one and one for all? Neither of those notions has a place in Ted Cruz’s vocabulary.

Cruz said the Senate should have “listened to the American people.” My hunch is that the 81 senators who voted for the McConnell-Reid deal were listening to the people — who were telling them to end this madness, to get the government operating fully and to avoid plunging this nation into default.

It’s Ted Cruz who needs to have his hearing checked.

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Self-awareness has gone AWOL in Senate

The Huffington Post has taken note of a patently hilarious reaction to the deal struck by the Senate to end the government shutdown, which also increases the national debt limit.

It is that the U.S. Senate comprises 100 individuals who have next to zero self-awareness.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/16/senate-budget-crisis_n_4112253.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

There they were, applauding themselves for all the hard they did in getting the deal done. The applause seems to ignore the reality of what brought us to the brink of fiscal calamity — which was the senators’ role, along with the House of Representatives, in creating the problem in the first place.

Indeed, watching Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell pat each other — and themselves — on the back for all that work will present late-night comedians plenty of grist for the foreseeable future.

None of this needed to happen. None of the federal employees who were furloughed without pay needed to suffer. The nation did not need to endure this drama. Americans did not need to wonder whether their retirement accounts were going to evaporate because Congress and the White House couldn’t reach a deal sooner.

The deal struck, let us remember, provides only a short-term relief. More drama is just around the corner.

And for this the Senate is congratulating itself?

Give me a break.

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Attention now turns to budget panels

Let us now focus our attention on some members of Congress — from both political parties — who have been given the task of working out a long-term federal budget agreement that prevents charades such as the one that just ended.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/17/politics/shutdown-over-main/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray and Republican Rep. Paul Ryan — who chair the Senate and House budget committees, respectively — are going to begin talking between themselves. They’re both serious politicians (no irony intended, honest) but their task is monumental, given the institutional refusal of both legislative chambers to adopt any kind of strategic approach to these problems.

We came within a few hours this week of defaulting on our nation’s debt obligations. The two-week-long government shutdown sucked an estimated $24 billion from the nation’s economy. It turns out we’ll pay our bills and the government has reopened fully.

President Obama signed the bills into law late Wednesday and said the end of this budget battle removes the “cloud of unease” that had been hovering over the financial world.

I beg to differ, Mr. President.

The unease has just taken a brief respite. It’ll likely return in January and again in February. The money to run the government runs out in January; our borrowing limit expires in February. Many of us out here believe we’ll be right back at it again when those deadlines approach.

Of the two budget panel chairs, Ryan has the more difficult task, given the role the tea party wing of the GOP — of which he is a member — played in prolonging the ridiculous drama that unfolded. The House Republican caucus will continue to fight to eradicate the Affordable Care Act, which only just now has been implemented. They don’t like it and predict all kinds of catastrophe will befall the nation if it is allowed to live on.

Ryan is considered to be a serious and thoughtful young man. I’m withholding my final judgment on him. I’m not sure he’ll be able to resist the enormous pressure he’ll feel from the extreme right wing of his party, although I retain some faith he’ll be able to work constructively with Democrats on his committee and with the likes of Chairwoman Murray in the Senate.

Here’s a bit of advice from out here in the Heartland. Work until you get a deal. You have no need to take extended recesses between now and Christmas. You have much to do and the public — into whose faces you spit when you closed much of the federal government — pay you folks a pretty fair wage to solve these problems.

Finally, Democrats and Republicans can learn from the memories of two presidents — Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan. Both men knew how to work the system. They perfected the art of principled compromise.

Now … let’s get busy.

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Debt deal is no ‘victory’ for anyone

President Obama has called the debt deal brokered by the U.S. Senate that reopens the federal government and saves the nation from defaulting on its debts as some kind of victory.

It isn’t.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/328985-obama-hails-debt-deals-passage-as-lifting-cloud-of-unease

It delays the next fight, which is going to occur early in 2014 when the federal government will come up against the next debt ceiling deadline and when the government runs out of money to keep many “non-essential” agencies running.

Sens. Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid struck a deal early Wednesday. The Senate approved it; then the House of Representatives followed suit.

The whole scene produced a disgraceful display of brinkmanship, showmanship, posturing, demagoguery and cheap politicization. In my view, the bad guys continue to be the tea party wing of the House Republican caucus, which fought almost to the very end to defund the Affordable Care Act and pursued that tactic as a method of getting their way.

What now? Well, members of Congress are supposed to begin meeting to hammer out a “permanent” budget solution. Good luck with that. Count me as one American who has no faith — zero, none — that Congress will negotiate any kind of long-term agreement that will prevent this kind of nonsense from recurring in the near future.

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Phone technology getting rather fun

I’m about to make an admission that might startle some members of my family and even a few friends.

It concerns some telephone technology to which my wife and I were recently introduced. It’s that technology that enables one to receive and make phone calls while driving a motor vehicle, and without having to fumble with a telephone.

My admission is that I’ve used it and have found that it’s easy and actually kind of fun.

We purchased a hybrid car, a Toyota Prius, recently. It has a lot of bells and whistles. It’s a pretty high-tech car. One of the bells — or maybe it’s a whistle — is this program that enables one to connect a cell phone with the car. You call my cell phone and the car radio speaker starts bleating a sound that tells me a call is coming in. I press a button on the steering wheel and start talking to whomever is calling.

I know this is old news to many of you. It’s new to my wife and me.

I’ve made a couple of calls from the car to people I’ve put on “speed dial” on the radio. I hit another button on the steering wheel, hit the speed dial button and it calls the number automatically.

Yes, this too is old news to those who’ve known about this technology all along.

But it is rather cool.

So I’m able to use the phone in the car while not getting busted by Amarillo police officers for talking and driving at the same time.

I’m really not afraid of technology. It’s all just something that requires some adjustment. I’m finding, though, that I am a fairly adaptable creature.

Texting, though, is an entirely different matter.

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Bring Senate debt plan to vote, Mr. Speaker

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner has been hiding something called the Hastert Rule, named after former Speaker Dennis Hastert, one of Boehner’s predecessors.

The Hastert Rule means that nothing goes to a vote if it doesn’t first have the support of most members of the party that runs the House of Representatives.

The time is at hand for Boehner to throw the Hastert Rule in the trash bin. The U.S. Senate very well could present the House with a plan to extend the nation’s debt ceiling and reopen the part of the government that’s been shut down for two weeks.

Both of these things likely would be short-term repairs. They would, however, stave off the first default on our obligations in American history. If that occurs at midnight, world financial markets could collapse, the U.S. credit rating would plummet and a new recession could occur, causing significant pain and misery for millions of Americans.

Boehner has been shackled to the will of about 30 or so members of his Republican caucus who want to attach certain conditions on the debt ceiling increase and reopening the government. It’s time he showed some guts.

It’s a fairly open secret that most members of the entire House want this debacle to end. The speaker, I hasten to add, is the man in charge of the entire legislative chamber. His “constituents,” such as they are, do not comprise merely the Republican majority. Depending on who’s doing the counting, Democrats are virtually united in their support of Senate efforts to end this madness. Add their numbers to the substantial number of Republicans who also want it to end, and I’m pretty sure you come up with far more than 218 House members, which is the minimum number of votes needed to approve a deal.

So, what’s it going to be, Mr. Speaker? Are you going to allow this catastrophe to occur or are you going to exercise the enormous power you have by virtue of your high office to get something done?

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Senate moves ahead; House stumbles and bumbles

Can this actually be happening? The U.S. Senate is close to a deal that would forestall a default on our nation’s obligations while the House of Representatives cannot even reel in all the members of the party that runs the lower chamber?

And is the result going to be that the United States actually defaults and sends investment accounts into some abyss?

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/15/politics/shutdown-showdown/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

What in the world is happening to our legislative branch of government?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said late Tuesday that “we’re in good shape,” meaning that he and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have been talking to each other, along with their parties’ leadership teams. They’re trying to reach a deal that is acceptable to all members of the Senate.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the Capitol Building, Boehner is trying to fend off the insurgents within his own party. So far, he’s failing badly.

If this whole thing explodes, I am thinking the clock will start ticking down the time Boehner will remain as speaker. Either his own party will throw him over, or the voters will do so in November 2014 when they hand control of the House over to the Democrats.

Senators, who believe bipartisanship still seems to matter, need to persuade their House colleagues of the disaster that awaits them all if they cannot get a deal done … now.

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Redskins least of DC worries

I’m loving all the jokes about whether Washington, D.C.’s professional football team should change its name from Redskins.

Native American groups are demanding that the team change its name, claiming it is insulting to Native Americans. You’ll recall those old Western films in which the cowboys would refer to “them Redskins” in derisive, even angry inflections in their voices.

Well, it seems the team nickname has now become the latest target of those who seek some form of political correctness.

The jokes go something like this: Washington wants to change the name of the NFL Redskins because the name conjures up negative images of the city. So the team will be known as the “D.C. Redskins.”

Or the name would change to merely “The Redskins.”

The point is that the name of the professional football team is the least of Washington’s worries at the moment. The Redskins have existed since 1932. For 71 years the team name has endured. Now it has become a target of those who think the name is insulting.

If I were of Native American descent — a term, by the way, I consider a bit curious, given that I, too, the grandson of Greek immigrants also am a “native American” — maybe I’d feel differently about it.

Many ethnic and racial groups have reason to be offended. I am still trying to understand why “Redskins” is so offensive.

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Senate Loudmouth Caucus about to expand

I’ve taken great pleasure the past several months savaging the boorish behavior of rookie U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

His “crime” has been an inability to keep his trap shut while learning the ropes of the institution to which he was just elected in November 2012. He jumped right into the thick of the fray — and right in front of every TV camera in sight — to tell the world what he thinks about everything under the sun.

I’m sick of the sound of his voice — and he’s only been a senator for nine months.

Cruz is a member of what we ought to call the Loudmouth Caucus in the Senate.

His ranks are likely to expand early next month. The beauty of the Loudmouth Caucus is that it’s a bipartisan organization. Anyone can join. Cruz is about to be joined, no doubt, by a Democratic colleague from New Jersey.

Ladies and gents, let’s welcome Sen. Cory Booker.

Booker is the mayor of Newark, N.J. He won a Democratic primary a few weeks ago and is set to be elected to the unexpired term of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg. Yes, Booker has a Republican opponent, but it doesn’t matter. Booker’s going to win the election. Then he’ll run for re-election to a full term later and he’s likely to be re-elected.

Why is this man’s pending entrance into the Senate worth noting? It’s because he’s going to battle Cruz tooth-and-nail for face time on every TV news camera one can find on Capitol Hill. I’d put money on that.

Booker is as uninhibited as Cruz. He loves the sound of his voice. He loves seeing his face on TV. He talks and talks and talks — and at times it’s nearly impossible to follow the man’s train of thought.

Booker has made a name for himself as Newark mayor by doing some unconventional things, such as rescuing a resident from a burning building. He’s also picked up a shovel and cleaned out storm drains. He’s a working mayor, or so he would have us believe.

Booker is likely to set out proving he’s a working senator, too — although I’m not sure we’re going to see him performing manual tasks the way he has done as mayor. He’s likely just to talk a lot about all the hard work he will do.

I’ll make this prediction: Booker will anger his Democratic colleagues as much as Cruz has angered his fellow Republican senators. Given the anger that permeates the capital these days across party lines, it’s a given Booker is going to have enemies on the other side — just as Ted Cruz did — the moment he takes the oath of office.

Get ready for a lot more noise coming from the World’s Oldest Deliberative Body.

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FNGs making their mark on D.C.

The new breed of congressmen and women who have taken over the Republican caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives intended to change Washington for the better.

Their obstructionism has done the reverse. It has created a poisonous atmosphere in the nation’s capital.

I want to introduce a time-honored term to describe these folks, comprising mostly the tea party wing of their party.

Let’s call them FNGs.

Vietnam War veterans known the term well. It was used — often disparagingly — to describe the “new guys” who cycled “in-country.” They would walk off their plane wearing dark green jungle fatigues and shiny new boots. You could spot an FNG a mile away. The “NG” stands for “new guy.” The “F”? Well, it stands for arguably the most functionally descriptive term in the English language. I’ll leave it at that.

The FNGs who now populate a segment of the GOP have accomplished one important goal of their overall mission. They have made their mark. They’ve changed the debate in Washington. They have made their presence felt, just as they promised they would when they campaigned for their congressional offices in 2010 and 2012.

Perhaps the most well-known FNG has been Texas’s own Sen. Ted Cruz, the Republican pistol who blabbed for 21 hours in a faux filibuster to protest the Affordable Care Act and who has scolded his colleagues publicly for failing to demonstrate the proper commitment to bringing change. He’s been scolded in return by his party elders, such as Sen. John McCain, for impugning the character of current and former senators — such as Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

The FNGs now have taken us to the brink of default on our national fiscal obligations. It would be the first time in history that the nation has failed to pay its bills. The gray eminences of both parties know what’s at stake. The FNGs don’t have a clue. They’re about to find out if they stand in the way of a compromise reportedly being hammered out by two senior senators — Democrat Harry Reid and Republican Mitch McConnell.

Here’s some good news. They won’t be FNGs forever. It’ll take some time for them to get some seasoning. They’ll have to learn how to compromise and understand that other public officials represent constituencies with different points of view. Not everyone shares the FNGs’ world view.

I just hope they don’t contribute to the destruction of our government before they wise up.

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