[Tea Party] Here's what happened: McConnell offered to the highway bill a non-germane amendment--which was deemed germane by his colleagues this weekend--that would reauthorize the highly controversial Export-Import Bank. In response, Sens. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) offered two amendments on Sunday evening to McConnell's non-germane-to-the-highway-bill-amendment-that-was-later-inaccurately-deemed-germane.The reason why Cruz and Lee offered amendments to McConnell's amendment--essentially second tier amendments, or amendments to an amendment--rather than to the highway bill itself is because McConnell engaged in a tactic made popular by his predecessor, former Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), called "filling the amendment tree." Doing that ensures that there is no opportunity for senators to offer any extra amendments, and it is a tactic designed to stifle open and honest debate.
Cruz's amendment would have, when it comes to President Obama's nuclear arms deal with Iran, kept sanctions on Iran until it recognized the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state and until Iran released the four Americans it is currently holding hostage in their country. Lee's amendment would have defunded Planned Parenthood--which has gotten lots of extra attention as of late, as new covert videos have emerged showing executives from the taxpayer-funded abortion-providing institution seeking to sell aborted baby body parts.
Cruz's came up first,and when he offered it, it was shot down by the chair in the Senate--the presiding officer--as non-germane to McConnell's Export Import Bank reauthorization amendment. Cruz appealed the ruling of the chair--a vote that requires just 51 Senators, or a simple majority in the Senate--and instead of actually having a recorded roll call vote, the yeas and nays, GOP leadership including McConnell and Cornyn ordered it voice voted down. Since the vote threshold to overturn the ruling of the chair is a simple majority, and there are only 46 Democrats in the Senate, it means that McConnell and Cornyn would have needed to deliver at least five Republicans to kill Cruz's motion, assuming all the Democrats voted that way. Instead, by voice voting it down--in fact, only Sens. Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Lee seconded Cruz's motion for a roll call vote, not a sufficient number to get a recorded vote--they kept themselves from having to make five Republicans walk the political plank to vote against something they say they support.
Voice voting means a whole bunch of senators just yelled out that they didn't support Cruz's effort to restrain Iran from hurting Israel, because McConnell and Cornyn didn't want evidence of which (at least) five Republican senators would join presumably all the Democrats to vote down the amendment's chances.
Bloody murdering cowards of the first order. I await the appearance of an abortion recipient who will admit being paid cash money for baby tissues. Surely someone will soon be stepping forward.
The same exact process played out a few minutes later when Lee moved to do the same.
In response to this process happening on Sunday evening, in a public statement on his website, Cruz hammered McConnell.
"We've just seen something extraordinary on the Senate floor," Cruz said in the statement. "The American people elected a Republican majority believing that a Republican majority would be somehow different from a Democratic majority in the United States Senate. Unfortunately, the way the current Senate operates, there is one party, the Washington party."
More @ link (if you can stomach it.