Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio recently missed two significant opportunities in his role as U.S. senator to halt taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, dismissing the two Senate roll calls as “show votes.”
[…]The Florida senator was absent for the September 28 cloture vote, instead attending a private fundraiser for his presidential campaign in the exclusive Windermere, Florida, area.
Rubio then showed up the following evening as a guest on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” criticizing Senate Republicans for not being strong enough in fighting Planned Parenthood.
Rubio was again absent for the Senate’s September 30 vote on final passage of the continuing resolution, which did not strip the abortion giant of taxpayer funding, as conservatives had been hoped.
Well, I guess he is not serious about going on record to de-fund Planned Parenthood. Rubio put campaign events ahead of voting to defund Planned Parenthood. And we already know about who his big billionaire backers are – social liberals.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is excoriating the Republican leadership in the House and Senate for failing to “lift a finger to defend life” by eliminating taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood. Cruz’s speech on the Senate floor comes as the lawmakers voted, 77-19, to advance a bill to authorize government spending that includes funding for Planned Parenthood.
The 2016 Republican contender attempted to submit an amendment that would “restrict the use of Federal funds for Planned Parenthood Federation of America” as well as those to “implement the nuclear agreement with Iran or for assessed contributions to the United Nations until the President submits the agreement and all related materials to Congress.”
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) , however, “filled the tree” of amendments on this bill to fund the government, preventing any other senators from offering amendments to change the measure, a tactic used on numerous occasions by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) when he was the Majority Leader. The strategy would prevent any amendments to bills and keep Reid’s Democrat members from having to be on record for difficult votes.
So, there is a real difference between the candidates on abortion. One candidate, when given the chance to vote against abortion, goes off to campaign events. The other stays where he is and walks the walk – fighting on behalf of the unborn, and taking the slings and arrows that he must from the mainstream media for his stand.
Marco Rubio with his allies: Democrat Chuck Schumer and RINO John McCain
Just two years ago, Marco Rubio sponsored a bill to give people who were in the country illegally a path to citizenship.
Here is the article from the non-partisan The Hill.
It says:
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) says Sen. Marco Rubio’s “fingerprints are all over” a 2013 immigration bill with a path to citizenship, highlighting the Florida Republican’s ties to a reform effort he has downplayed during his presidential campaign.
“He was not only totally committed, he was in that room with us,” Schumer told CNN when asked how committed Rubio was to the “Gang of Eight” immigration effort. “His fingerprints are all over that bill. It has a lot of Rubio imprints.”
Rubio has drawn fire from conservatives for his role in crafting the Senate’s 2013 comprehensive immigration reform bill, a 1,200-page measure that would have put an estimated 8 million illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship and spent $46 billion to tighten border security.The bill passed the Senate but died in the House.
[…]Schumer suggested that Rubio didn’t resist putting provisions in the legislation that would have allowed undocumented immigrants to gain citizenship — the aspect of the legislation that was denounced by the right.
“He understood it, he molded it, he made it a tough path to citizenship,” Schumer, who is expected to be the next Democratic leader, told CNN. “But we all agreed to it, and it would have to be a tough path to citizenship. But he was all for it. “
Republican Sens. Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Jeff Sessions are pushing for a vote to defund President Obama’s executive amnesty in the “Cromnibus” spending bill Friday night, The Daily Caller has learned.
The trio of conservative senators is hoping to get the defund vote onto the Senate floor as a “point of order,” which would force a procedural vote on the issue without Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid having to introduce it.
The senators are pushing hard on Capitol Hill for the measure as of early Friday afternoon. If successful, the vote would take place late Friday night, after planned deliberations on the defense budget.
Instead of joining up with the Democrat Chuck Schumer, Cruz joined up with the Republicans. It’s not difficult to tell which person is serious about border security and illegal immigration. It may be that Rubio is the nominee in 2016. But we can do better if we choose Ted Cruz.
So, during the debate, Cruz responded to Trump’s attacks on him by asking him about his New York values, and then Trump got all offended and pretended that he did not know what New York values are.
Well, I managed to dig up this video that shows what New York values are:
Yes, that’s Donald Trump explaining what New York values are. So he actually does know what they are, and he embraced them.
Anyway, Trump is still feeling very offended by Cruz’s disagreement with New York values, and so he has gone on a Twitter meltdown about it. And many of Trump’s friends are backing him up.
Donald Trump and his friends, the Clintons
The Hill reports that Hillary Clinton is backing Trump up:
Hillary Clinton on Friday made the rare move of backing up Republican presidential rival Donald Trump amid an attack from fellow contender Ted Cruz on the real estate mogul’s “New York values.”
“Just this once, Trump’s right: New Yorkers value hard work, diversity, tolerance, resilience, and building better lives for our families,” tweeted Clinton, a former New York senator whose campaign headquarters is in Brooklyn.
And why not? She’s gotten so many donations from him. And he really really likes her:
The Hill article also notes that the socialist mayor of Bill de Blasio is backing Trump up:
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) also backed up Trump, tweeting he agreed with the businessman’s “love for NYC” and “appreciated his tribute to our city’s heroic response to terrorism.”
And why not? Trump said that de Blasio would be “good for New York”.
The socialist governor of New York is backing Trump up:
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) also slammed Cruz’s “anti-American” remarks in a series of interviews Friday morning, calling them “highly offensive” to several groups, including gays.
And why not? Trump is proud to defend New York state against conservatives like Ted Cruz.
The Republican establishment
National Review reports that the GOP establishment is backing Trump up:
The developing feeling among House Republicans? Donald Trump is preferable to Ted Cruz.
“If you look at Trump’s actual policies, they’re pretty thin. There’s not a lot of meat there,” says one Republican member in Ryan’s inner circle, who requested anonymity to speak frankly about the two front-runners as leadership has carefully avoided doing all week. If Trump were to get the nomination, he would “be looking to answer the question: ‘Where’s the beef?’ And we will have that for him,” says the member.
Ted Cruz is bad, because he doesn’t like the liberal policies of the establishment Republicans – such as the massive spending bill that Paul Ryan sent to Obama, or the debt limit increases, etc.
The far-left CNN reports that Marco Rubio, the candidate of the Republican establishment, is backing Trump up:
Rubio also jabbed the Texas senator for his recent string of attacks on so-called “New York values.” Cruz last week explained his terminology, describing New Yorkers as “socially liberal, pro-gay marriage, pro-abortion, focused on money and the media.”
Those comments, which critics in and out of the GOP contest have criticized, with some suggesting they amount to a dog whistle aimed at anti-Semitic voters or homophobic elements in the party, represent a deeper dishonest, Rubio claimed.
Andy why not? Rubio has the backing of a billionaire donor who favors amnesty and gay rights. Rubio has no problem with New York values.
I think by now, everyone understands who the real “outsider” candidate is. It’s Ted Cruz. He is the one that the Democrats and elites hate and fear. They want to destroy him.
Trump lashes out at Cruz
In addition to the anti-Cruz meltdown on Twitter, Trump is whining about Cruz to his friends in the liberal media.
ABC News reports on Trump’s comments to former Bill Clinton Senior Advisor George Stephanopolous:
“I don’t think Ted Cruz has a great chance, to be honest with you,” Trump told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview on “This Week” Sunday. “Look, the truth is, he’s a nasty guy. He was so nice to me. I mean, I knew it. I was watching. I kept saying, ‘Come on Ted. Let’s go, okay.’ But he’s a nasty guy. Nobody likes him. Nobody in Congress likes him. Nobody likes him anywhere once they get to know him. He’s a very –- he’s got an edge that’s not good. You can’t make deals with people like that and it’s not a good thing. It’s not a good thing for the country. Very nasty guy.”
Trump is running to all his Democrat-Clinton friends in the news media and telling them how much Cruz hurt his feelings by criticizing Trump’s New York values. Mayor de Blasio’s New York values. Governor Cuomo’s New York values. Hillary Clinton’s New York values. Marco Rubio’s New York values.
Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, initially thought that Cruz had made a mistake in criticizing New York values. But the latest episode of the Weekly Standard podcast features Bill Kristol and the host now saying that Ted Cruz made a brilliant move to draw Trump into an attack that cannot win in most of the country outside of New York. And it also sets the GOP primary race as Trump vs not-Trump, with Cruz as the not-Trump. Trump is making Cruz into the not-Trump.
In my previous post, I explained all the liberal positions that Trump spoke out about before he decided to run for President as a Republican.
