Tag Archive for: Mitch McConnell

‘So Pissed Off, I Cannot Even See Straight’ — Ted Cruz Blames Mitch McConnell For GOP Midterm Losses

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Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz slammed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell during a Monday podcast, saying the GOP should have won the majority of the upper chamber and blamed McConnell for not supporting Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters.

Cruz released an episode of his podcast, titled Verdict with Ted Cruz, where he and co-host Ben Ferguson discussed the midterm elections and the GOP’s failure to recapture the Senate. Cruz mentioned his frustration, saying there was no excuse for McConnell to abandon Masters, calling it “indefensible.”

“Well, Ben, let me start off by saying I am so pissed off, I cannot even see straight,” Cruz said.

“We had an extraordinary opportunity. We had a generational opportunity. This should have been a fundamental landslide election. We should have won the House and the Senate. We should have a 30, 40, 50 vote majority in the House. We should have 53, 54, 55 Republicans in the Senate,” Cruz continued.

McConnell’s PAC reportedly yanked $8 million in campaign spending from Arizona after Masters won his primary election, according to Fox News.

Cruz was also asked if McConnell would donate to Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s campaign in a run-off. Cruz replied he likely will, but said he believes the GOP could have won Arizona.

“Oh, look, I’m sure he will raise money and invest in the race … But if you look at this last cycle, Mitch McConnell pulled the money out of Arizona. We could have won — won Arizona. We nearly won Arizona and abandoning Blake Masters was indefensible,” Cruz said.

“Explain to me, Senator, why in a race where the polling showed that we had a legitimate chance of winning there. Why did he pull out that money from Masters who desperately needed it?” Ferguson asked Cruz.

“Because Masters said he would vote against Mitch McConnell, and so Mitch would rather be leader than have a Republican majority. If there’s a Republican who can win, who’s not gonna support Mitch, the truth of the matter is he’d rather the Democrat win. So he pulled all the money out of Arizona,” Cruz responded.

Cruz also said that “the country is screwed for the next four years” due to the GOP’s failure to regain the majority, saying “because of this, we’re gonna see horrible Left-wing judges confirmed for the next two years, because of this. We’re gonna see judges taking away our free speech rights, our religious liberty rights, our Second Amendment rights. It is an enormous missed opportunity. And I gotta say, it is hard to describe my feelings as anything other than rage,” Cruz concluded.

Cruz’s criticisms follow former President Donald Trump’s criticisms of McConnell over the Blake Masters campaign. Trump’s critics have responded that the former president did not use the $100 million his PAC has collected to support GOP candidates in the midterms.

“McConnell allied groups spent $13.1M in Arizona,” a One Nation spokesperson told the Caller.

“During the summer, Steven Law, the head of a McConnell-aligned super PAC, told the financier Peter Thiel, who had spent millions supporting Mr. Masters, that Mr. Masters had scored the worst focus group results of any candidate he had ever seen,” The New York Times reported.

The Daily Caller contacted McConnell’s office about Cruz’s comments.

AUTHOR

HENRY RODGERS

Senior Congressional correspondent. 

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Senate Rejects Filibuster Change, Defeats Election Overhaul Bills In History-Making Day

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  • The Senate late Thursday rejected a Democratic effort to alter the filibuster in order to pass their long-sought voting bills over unanimous Republican opposition, capping one of the most consequential days in the history of the chamber.
  • The change, had it been adopted, would have established a “talking filibuster,” allowing any senator to speak for or against the bill for as long as they wanted but lowering the 60-vote threshold for passage to a simple majority.
  • Democrats’ attempt to change Senate rules concluded a marathon day of debating in the chamber that saw nearly half of the body speak about the voting bills. They failed, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer moved to change the rules soon after.
  • Though senators engaged in genuine debate throughout the day, most expressed disdain for how deliberation seemed to have faded from the world’s greatest deliberative body.
  • “I don’t know what happened to the good old days,” said West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, “but I can’t tell you they aren’t here now.” 

The Senate late Thursday rejected a Democratic effort to alter the filibuster in order to pass their long-sought voting bills over unanimous Republican opposition, capping one of the most consequential days in the history of the chamber.

The vote failed 48-52 after Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema voted as they said they would for months, joining a unanimous Republican caucus in opposition and denying their party the necessary support for the change to take effect. The change, had it been adopted, would have established a “talking filibuster” pertaining to the voting bills only, allowing any senator to speak for or against them for as long as they wanted but lowering the 60-vote threshold for passage to a simple majority.

“What we have now … is not a filibuster,” Maine Sen. Angus King, and independent who caucuses with Democrats, said ahead of the vote. “It doesn’t require any effort. It doesn’t require any speeches. It doesn’t require to hold the floor.”

“Strom Thurmond would have loved this filibuster,” King added, invoking the late segregationist senator who set the record for the longest filibuster speech ever while speaking against the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

Democrats’ attempt to change Senate rules concluded a marathon day of debating in the chamber that saw nearly half of the body speak either for the John Lewis Voting Rights Reauthorization Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, the twin bills that passed the House Thursday with a quirk that prevented Senate Republicans from blocking debate on them as they had in the past.

The voting bills failed to garner 60 Senate votes earlier Wednesday night even though Manchin and Sinema voted in favor, sparking Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s motion to change Senate rules to allow them to pass without GOP support.

“For those who believe bipartisanship is possible, we have proven them wrong,” Manchin said ahead of the vote. “Ending the filibuster would be the easy way out. I cannot support such a perilous course for this nation when elected leaders are sent to Washington to unite our country by putting politics and party aside.”

Democrats have said the bills are necessary to counter election reform laws that Republican state legislatures across the country have passed in the wake of the 2020 election that allegedly suppress people’s ability to vote. As a result, nearly all have endorsed altering the filibuster to ensure their passage even if done on a partisan basis.

“I share with many of you … a vision of the Senate that collaborates and negotiates the most important issue of our time,” Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock said. “I believe in bipartisanship. But at what cost? Who is being asked to foot the bill for this bipartisanship and is liberty itself the cost?”

Republicans, however, have countered that the federal legislation, which sets uniform voting standards and outlaws partisan gerrymandering, will invite voter fraud and infringe on states’ rights to oversee their own elections.

“The president and his party will try to use fear and panic to smash the Senate, silence millions of Americans and size control of our democracy,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday.

McConnell said hours later that while the day was one of the most consequential in the history of the Senate, it really boiled down to a simple question: “Will it take 60 votes to pass massive changes or a simple majority to ram them through? That’s what’s at stake here.”

Though senators engaged in genuine debate throughout the day, most expressed disdain for how deliberation seemed to have faded from the world’s greatest deliberative body. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the only Republican who backed the John Lewis voting bill, said Wednesday that the rhetoric surrounding voting has become very concerning.

“I was part of a very troubling conversation last evening,” she said. “It was shared depending on which side you’re on in this body today on this issue, you’re either a racist or a hypocrite. Really, is that where we are?”

Manchin echoed her hours later in his speech, criticizing the lack of bipartisanship as he has time and time again throughout his filibuster defenses.

“I don’t know what happened to the good old days,” he said, “but I can’t tell you they aren’t here now.”

COLUMN BY

ANDREW TRUNSKY

Political reporter. Follow Andrew on Twitter @atrunsky

RELATED ARTICLES:

Democrats Double-Down On Sure-To-Fail Strategy To Pass Voting Bills

House Passes Two Democratic Voting Bills – With A Quirk That Allows Them To Skirt One Filibuster Vote

‘A Perilous Course For This Nation’: Manchin Breaks With Democrats, Reaffirms Support For The Filibuster Ahead Of Critical Vote

McConnell Blasts ‘The Left’s Big Lie’ As Schumer Prepares Another Voting Bill Push

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Trump is Right: Our Exit from Afghanistan is Long Overdue

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President Trump is withdrawing a significant number of troops from Afghanistan, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is livid. According to AP, McConnell “warned against a potentially ‘humiliating’ pullout from Afghanistan that he said would be worse than President Barack Obama’s 2011 withdrawal from Iraq and reminiscent of the U.S. departure from Saigon in 1975.” Not to be outdone, Rep. Michael McCaul, Republican leader on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, insisted: “We need to ensure a residual force is maintained for the foreseeable future to protect U.S. national and homeland security interests and to help secure peace for Afghanistan.” But McConnell and McCaul are advocating for a failed policy. It is long past time to leave Afghanistan.

In his State of the Union address on February 5, 2019, President Trump stated: “As a candidate for President, I pledged a new approach. Great nations do not fight endless wars.” Epitomizing the need to do this was what happened when Trump first moved to end America’s longest endless war, the war in Afghanistan, with a treaty with the group that the U.S. entered Afghanistan in order to topple, the Taliban, in February 2020. The ink was still fresh on the signed document when the Taliban launched a new attack against Afghan government forces, killing twenty Afghan soldiers and police officers.

The attack was a fitting symbol of the fruitlessness of these endless wars and the bankruptcy of the assumptions and policies that had led to their being waged.

After all these years, we have little to show for all our efforts in the nation that has been ominously dubbed the “graveyard of empires.” The U.S. has sacrificed the lives of numerous heroic service members and squandered trillions for nearly two decades in the fond hope that it could remake Afghanistan into a stable, Western-style republic that would respect the human rights of all its citizens. That’s still the plan, as far as the architects of our intervention are concerned: One foreign policy establishment wonk counseled patience, saying that Afghanistan “is not going to become Switzerland overnight,” a fact that is as obvious as Joe Biden’s dementia.

Great. So we know now after almost twenty years that it isn’t going to happen overnight, but how long exactly is it going to take? To that question the advocates of endless intervention have no definite answer. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in late 2019: “We are never going to get the U.S. military out of Afghanistan unless we take care to see that there is something going on that will provide the stability that will be necessary for us to leave.”

All right, but what’s it going to take? Do Rumsfeld, McConnell, and McCaul really think that after nearly twenty years, one more year, or five more years, or ten more years, will do the job?

Afghanistan will never be a Western-style republic and will likely never be free of the Taliban without a massive transformation of Afghan society, no matter how long we stay, and such a transformation is not on the horizon. This was clear relatively early in the conflict, but the obviousness of this fact did not make successive Republican and Democratic administrations rethink the wisdom of being there.

And so after all this American expenditure of personnel, money, and materiel, there is absolutely no doubt that once we leave, the Taliban will make gains and may even regain control of the Afghan government.

Did that mean that America had to keep troops there for fifty years? A hundred years? Should we just make Afghanistan the fifty-first state and seal our commitment there forever? Or should the U.S. instead focus on what is best for America in Afghanistan, working to contain the jihad there and to ensure that the Taliban does not and cannot engage in international jihad terror activity, while otherwise leaving the Afghans to their own devices?

America’s tragic misadventure in Afghanistan makes it clear that a new foreign policy strategy is urgently needed, and that the ideas and assumptions that have governed U.S. foreign policy for nearly a century needed to be consigned to the dustbin of history. President Trump had proposed to do that. Now we are likely to see instead a retrenchment of the forces that made the tragedy of two decades of war in Afghanistan happen in the first place. President Biden, or President Harris, or President Pelosi, or whatever horror show we may be facing next, could send the troops that Trump withdraws right back into the belly of the beast.

After all, as Trump said last September, “the top people in the Pentagon…want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy. But we’re getting out of the endless wars, you know how we’re doing.” He is getting us out. Others, wanting to keep the Masters of War happy, may get us right back in.

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VIDEO: U.S. Senate shuts down Elizabeth Warren for visciously attacking Jeff Sessions

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UPDATE: ValuBit.com news in their column “Elizabeth Warren ‘Silenced’ Again After Video Surfaces Of MLK’s Wife Thanking Senator Sessions” writes:

After being silenced last night on the Senate floor during her desperate racial stunt to read disparaging remarks about now-confirmed Attorney-General Jeff Sessions, we suspect Senator Elizabeth Warren is lost for words as video surfaces of Coretta Scott King thanking Senator Sessions at the launching of the Rosa Parks Library and Museum.

Read more…

The Daily Signal published a video with commentary on the debate taking place at the U.S. Senate to confirm Senator Jeff Sessions to become the Attorney General of the United States. Senator Mitch McConnell shut Warren down for viciously attacking a fellow Senator.

Elizabeth Warren has become the face of the party of the unhinged, uncivil and increasingly irrelevant, a.k.a. Democrats.

The Daily Signal noted:

Hours after staging a 24-hour talkathon against Betsy DeVos’ nomination for education secretary, Senate Democrats were back at it Tuesday night. This time, Republicans had the last word.

As the Senate debated the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., delivered a blistering critique. She accused Sessions of trying to “chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.”

That’s when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stepped in to call out Warren for violating Senate Rule 19—impugning the motives and conduct of Sessions.

The Senate proceeded to vote, 49-43, prohibiting Warren from speaking throughout the remainder of the debate on Sessions.

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Marco Rubio holds the coat tails of Mitch McConnell

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Why would Marco Rubio get behind and support a Republican in Name Only (a.k.a. GOPe) like Mitch McConnell (R-KY) over the conservative TEA Party patriot Matt Bevin?

Well, first of all you must understand that Marco Rubio is not a TEA Party conservative. He just played one on TV in a previous movie role and fooled thousands of people across the great state of Florida.

Rubio is a weak capitulating boy wonder that is afraid of his own shadow. He does not belong in the U.S. Senate or in the White House. He is now owned and operated by the embedded GOP establishment in D.C.

Why Senior Chief, are you not friends of this guy? You have his cell phone and personal email accounts ?

Yes, indeed I do and that information will remain private and confidential. I will never release it. But with that said, my political opinion of Marco Rubio is that of disgust and disdain. He is a fake and a total failure to his constituents.

Marco Rubio stuck a knife in the back of this retired Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer after he got what he wanted from me politically. Then his true colors washed ashore like the wreckage from a Malaysian jet airliner.

Hmm, so you have a beef with the guy and want to hurt him politically?

I do what must be done to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Friendships are flushed when people on my very short friends list act in a treasonous way.

If I cut you off and bury you, the chances are you handed me the scissors and the shovel. In this case I had to pull a knife out of my back first before I could start digging the hole in which to plant this lair.

So to answer the question why is Marco Rubio backing Mitch McConnell over the TEA Party Conservative Matt Bevin. I offer you some suggestions.

In 1964, Mitch McConnell was ceremoniously thrown out of the U.S. Army for an incident whereby he propositioned another male soldier and grabbed his p****s for extracurricular activity. The recruit promptly reported this incident to his superiors who then took action against McConnell. McConnell was thrown out of the Army for engaging in homosexual behaviors and disrupting good order and discipline.

Then the alleged cover up started when McConnell used his connections to a U.S. Senator who very nicely changed the reason why he was thrown out of the Army. His discharge was changed from gay sex to having some sort of eye illness which was all bogus.

According to some accounts Mitch McConnell also loves going to Thailand to attend private parties where wealthy and powerful gay and bisexual American men procure young Thai men for gay sex.

One report has Mitch McConnell seen with one of his male buddies at one of these parties. Not accusing but lets get a Freedom of Information Act release on Mitch McConnell’s flights abroad. Just curious if the tax payer is funding it?

Perhaps Marco Rubio who was also allegedly engaged in foam parties can relate to this guy. Just my opinion. Not accusing. Do not hide who or what you are. Integrity!

So what other reasons would you see Marco backing this GOPe liberal Mitch McConnell instead of Matt Bevin the conservative TEA Party Senator? Does Marco Rubio agree with abortion? Good point.

Mitch McConnell actually supports Planned Parenthood and when the tax payers of the United States saw the videos of them selling baby parts for profit the out cry was to defund this slaughter house of unborn children. Planned Parenthood was scheduled to be successfully defunded in a Highway Bill but Mitch McConnell blocked an amendment that would have stopped it. Instead he let it go through as fully funded. That my friends is working hand in hand with Satan himself.

So you have to ask yourself why would a Catholic boy like Marco back a person that supports the slaughter of unborn children? Good question. Do you want this man Marco Rubio in the White House now?

Perhaps Marco Rubio was happy when the unconstitutional Obama-Romneycare passed because he signed up using tax payer money for the subsidy of about $15,000, which is our money by the way.

So why would Marco get behind Mitch McConnell and publicly support defunding Obama-Romneycare and then take the tax payer subsidy?

Perhaps it is because Mitch McConnell also supports Romney – Obamacare.

In May 2014 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) implied and then followed through by funding Romney Obama care when he said he would not support repealing, Kentucky’s state-run health care exchange.

In order to stop Romney – Obama care one must defund it and return the money back to the U.S. Treasury. McConnell thinks other wise. Marco signed up for it.

Marco makes $174,000 a year and can well afford private insurance but instead he put his hands in our wallets and we are paying his insurance premiums now. The fact that Romney – Obamacare is unconstitutional does not matter to these two.

Perhaps Marco Rubio agrees with Mitch McConnell’s position much like Obama’s that the rich (the job creators) are not paying enough taxes and must redistribute more of their wealth. Forget the fact that nobody reading this has ever worked for a poor person unless doing a volunteer civic duty. Agreed ?

Here are Mitch McConnell’s own words, part of a verbatim transcript from Mitch McConnell’­s 1990 reelection campaign ad, entitled “Fair Share”:

“Hi, I’m Mitch McConnell. I’m sure you’ve been watching this mess in Washington. I’d like you to know how I feel about it.

I haven’t voted for one of these lousy budget packages for years and I won’t vote for this one. It would raise taxes on the wrong people.

Unlike some folks around here I think everyone should pay their fair share. Including the rich.

In a time of financial difficulty, we all need to make sacrifices, and asking people with a lot to pay just a little more, is not unreasonable. It’s just simply the way you solve financial problems”.

Patriots, who was the last person you heard say a rich mans pay check belongs to someone else because they must pay their fair share ?

OBAMA!!!!

We as tax payers are also funding illegal immigrants which Marco and Mitch also support. I can say with full authority that the U.S. Constitution is under a full frontal assault from these two guys.

They both need to be removed from office as soon as possible to protect the fiscal and moral and constitutional well being of this nation.

So there you have it ladies and gentleman. A perspective from the Senior Chief on the man leading the U.S. Senate Mitch McConnell and his man cub Marco Rubio, now holding his coat tails and learning from his Senate mentor how to steer this nation towards Socialism/Communism/Marxism.

Is Marco Rubio a man you want in the White House? An indecisive weak capitulating turn coat who gave John Kerry a job, gave Obama his TPP bill and has been MIA on most every other major piece of legislation critical to the constitutional governance of this nation?

I don’t think so either. He not only let down his constituents but he also is an embarrassment to his team that works hard for him. They are forced to cover their eyes when he acts and votes like a left wing New World Order socialist.

RELATED ARTICLE: Opinion: Marco Rubio goes into freefall among those betting on the New Hampshire primary

Syrian Muslim migration to the U.S. rests in the hands of Ryan and McConnell

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I’m happy to report that our readers are more up on the news than I have been these last few days.  Thanks to all of you who are sending me hot-off-the-press news on the roiling controversy about Syrian refugee resettlement AP (After Paris).  I just don’t have the time to post it all!

Speaker Ryan and Senate Majority leader McConnell will be the ones who determine the fate of resettlement of Syrian refugees in the US this year (not the governors!). Kentucky is gradually becoming an important resettlement target and it’s been a mystery to me why McConnell has let it happen. I can only assume McConnell gets campaign contributions from industries, including the chicken processing industry, which needs cheap reliable laborers. For ambitious readers, we have a very large archive on Kentucky extending back many years (with many problems) here.

LOL! I did take a break today as Rush Limbaugh held forth for what I assume was much of his show and every time I turned on the TV I heard the “R” word (refugee).  Heck, everyone is covering it, I reminded myself.

Here, at Politico, is a story from yesterday I’ve been meaning to get to.

Don’t get me wrong, it is wonderful that governors across the country are speaking up, but even if you wish them to have the power to stop the resettlement (unless there was a Constitutional challenge which does need to get underway, but will take years!) there is really only one place it can be done quickly with any finality (for this year) and that is in Congress where the FUNDING MUST BE CUT OFF.

See our post on Saturday where I said just that—CONGRESS MUST USE ITS POWER OF THE PURSE!

The refugee resettlement contractors know that very well or they wouldn’t have had an emergency press conference call today!

Here is Politico telling us what the stakes are and informing us that what happens next will be the first crisis for new House Speaker Paul Ryan.

A cascade of Republicans on Monday implored the Obama administration to scrap plans to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States next year, saying they pose an unacceptable security risk in the wake of last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris.

And, in a dramatic twist, the sudden standoff is raising the possibility of a government shutdown next month.

Throughout the day a host of Republican governors around the country, wary that refugees could end up in their home states, blasted President Barack Obama’s plans. But those governors lack real sway over the process, andsome are asking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to insert a provision in the Dec. 11 spending bill that would bar more Syrian settlers.

Did you see this?  Lindsey Graham has backed off his earlier proposal to ADD funding for Syrian resettlement!

The politics are moving fast: The Democratic governor of New Hampshire, a Senate candidate, is siding with conservatives, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is reversing his support for a $1 billion spending bill intended to allow in more Syrian refugees after touting the measure just weeks ago. GOP leaders are keeping their options open as they mull whether to try to block new Syrian refugees by adding language to the must-pass spending bill.

[….]

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), one of the leading immigration hard-liners in the Capitol, sent a letter to colleagues calling for provisions in the omnibus spending bill that would give Congress more oversight over Syrian refugees.

[….]

Ryan and McConnell will have to decide quickly on a course of action as they confront the first potential legislative crisis since Ryan became speaker.

More here.

Please everyone, starting tomorrow call your Washington elected representatives and call the leadership—Ryan and McConnell—and let them know how you feel.  And, keep calling through the Thanksgiving recess.

By the way, the resettlement contractors*** are ginning up their grassroots and the most maddening part of that is that they get to use your tax dollars to do it!

***Nine major federal contractors which like to call themselves VOLAGs (Voluntary agencies) which is such a joke considering how much federal money they receive:

RELATED ARTICLES: 

Huckabee: Speaker Ryan should reject Syrian refugees or resign7

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AP (After Paris) two Governors say don’t send Syrian refugees to my state

Guest post: Disillusioned Refugee Resettlement Worker Unloads

Breaking news: Michigan Gov. now says “no thanks” to Syrian refugees

White House Petition: Moratorium on all Middle Eastern refugee resettlement to America; sign it!

The Federal Reserve’s Counterfeit Prosperity

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When I was a young Secret Service agent on a local financial crimes task force between 2000 and 2002, I was inundated with an explosion of new counterfeit cases. There were a number of causes for this explosion in currency counterfeiting but the main ones were: the rapid advancement in ink-jet printing technology, the declining costs, and correspondingly increased availability of affordable home printers. Prior to these technological advancements, counterfeiting U.S. currency was the near exclusive purview of state-sponsored actors, sophisticated criminals and criminal syndicates.

With the growth in ink-jet printing, any thirteen-year-old with a printer could counterfeit money. I, along with hundreds of other Secret Service agents, were so preoccupied with tracking down this new class of counterfeiters and stemming the tidal wave of new counterfeit making its way into the money supply that I never had the time to philosophize on the deeper reasons why this crime is so dangerous to national cohesion.

We are lucky enough to live in a time where the authenticity of the physical currency in our wallets is taken for granted, but when the Secret Service was founded in 1865 to combat counterfeiting—the Secret Service’s role in Presidential Protection didn’t formally begin until 1901 after the assassination of President William McKinley—it was estimated that approximately half of the currency in circulation was counterfeit. Think about that: you had a roughly 50 percent chance, when engaged in commerce, of receiving money with ZERO value. That people had faith in their currency was so important to the U.S. government at the time that the Secret Service was established and charged with hunting down and prosecuting counterfeiters in order to re-establish public trust in the battered dollar.

Read more.

 

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EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Conservative Review. The featured image of Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is by Jacquelyn Martin | AP Photo.

Thank God Mr. Cruz is in Washington, D.C.

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My email account was on fire, everyone excited about Sen Ted Cruz calling Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell a liar on the Senate floor. Cruz cited each of Obama’s unprecedented unlawful power grabs and repeals of our freedoms that the GOP promised to block, only to stab us (We the People/Tea Party) in the back. Immediately, I thought, “Thank God Ted Cruz is in Washington.”

Before I go on, I wish to address a guy whom I will call Ned. Whenever I praise a conservative, Ned emails to correct me, claiming the conservative is a deceitful traitor. When I share reasons for optimism, Ned vehemently disagrees, even seeming a bit angry that I would think our efforts could possibly make a difference in America’s corrupt political environment. Ned always sees the glass less than half empty. I guess we need people like Ned to keep us balanced. Although, I am not quite sure about that.

Sure enough, in response to patriots’ giving Cruz rave reviews for speaking truth to Washington power, Ned ripped into Cruz about questionable votes. Folks, I realize Ted Cruz is not perfect. But then, which presidential candidate is? Jesus is not running for president in 2016.

As a member of the Tea Party since it began, Cruz going down the list of GOP betrayals brought back memories. Remember how we fought and worked our butts off to give the GOP the House, then the Senate? We worked to elect Republicans to stop Obama from rolling out the welcome mat to illegals.

Over a million of us showed up in DC to protest Obamacare.

I thought of all the travel miles, funds, blood, sweat and tears sacrificed by Tea Party Americans; patriots who simply want lawful Constitutional government.

I thought about how Obama sent out his liberal mainstream media air force to bomb us with accusations of racism against the first black president; hoping to soften and diminish our ranks. The Tea Party is not racist, nor do we hate anybody.

In his speech, Cruz did two things that were quite remarkable. First – Cruz exposed the good-cop, bad-cop personal and corporate enrichment scam both parties have been playing on the American people. Second – Cruz spoke with unprecedented clarity. He did not say McConnell misspoke or McConnell was disingenuous. Cruz said McConnell lied.

Cruz has been on a roll speaking the truth, making mincemeat of Obama minions and Leftist ideologues. He really exposes DC insider political corruption in his book, “A Time For Truth.”

It was refreshing that when pressed by the liberal bias media, Cruz refused to jump on the destroy Donald Trump bandwagon. This tells me that Cruz has backbone and will not automatically play by the Left’s rules of engagement.

It is fair game for GOP presidential contenders to express their disapproval of Trump’s style and tactics. However, when a GOP presidential contender joins the MSM in its evil attempt to brand Trump a racist for simply addressing illegal immigration, red flags go up regarding the character of that contender.

It tells me the contender will say whatever necessary to win. I call that “soulless” politicking.

Such behavior has the awful stench of what happened in Mississippi. In the primary, Republican Thad Cochran’s camp joined Democrats in branding the Tea Party racist. To beat the Tea Party conservative, Cochran’s people despicably made lying phone calls to black voters saying the Tea Party candidate would turn back the clock on racial progress. This is the kind of deplorable evil divisive totally self-serving politicking Cruz exposes in his book.

The GOP presidential field is rich with honorable contenders. I ask myself the following question.

When I lay my head on my pillow at night which candidate winning the WH will cause me to sleep the most peacefully? Who is most likely to remain true to their promises to We the People; fight to repeal Obamacare, end the invasion of our borders, defend life and traditional values?

Who believes in Conservatism enough to throw a lifeline of inspiration to those drowning in the treacherous deep dark sea of Obama’s welfare state America? Who will pray as the song says, “Lord lift us up where we belong” as Americans?

Currently, I believe that candidate is Sen Ted Cruz.

Realizing the fruitlessness of trying to instill a bit of hope/sunshine into Ned, I delete his emails without opening them. Ned has gotten creative. After lunch the waiter brought the check and my fortune cookie. The message inside said, “Ted Cruz sucks! – Ned” (Just kidding).

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Arkansas elects the youngest US Senator to enter the 214th Congress: Rep. Tom Cotton

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Just prior to last night’s resounding GOP mid-term victories in the US Senate, the House and a host of gubernatorial contests, I had an opportunity to speak with Shoshana Bryen. She is the executive director of the Washington, DC – based Jewish Policy Center. We were preparing for last Sunday’s Lisa Benson Show, which had a midterm election theme of “Vote to Protect America and its Ally Israel”.  We talked about a wide range of issues.  In addition to Shoshana, we had as other guests on the show, Ken Timmerman, veteran Iran watcher and author of Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Benghazi, and Navy Seal veteran, Ben Smith.  Listen here to the discussion on the November 2, 2014 Lisa Benson Show.   

When I asked Bryen about emerging figures in the mid-term elections, she pointed to Rep. Tom Cotton (R-4th CD AK)  running a competitive  campaign against incumbent two-term  US Democrat Senator Mark Pryor. Pryor was the scion of a long serving Arkansas political dynasty.  His father David before him had served as both Governor and US Senator.

Cotton, I knew from reading a profile of him by retired Harvard Professor Ruth Wisse in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) had a career that resonated. He was a highly educated double Harvard graduate who voluntarily served as an Infantry officer in the US Army during the Iraq-Afghanistan conflict.  Wisse’s WSJ op-ed   was an unabashed endorsement, “Vote for Tom Cotton—and Redeem Harvard”.   So, I asked Bryen on last Sunday’s broadcast to talk about Cotton and another Army veteran Lt. Col.Joni Ernst of Iowa both running for the US Senate in their respective states.

 Cotton and Ernst won their respective Senate races last night. A colleague called last night from a cheering Iowa GOP celebration to give me the news about Ernst’s victory. Cotton trounced Pryor by running against “Obama’s failed policies”. He won by 16 percent. His campaign played up his Army service. Cotton, 37 years old, will enter the 314th Congress in January 2015 as its youngest member.

 Cotton is a sixth generation Arkansan from a cattle raising ranching family in the small community of Dardanelle, Arkansas. A graduate of both Harvard College and Law School, motivated by the events of 9/11, he rejected a JAG Commission. Instead, he volunteered   to go through OCS at Fort Benning and trained at both the Infantry and Ranger Schools.  Cotton served from 2005 to 2009. He had two tours, one in Iraq and a second in Afghanistan with the famed Screaming Eagles, the 101st Airborne, rising to the rank of Captain and received a Bronze Star for his combat actions. At 6’5″, he was selected as Platoon Leader at the Old Guard that provides the honor guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington Cemetery.

Watch this mini-documentary on Senator-elect Cotton:

Like Louisiana’s Republican governor, Bobby Jindal, he also is a McKinsey & Co. alumnus. Most importantly as a first term Congressman from the (4thCD- AK) he was assigned to House Foreign Affairs. During his Senate campaign he consistently strove to educate Arkansans about the dangers of isolationism.  He has also proved to be a good friend of Israel in Congress during his initial term in the US House of Representatives. The Emergency Committee for Israel (ECFI head, Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard,  said this about Cotton in a Washington Free Beacon report on their purchase of a spot ad for him, “We’re for a strong Israel and a strong America. So is Tom Cotton. He’ll be a great senator.”

Just before his Senate electoral victory, Cotton weighed in on the West Wing campaign against Israel and PM Netanyahu with a statement released on October 29th:

I’m appalled at recent media reports suggesting the Obama administration is seeking ‘détente’ with Iran, while unnamed administration officials disparage Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with vulgar ad hominem attacks.  I call upon President Obama to renounce these reports and disclose the names of these officials and fire them.  Iran remains our worst enemy and Israel our closest ally.  The Obama administration’s weak behavior will only embolden Iran to continue its headlong rush to nuclear weapons and terror campaigns against America and our allies, while destabilizing the region and further eroding our interests.

Finally, for the record, I must note that Prime Minister Netanyahu in his youth was a member of Israel’s elite special-operations forces, where he displayed great courage.  He and his family have made grave sacrifices in the fight against our common enemies.  On behalf of all Arkansans, I want to thank Mr. Netanyahu for his bravery and service.

I asked Bryen during the preparation for last Sunday’s show where Cotton might be assigned in the newly organized US Senate under the leadership of Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, the presumptive GOP Majority Leader in the 214th Congress in January 2015.  She thought that Cotton might end up on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  I told her that would be an historic antidote to the legendary Arkansas Democratic Senator William Fulbright who opposed the Viet Nam War during the era of President Johnson after voting for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in August 1964.  Cotton’s Arkansas constituents realize the importance of US leadership on national security interests and support for Israel. That will stand him in good stead.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the New English Review. The featured image of Senator elect Tom Cotton is courtesy of the New English Review.