Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Narcissism) says
he'll do anything to defund Obamacare, including a filibuster even though in the same breath he admits it won't work. But we probably will see a thing like what Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) did a few months ago when he revealed that he hallucinates about drones hunting him down at coffee shops, which was really just standing up and talking and taking up time but not stopping a vote.
That's because they can't really stop the vote, because, as conservative commentator Byron York is telling them, they don't have the votes to prevent a vote. They need 41, and they have about a dozen. There just aren't enough suicidal Republicans to do it. Cruz might be able to get Paul to help out with the talking, and will definitely be able to get Mike Lee (R-UT) because he'll go along with anything just to bask in the dregs of Cruz's limelight, and maybe Marco Rubio (R-FL).
But they don't have the votes to sustain it because there aren't enough suicidal Republicans to do it. And they sure as hell aren't going to win any Democrats to their side, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his deputy Chuck Schumer reiterated Thursday.
“In case there is any shred of doubt in the minds of our House counterparts, I want to be absolutely crystal clear,” Reid said at a news conference. “Any bill that defunds Obamacare is dead. Dead.” [...]
“We will not blink. Don’t get it into your heads that we will. We won’t,” Schumer said. “Don’t make it part of your strategy that we’ll cave. We won’t. We’re unified. We’re together. You’re not.”
Even Mike Lee's senior senator, Orrin Hatch
admits that it's true: "Everybody knows we can't win this fight. That's the problem." Oh, and besides the fact that they can't block it, it wouldn't actually defund Obamacare anyway because the money for it isn't coming from the budgets that would be blocked.
Everybody knows it, but nobody in the Republican "leadership" is willing to cut the teabaggers loose to avoid this massive loss. They aren't willing to cut the fuckers loose to save the country's stumbling economy from the impact of either a government shutdown or a debt default. But, hey, they can sure raise a lot of money from a lot of dupes in the meantime.
Stand with Daily Kos and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in denouncing Republicans who would completely shut down the government just to destroy Obamacare.
