When a conservative senator does something right in congress, he makes democrats AND republicans uncomfortable

[PHILIP SCHNEIDER]

Texas Senator Goes on Attack and Raises Bipartisan Hackles

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, on a senators-only elevator on Thursday. He says he intends to shake up Washington.

By JONATHAN WEISMAN

Published: February 15, 2013

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`WASHINGTON — As the Senate edged toward a divisive filibuster vote on Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be defense secretary, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, sat silent and satisfied in the corner of the chamber — his voice lost to laryngitis — as he absorbed what he had wrought in his mere seven weeks of Senate service.

Mr. Hagel, a former senator from Mr. Cruz’s own party, was about to be the victim of the first filibuster of a nominee to lead the Pentagon. The blockade was due in no small part to the very junior senator’s relentless pursuit of speeches, financial records or any other documents with Mr. Hagel’s name on them going back at least five years. Some Republicans praised the work of the brash newcomer, but others joined Democrats in saying that Mr. Cruz had gone too far.

Without naming names, Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, offered a biting label for the Texan’s accusatory crusade: McCarthyism.

“It was really reminiscent of a different time and place, when you said, ‘I have here in my pocket a speech you made on such and such a date,’ and, of course, nothing was in the pocket,” she said, a reference to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s pursuit of Communists in the 1950s. “It was reminiscent of some bad times.”

In just two months, Mr. Cruz, 42, has made his presence felt in an institution where new arrivals are usually not heard from for months, if not years. Besides suggesting that Mr. Hagel might have received compensation from foreign enemies, he has tangled with the mayor of Chicago, challenged the Senate’s third-ranking Democrat on national television, voted against virtually everything before him — including the confirmation of John Kerry as secretary of state — and raised the hackles of colleagues from both parties.

He could not be more pleased. Washington’s new bad boy feels good.

“I made promises to the people of Texas that I would come to Washington to shake up the status quo,” he said in e-mailed answers to questions, in lieu of speaking. “That is what I intend to do, and it is what I have done in every way possible in the responsibilities that have been granted to me.”

In a body known for comity, Mr. Cruz is taking confrontational Tea Party sensibilities to new heights — or lows, depending on one’s perspective. Wowed conservatives hail him as a hero, but even some Republican colleagues are growing publicly frustrated with a man who has taken the zeal of the prosecutor and applied it to the decorous quarters of the Senate.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said that some of the demands Mr. Cruz made of Mr. Hagel were “out of bounds, quite frankly.” Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, issued a public rebuke after Mr. Cruz suggested, with no evidence, that Mr. Hagel had accepted honorariums from North Korea.

“All I can say is that the appropriate way to treat Senator Hagel is to be as tough as you want to be, but don’t be disrespectful or malign his character,” Mr. McCain said in an interview.

Democrats were more blunt.

“He basically came out and made the accusation about money from North Korea or money from our enemies, and he just laid out there all of this accusatory verbiage without a shred of evidence,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri. “In this country we had a terrible experience with innuendo and inference when Joe McCarthy hung out in the United States Senate, and I just think we have to be more careful.”

Mr. Cruz, a Canadian-born lawyer who won an upset primary victory last year, is adamant in his own defense. He said his focus at hearings had been on policy, not personality. With Mr. Hagel, whose nomination is set for a Senate vote the week of Feb. 25, he said his request for financial disclosures were backed by 24 other senators. As for his statement that Mr. Hagel may have received honorariums from nefarious sources, “the suggestions I have made in my arguments have been merely to raise examples for why I believe Senator Hagel’s financial disclosure is so important,” he said.

“Comity does not mean avoiding the truth,” he added. “And it would be wrong to avoid speaking the truth about someone’s record and past policy positions, even if doing so inevitably subjects me to personal criticism from Democrats and the media.”

To the growing core of ardent conservatives in the Senate, Mr. Cruz has offered a jolt of positive energy.

“If you don’t ruffle any feathers, you’re not doing anything right,” said Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, who garnered similar attention in his opening weeks in the Senate two years ago.

Mr. Cruz was among the 22 senators who voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, among the 34 who voted against raising the debt ceiling, among the 19 who tried to cut off military sales to Egypt, among the 36 who opposed a relief package for the regions hit by Hurricane Sandy, and among the three senators who voted against Mr. Kerry’s confirmation.

“I was compelled to vote no on Senator Kerry’s nomination because of his longstanding less-than-vigorous defense of U.S. national security issues,” said Mr. Cruz, who also questioned the commitment of Mr. Kerry and Mr. Hagel to the armed forces, though both served in Vietnam. Mr. Cruz has no record of military service.

Chris Chocola, the president of the Club for Growth, a conservative free-market political action committee that strongly backed Mr. Cruz in his victory last year against the establishment’s favorite, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, said the new senator was doing precisely what he had expected. The growing caucus of ardent conservatives — Mr. Cruz, Mr. Paul, Marco Rubio of Florida, Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Mike Lee of Utah, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Tim Scott of South Carolina — has begun reshaping what it means to be a Republican in the Senate, he said.

“The last thing we need is another status quo senator or congressman who will go along to get along,” said former Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who pumped money into Mr. Cruz’s campaign, then left the Senate to lead the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Last month, Mr. Cruz faced off aggressively with Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York on a Sunday talk show. When Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago wrote to the chiefs of big banks urging them not to invest in gun manufacturers, Mr. Cruz followed up with letters criticizing the “bullying” of a political “Godfather.”

After she raised the specter of McCarthyism, Ms. McCaskill was asked if she had spoken to Mr. Cruz about her concerns.

“I’m not sure it would do any good,” she said. “Do you?”

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And it was the "maverick" McCain and the back stabbing Lindsey Graham calling Cruz out of bounds??? REALLY???

Well, I . . . personally love it when one of our congressmen act like they have some responsibility to WE the People and not some Washington DC private club.

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[Gordon Ray Kissinger]

Graham: Obama Knew of Benghazi Threat, Acted ‘After Everybody Was D...

17 Feb 2013,

by Sandy Fitzgerald

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/Benghazi-Libya-Graham-Obama/2013/02...

President Barack Obama was aware of two IED attacks on the Benghazi consulate in Libya in the months leading up the the Sept. 11 attack that killed U. S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham claims.

The South Carolina Republican said James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, told him the president was informed of attacks in April and June, Fox News reports.

The June attack blew a hole in the perimeter wall of the Benghazi compound, and the two strikes were reportedly part of dozens of incidents in the region that are considered warning signs of the deadly attacks in September.

Urgent: Should Obama Ban Guns? Vote in Poll

Graham criticized Obama for a White House statement saying the president did not talk to Libya's leader until the evening of Sept. 12, a day after the embassy was attacked.

“(He talked) after everybody was dead,” said Graham, suggesting Obama could have made a difference if he'd been involved earlier, but “you got a commander in chief who is absolutely disengaged. You got the secretary of State never talking to the secretary of Defense."

Graham's disclosure came after several Capitol Hill hearings in which several top administration officials, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed they were not aware of the security problems at the Libyan compound.

Clinton said she never saw an Aug. 16 State Department cable warning that the consulate could not sustain a coordinated attack, but outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said they knew about the warning.

A DNI spokesman said the Obama administration has been cooperative with Congress over the Libya questions. However, White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan, during his confirmation hearings for CIA director, said much of the information about what Obama knew falls under the category of “executive privilege,” a status often used to avoid disclosing information.

On Thursday, Republicans united to stall Obama's nomination of Chuck Hagel to succeed Panetta, especially over outstanding questions on the Benghazi attack.

Urgent: Should Obama Ban Guns? Vote in Poll

© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

[Gordon Ray Kissinger]

Brennan Sidesteps Query on Drone Kills in U.S.

In written answers to Senate Intelligence Committee questions released Friday, CIA director nominee John Brennan would not say whether the U.S. could conduct drone strikes inside the United States — only that it did not intend to do so.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has placed a hold on Brennan’s nomination pending an answer to the question of when the government can use lethal force to target a U.S. citizen within the United States. Brennan, as the top White House counterterrorism and homeland security adviser to President Barack Obama, has guided administration policy on the use of drones on foreign battlefields.

Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., asked Brennan in written follow-up questions to his Feb. 7 confirmation hearing, “Could the administration carry out drone strikes inside the United States?”

Brennan answered, “This administration has not carried out drone strikes inside the United States and has no intention of doing so.”

Nor did Brennan answer who precisely makes final determination within the administration about whether a U.S. citizen who is targeted for death as a suspected terrorist is actually a senior operational leader of al-Qaida, or if that person poses an imminent threat. Those are two of the standards outlined in a Justice Department legal opinion for proceeding with a targeted killing against a U.S. citizen.

“Given the stakes involved and the consequence of the decision to conduct a strike, the evaluation of whether an individual presents an ‘imminent threat’ would be made after considering the information available, carefully and responsibly — drawing on the most up-to-date intelligence and the full range of our intelligence capabilities,” Brennan wrote in an answer to another question from Feinstein. “The process of deciding to take such an extraordinary action would involve legal review by the Department of Justice, as well as a discussion among the departments and agencies across our national security team, including the relevant national security council principals and the president.”

Paul, on Feb. 13, announced a hold on Brennan.

“I have asked Mr. Brennan if he believed that the president has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and my question remains unanswered,” Paul said in a written statement. “I will not allow a vote on this nomination until Mr. Brennan openly responds to the questions and concerns my colleagues and I share.”

The Intelligence Committee delayed a planned vote Feb. 14 on Brennan’s nomination, in part because committee members were seeking additional information about drone strikes.

Meanwhile, on Friday, Reps. Ted Poe, R-Texas, Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. announced legislation (HR 637) aimed at curtailing potential abuses of domestic drones, including a prohibition on law enforcement agencies or businesses attaching weapons to the unmanned aircraft. A number of bills and amendments aimed at restricting the use of domestic drones were introduced last year, but none became law.

[e-mail]

http://www.rollcall.com/news/brennan_sidesteps_query_on_drone_kills...

[Gordon Ray Kissinger]

Let’s All Sail on the ‘Ted Cruz’ Ship from Texas

posted on February 16, 2013 byGary DeMar

http://godfatherpolitics.com/9488/lets-all-sail-on-the-ted-cruz-shi...

This is what Republicans should be. Take a long look at the freshman senator from Texas — Ted Cruz. He’s giving the Democrats and RINOs a dose of what it means to go to Washington and do what you said you would do when you asked people to vote for you.

Cruz took an oath to govern in terms of the Constitution.

Here’s what he said in an email interview after coming down with a case of laryngitis he most likely got from taking on the Democrats:

“I made promises to the people of Texas that I would come to Washington to shake up the status quo. That is what I intend to do, and it is what I have done in every way possible in the responsibilities that have been granted to me.”

The Senate has become a gentleman’s club with most Republicans serving meals and drinks to the Democrats hoping for a few tips at the end of the day. All they get is the back of their political hand.

Sen. Cruz opposed Chuck Hagel, a former Republican Senator, for the Secretary of Defense position. He took on Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel when he “wrote to the chiefs of big banks urging them not to invest in gun manufacturers.” Cruz accused the mayor of his crime-ridden city of “bullying.”

Cruz had words with Charley Rangel, the Senate’s third-ranking Democrat, on live television. The Texas Senator “voted against virtually everything before him — including the confirmation of John Kerry as secretary of state — and raised the hackles of colleagues from both parties.”

What if we had 40 Republicans like Cruz? Now that’s a party American conservatives could get behind.

Maybe Sen. Cruz will light the way for mealy mouthed, once-thought-to-be conservatives to come back to the fold.

“The last thing we need is another status quo senator or congressman who will go along to get along,” said former Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who pumped money into Mr. Cruz’s campaign, then left the Senate to lead the conservative Heritage Foundation.

All the Democrats could do was to accuse the senator of the dreaded “M” word — “McCarthyism.”

When a Democrat gets attacked on the facts or principles, they resort to name calling. Fortunately, most low-information voters don’t know much if anything about Joseph McCarthyism. They might actually think that he’s a big fan of Paul McCartney of Beatles fame.

The above quotations were take from The New York Times (February 15, 2013).