Senate Republicans slam Senator Ted Cruz
Senator Ted Cruz - political hero or villain?
Cruz has been the driving force behind the Republican push to tie government funding to derailing Obamacare. But he says the Democrats are to blame for shutting down the government.
"The reason we have a shutdown right now is because Harry Reid and President Obama want a shutdown and they have refused to compromise at all, and unfortunately, Harry Reid and President Obama believe this shutdown benefits them as a partisan political matter, and that's why you're seeing these sorts of cynical decisions," Cruz said.
As the shutdown goes on, Cruz's Republican colleagues are getting fed up.
Even Minority Leader Mitch McConnell joined in the Cruz bashing during a private caucus lunch.
But in his home-state of Texas - Republicans are still standing by the freshman Senator.
CNN's Ed Lavandera is OutFront with the story.
On Twitter
The current crisis is the result of a shameless and pathetic political stunt by a group of Republicans that don't know when to stop. They have tried and failed over 40 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act and now they are trying for either a back door repeal or a back door piece by piece dismantling of the law, which is now in effect and allowing millions of people to purchase affordable health insurance. Any concessions that are made by the President will only be fodder for more demands in the future. Moreover, the concessions that the Republicans are demanding are designed to undermine the law in order to make it fail. This is just the beginning of a long fight by conservative Republicans to undo a great political achievement by a Democrat.
The efforts of these Republicans really comes from a craven place in their ultra conservative ideology which says, if they can't impose their will on the rest of America they will spoil the whole thing for everyone. They are the professional sports equivalent of spoilers who have no chance of going anywhere, but only want to see the other side fail. In a similar vein, what they are trying to do is remove the rule of forward progress so that they can tackle the proverbial man with the ball and drive him back all of the way through his own goal to score a safety.
If they are successful in doing this it will only lead to more gridlock. The days of trying to gain an upper hand through elections and then overturning things through the normal legislative process are apparently gone in favor of instant gratification no matter what the cost. Every time that the speaker or one of the other conservative Republicans gets up in front of the American people it is only political theatre designed to cover up their pathetic game.
The speaker's false indignation is really humorous given that he and his party are the cause of all this. When the Affordable Care Act has been in effect for several months and people realize that they can get affordable health insurance everyone will know that this whole dog and pony show from the Republicans has been a sham from the start.
These tea party congress men and specially like Ted Cruz, they are cancer in our society, they are really seek and need to remove from there positions and ban from politics.
Terry McCracken@TerryMcCracken
Erin would you mind following me on Twitter? Terry McCracken@TerryMcCracken.com
Sam I Am...Embarrassing!