"Speaker Cruz" Kills Boehner's Border Security Bill

The Frankenstein monster created by the so-called GOP establishment when it cynically - and short shortsightedly - welcomed Christofascists and Tea Party lunatics into the GOP grass roots continues to control the Republican Party as evidenced by today's batshitery in Congress where Ted Cruz and company torpedoed John Boehner's Border Security Bill.  The unadulterated racism and bigotry of the GOP base is chilling.  They claim to honor Jesus and the Gospel message, yet they are the antithesis to Him/it.  Mother Jones looks at the insanity.  Here are highlights:

The House GOP fell into chaos and bickering Thursday afternoon, when House Speaker John Boehner yanked a pair of bills from the floor at the last minute. The House was supposed to have an easy final day of work before members jetted home for their five-week summer recess. But Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), starring in a cameo role as Speaker of the Tea Party, sabotaged Boehner's best-laid plans.

The GOP leadership had originally intended to pass a limited spending measure to bolster border security and immediately scoot off, leaving the final tricky decision-making to the Senate. But the tea party wing of the House—inspired and encouraged by Cruz—revolted against Boehner and refused to go along with the spending bill. The House border-security measure would have appropriated $659 million in emergency spending, far less than the $3.7 billion that President Obama had requested. But it was still too much for many GOPers and it lacked the hardline, anti-immigration reform provisions many Republicans craved.
Earlier this month, Cruz introduced a bill in the Senate to defund Obama's policy of deferring deportation for young undocumented immigrants, legislation that was a non-starter in the Democrat-controlled upper chamber. But, according to Politico, Cruz gathered a group of conservative House Republicans in his Senate office Wednesday night and convinced them to insist on a vote to strike down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in exchange for supporting Boehner's border bill. By Thursday morning House leadership had yielded to that Cruz-driven demand, and a bill to revoke DACA was on the docket for the afternoon. 

It seemed like a decent plan. But...not for the tea partiers.  Throwing the far-right wing the DACA-vote bone wasn't enough. On Thursday afternoon, Boehner, after meeting with his caucus, abandoned ship. He canceled the vote on the border security measure, no doubt because he didn't have enough Republican votes to pass it. The Rs then announced they were postponing the Thursday-night departures and held open the possibility of a Friday morning meeting—where just maybe Boehner and his team could figure out a way to save face and round up the votes they need. For the time being, Cruz had won.

 The ultimate irony is that Cruz himself wasn't born in the United States (he was born in Calgary, Canada).