In an election that spells the end of the Democrat’s vise over the U.S. Senate, U.S. President Obama now looks ahead to a long 27-months of lame-duckship.

Obama and the Democrats have had their talking points headed with “blame Republicans for Washington gridlock,” but the U.S. administration and its cheering squad in congress will now own the gridlock title, as columnist Jonathan Tobin at Commentary rightly predicted going into yesterday’s election.

The Republicans have taken control of the U.S. Senate, gaining 7 seats from the Democrats, and retained control of the House, achieving a net gain of 10 seats.The Republicans have 235 of the 435 House seats, so they are ahead by a comfortable margin.

Political commentator Charles Krauthammer objected to the use of the term “wave” to describe the routing of Democrats in yesterday’s election. He diagnosed it instead as a “tsunami.”

The growth of House control by the Republicans spells changes in chairmanships of important committees. One to watch will be the Ways and Means Committee,which will be headed by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan. This committee is about to rewrite the tax code, and given the IRS scandals and numerous investigations which critics have claimed were stymied by the Democrats’ control, this should be interesting to watch.

Similarly, the control by the GOP of the Senate will have a significant impact on committee chairmanships in that chamber. Insiders are expecting Sen. John McCain to assume leadership over the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Watch that space! McCain has been deriding this administration’s bungling of foreign policy all over the globe.

Another big change is that Harry Reid will no longer be the powerful Senate majority leader. That plum is expected to go to Sen. Mitch McConnell, although Ted Cruz (R-TX) very publicly refused to commit to backing the Kentucky Republican in what looks to be a secondary backstage battle to watch next week.

A breakdown of significant changes and what they mean for those who care about U.S.-Israel relations to follow.

Legislation recently introduced into the U.S. congress which would strip U.S. citizenship from Americans who went abroad and joined ISIS in order to engage in jihad came before the full senate for a vote on Thursday, Sept. 18.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the sponsor of the bipartisan bill, reminded members of the senate that estimates of the numbers of Americans currently in Syria or Iraq fighting for ISIS “range from ‘about a dozen’ according to one Pentagon spokesman, to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s reassertion of about a hundred Americans fights with ISIS in this week’s Armed Services Committee hearing.”

Cruz asked the full senate for unanimous consent to pass the Expatriate Terrorist Act or ETA of 2014.

But Democrat Mazie Hirono, senator from Hawaii, rose to vote against passing the ETA. The reason Hirono gave is that the bill had not been vetted by the Judiciary Committee, and given that ETA deals with the important issue of stripping U.S. citizenship from Americans, it was premature to approve the proposed Act.

Cruz made two points in response, one temporal and one substantive. First, the senate was about to go into recess so that members could go back to their states for the campaign season. This means that the legislation will not be approved, if at all, for many months.

The second point Cruz made is that while the idea of stripping U.S. citizenship is a serious constitutional matter, it is one which has long been deemed constitutional and applied against American citizens who choose to fight for an enemy country against the United States. What the ETA does is simply extend what has long been a weapon in the arsenal for protecting American citizens from violent traitors. It extends the mechanism to also apply to those who are fighting with non-state enemies, such as ISIS.

UPDATE: A GRAINY BUT AUDIBLE VIDEO CAPTURING THE MOMENT CRUZ RESPONDED TO THE ANTI-ISRAEL JEERS, AND AS HE WALKS OUT WITH DIGNITY,  HAS BEEN ADDED AT THE END OF THIS ARTICLE.

About that Christian event U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) attended last night, Sept. 10? Some have characterized what happened as Cruz having been booed off the stage.

Au contraire.

What happened is that Cruz walked out on the crowd, some of whom booed his stalwart support for Israel. It wasn’t a large percentage of the audience, but it was a relentless group.

“I told them that if you will not stand with Israel, if you will not stand with the Jews, then I will not stand with you. And then I walked off the stage.”

Here is what the senator sent out last night, describing what happened at the “In Defense of Christians” event:

Tonight in Washington should have been a night of unity as we came together for the inaugural event for a group that calls itself ‘In Defense of Christians.’ Instead, it unfortunately deteriorated into a shameful display of bigotry and hatred.

When I spoke in strong support of Israel and the Jewish people, who are being persecuted and murdered by the same vicious terrorists who are also slaughtering Christians, many Christians in the audience applauded. But, sadly, a vocal and angry minority of attendees at the conference tried to shout down my expression of solidarity with Israel.

They cannot shout down the truth. And we should not shy away from expressing the truth, even in the face of – especially in the face of – ignorance and bigotry.

I told the attendees that those who hate Israel also hate America, that those who hate Jews also hate Christians, and that anyone who hates Israel and the Jewish people is not following the teachings of Christ.

These statements were met with angry boos. I went on to tell the crowd that Christians in the Middle East have no better friend than Israel. That Christians can practice their faith free of persecution in Israel. And that ISIS, al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah, along with their state sponsors in Syria and Iran, are all part of the same cancer, murdering Christians and Jews alike. Hate is hate, and murder is murder.

I came to this event tonight to help shine a light on the tragic persecution and slaughter of Christians by ISIS and Islamic radicals throughout the Middle East. American leaders have been far too silent as to this horrific evil.

But bigotry and hatred have no place in this discussion. Anti-Semitism is a corrosive evil, and it reared its ugly head tonight.

After just a few minutes, I had no choice. I told them that if you will not stand with Israel, if you will not stand with the Jews, then I will not stand with you. And then I walked off the stage.

Will the words he spoke, and the action he took, endear Senator Cruz to the sneering, jeering, (largely Jewish) intellectual elite?  Doubtful. And sad.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R. Tex) spoke on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Thursday, June 26. He spoke about the three kidnapped Israeli teenagers, Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel and Eyal Yifrach, and their abductors.

Cruz spoke in detail about each one of the boys, about the circumstances of the kidnapping and about the nature of Hamas, which Israel has named as the entity responsible for the kidnapping.

The name Gil-ad means “everlasting happiness,” Cruz explained. He talked about the hobbies and natures of each of the boys, providing details unseen in most news reports to date.

Cruz lashed out at the world’s media for not having the story on the front page as an entire nation is in agony over the innocent kidnapped school boys.

And the U.S. senator insisted that the Palestinian Authority should not get another U.S. taxpayer’s dollar so long as the genocidal Hamas is part of the government. Sen. Cruz said

Israel’s Shin Bet identified two key suspects in the abduction. These two individuals are members of Hamas, a vicious terrorist organization that seeks Israel’s destruction and has launched thousands of rockets into Israel, killing innocent civilians. Those rockets have also killed dozens of Americans in Israel. Now they have kidnapped three schoolboys.  Sadly, this is business as usual for Hamas. This is the same terrorist organization with which the Palestinian Authority recently joined in a so-called ‘unity’ government.

In addition to insisting that the U.S. refuse to provide additional funds to the PA, Cruz also said that the U.S. should be assisting Israel in every way possible until the boys are brought home.

Hamas, give the boys back. Hamas, give those boys back now. The full weight of the world should bear down on Hamas to give them back safely and immediately. If they do not, we should use all of the available means to stand unequivocally with Israel for however long it takes to find these boys and to bring them home. These are teenagers who were targeted for who they are, who have done no wrong, who have done nothing that comes near to deserving what has happened to them that day while waiting at the bus stop to go home from school.

Whether anyone else in Washington was listening, or cares, remains to be seen.

When Sen. Cruz introduced S. 2195 on April 1, he found an initiative which brought his fellow senators together in a full-throated declaration of patriotism from  across the political spectrum.

“It is unconscionable that, in the name of international diplomatic protocol, the United States would be forced to host a foreign national who showed a brutal disregard for the status of our diplomats when they were stationed in his country,” Cruz said at that time.

The bill introduced by Cruz in the Senate, and by Doug Lamborn (R-CO5) in the House, prevents terrorists from entering the United States as United Nations ambassadors. It was introduced because Iranian President Hasan Rouhani named Hamid Aboutalebi as Iran’s new ambassador to the U.N.

Aboutalebi was actively involved in the Iranian takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979. He and his comrades held hostage 52 Americans for 444 days, in one of the most painful ongoing national experiences Americans have had to endure in recent memory.

“This nomination is part of Iran’s clear and consistent pattern of virulent anti-Americanism that has defined their foreign policy since 1979,” Sen. Cruz said. “We need to send Tehran an equally clear message: The United States Senate is not going to just ignore this most recent insult, but is going to give our President the authority to affirmatively reject it.

Today, Monday, April 7, Cruz requested and received unanimous consent to pass that bill.

“I am proud to join my colleagues on both sides of the aisle on this national security issue that transcends political parties,” said Sen. Cruz.

Cruz thanked several Senate colleagues who were instrumental in passage of this legislation, including Sen. Dan Coats (R-Indiana), a cosponsor of the bill, and Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), John McCain (R-Arizona), Mark Kirk (R-Illinois), Chuck Schumer (D-New York), Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey).

Cong. Lamborn who introduced the companion legislation in the House, H.R. 4357, plans to call for a vote in that chamber before the Easter recess.

On Tuesday, April 1, Colorado congressman Doug Lamborn (R) introduced H.R. 4357 into the U.S. Congress. This proposed legislation is intended to prevent known terrorists from obtaining visas to enter the United States as ambassadors to the United Nations.

Yes, it is absurd that legislation needs to be passed to prevent such a farce. But unless this legislation is passed, the U.S. will allow one of the Iranians who took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and held 52 of our citizens captive for 444 days, to enter the U.S. and to travel to the U.N. in New York.

That is because the current president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hasan Rouhani, named Hamid Aboutalebi as Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations.

Aboutalebi is a member of the militant group The Muslim Students Followers of the Imam’s Line, which took the Americans hostage in Tehran.

On November 4, 1979, the Islamic revolutionaries scaled the walls of the American Embassy and occupied it to show their support for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and to express outrage that the deposed Shah of Iran had been admitted into the U.S. for cancer treatment. The revolutionaries wanted the Shah returned to Iran for a trial and, presumably, execution.

“America should not willingly accept into our country a diplomat who helped hold American diplomats hostage. Diplomatic immunity should not apply to terrorists. The only way terrorists should be allowed into our country is if they are coming to face justice. The President can already deny visas to diplomats for spying. Terrorist activities by diplomats, past or present, should be dealt with just as severely,” said Lamborn in a statement released on April 2.

Aboutalebi is now downplaying his role in the group, claiming that he was “merely” a translator and negotiator during the Iranian Hostage Crisis, referred to in Iran as “Conquest of the American Spy Den.”

Lamborn’s proposed bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK1), is a companion bill to the senate version introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), S. 2195.

The bills which seek to prevent known terrorists from obtaining visas in order to enter the U.S., were sent to the Judiciary Committees of their respective houses.

Only 11 percent of all bills introduced make it out of committee, and only approximately three percent of all bills were enacted during 2011 – 2013, so expectations are not high that these bills will pass.

Men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. (John 3:19)

Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think, “Who sees us?  Who will know?” (Isaiah 29:15)

It is with a heavy heart that I write this.  What is reported here will surprise some people, but will not surprise others.  The events will shed, on the last few days in our republic, a light different from the spotlight directed by the media.  If we see the events clearly, we may realize that our focus has been misdirected.

Like most Americans, I think, I assumed it was inevitable that the Senate would vote to increase the so-called national debt “ceiling” this month, once the House did.  There might or might not be legislative shenanigans, but there would be a grudging vote to authorize more debt.  And so there was.

Ted Cruz famously irritated his colleagues – and much of the putatively conservative media – by “forcing a recorded vote” on Wednesday to raise the debt ceiling.  What he actually did was force the Senate to break a filibuster to pass the debt-ceiling increase.  The basic legislation for the debt-ceiling increase could have been passed with only a simple majority, which the Democrats have the seats to muster without any Republican help.  But breaking the filibuster, which takes 60 votes, required Republicans voting with Democrats.  What Cruz insisted on was having those votes recorded.

Here’s what most Americans probably don’t realize: the Senate Republicans who voted with the Democrats to break Cruz’s filibuster went to extraordinary lengths to try to keep their voting secret – against the normal practices of the chamber.  They didn’t think their actions would stand the light of day.  They wanted to be able to break the filibuster without voters knowing which ones of them had done it.

Here is AP reporter Andrew Taylor (hardly a font of Tea Party bias):

As lawmakers voted Wednesday on must-pass legislation to increase the government’s debt limit, they dropped the parliamentary equivalent of a curtain on the voting as it was in progress.

Typically, roll-call votes in the Senate play out in a very public manner. People watching from the galleries or tracking action from afar via C-SPAN can watch democracy unfold in all its messy wonder.

Each senator’s vote is announced by the clerk; each time a senator switches sides, that’s announced too. Onlookers can keep a running tally of how it’s going.

But not this time. Fifteen minutes into the vote, as captured by C-Span cameras, the tally clerk rose to recite the vote. A Senate aide alerted Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of the six Republicans who later switched his vote from “nay” to “aye.” McCain intervened, and the clerk sat right back down. “Would you …” McCain said before the live microphone cut off.

According to Taylor, McCain’s staff later said he did not intervene to shroud the progress of the vote in secrecy.  Nevertheless, it was shrouded.

Skittish Republicans … knew the Democratic-backed legislation couldn’t move forward without at least a few GOP votes, but none of them wanted to be left hanging out there alone on what could be a politically treacherous vote.

Whatever the reason, they kept the public in the dark while they worked things out. A Democratic spokesman later explained that Republicans requested the clerk stay silent so it would be easier for GOP senators to switch their votes.

No more announcing each individual “yea” and “nay.” The running tally was known only by a handful of insiders.

The vote itself took a very long time, presumably because of the arm-twisting involved to get the Republican votes needed to pass 60.  As we know, it eventually got done.  In fact, six additional Republicans switched their votes in solidarity with Mitch McConnell, who finally stepped to the microphone, with John Cornyn, to break the filibuster with 60 votes.  The vote to break the filibuster ended up at 67-31.  But there was confusion in the chamber as to whether McConnell and Cornyn had actually put the tally at 60 – because the vote wasn’t being tallied publicly.

That appeared to put the tally at the required 60, but no one could be positive.

Had a Democrat skipped the vote to get out of town ahead of a looming snowstorm? Did the press gallery staff members who unofficially record each tally as a service to the media miss a crucial hand gesture in the initial flurry of votes?

None of this was what the Capitol Hill media – or major customers like the stock markets – are used to:

“We were very disappointed that Wednesday’s change in Senate voting protocol kept us from giving the public real time access to this key vote,” said Terry Murphy, C-SPAN’s vice president of programming. “The tactic certainly gives the concept of legislative transparency a black eye.” Afterward, there was confusion. Initially, a spokesman for Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who runs the Senate, said Reid was unaware at the time that Senate procedures were being bypassed. Later, spokesman Adam Jentleson said Reid “consented to Republicans’ request.”

[…]

“We are extremely concerned with the way the vote tally was handled yesterday on a pivotal debt-ceiling vote,” said Siobhan Hughes, chairwoman of the Standing Committee of Correspondents, which represents the interests of Capitol Hill’s print media. “When the vote tallies are not read aloud, it makes it harder for the media and therefore the public to get the information they need to hold lawmakers accountable.”

Indeed.  It’s one thing for pundits and political strategists to sell the argument that the debt-ceiling vote wasn’t the place to take a stand.  But it’s another thing entirely for the politicians involved to try hide from the consequences of acting on that argument.  If it’s the right thing to do, then man up and be accountable for it.  If your deeds have to be shrouded in secrecy, the problem isn’t the voters.

The pusillanimous approach of a handful of Senate Republicans isn’t, moreover, the end of the story.  This could all happen again:

While acknowledging the media’s concerns had merit, Jentleson couldn’t guarantee a veiled vote won’t happen again.

“After the vote began, it was quickly clear that Republican leaders were struggling to deliver enough votes … and a potentially catastrophic default suddenly seemed possible,” Jentleson said. “At Senate Republicans’ request, the clerk did not call the names during the vote to make it easier for Republican leaders to convince their members to switch their votes.”

Here’s the principle, in other words: it would be so catastrophic to not increase the debt ceiling that Senators must have the option of avoiding the people’s scrutiny.

At some point, we have to start calling this what it is.  When Senators are trying desperately to hide what they’re doing from the people, they aren’t exercising strategy.  They’re fleeing responsibility.  Ted Cruz was right to call that out.  Darkness cannot be the better path.

It certainly is not a “strategy” for achieving a positive, forward-moving objective.  The evidence of that is all around us.

But apart from the evidence of outcomes, we can say this on principle: if managing government seems to demand hiding your actions from the people, you’re doing it wrong.  Perhaps nothing shows so clearly how our current crop of leaders have painted themselves – and us – into a corner as this sad attempt at secrecy by Senate Republicans.  The people are not the ones who are stupid here. We’re not the ones who “don’t understand.”