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.”

Hillary Rodham Clinton holds a 6-1 lead among Democrats answering a Washington Post-ABC News poll on their choice for president in 2016.

Clinton, whose middle name easily could be “F.” considering how many times she has been reported as using the “f—“ word,  has virtually no competition in both areas – the nomination for presidency and an uncouth vocabulary. She has used the four-letter word not only as an adjective for Jews but also as an adverb for almost every subject imaginable.

For better or worse, Clinton has 73 percent backing of Democrats, according to the poll. The second most popular is Vice President Joe Biden, with only 12 percent.

On the Republican side, the nomination is up for grabs, and the party does not look like it is any better shape than it was in 2012, when it failed miserably to take advantage of President Barack Obama’s sagging popularity.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s aura has been blackened by the recent bridge-traffic scandal, and he is in third place with 13 percent support, behind Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan and former Florida governor Jeb Bush. None of the potential candidates has solid backing from the Tea party.

After Christie, there are senators Ted Cruz of Kentucky and Marcio Rubio of Florida.

The Republicans have a year or so to get their act together and unite, a distant possibility at this stage of the game.

Clinton, if she runs and wins,, would be the first woman president of the United States and the first president whose husband held the office.

Originally published at Sultan Knish.

He folds a napkin in what looks like some expensive oyster bar, but is probably just a television studio backdrop. “The government has to get us back to work.”

Liberalism has become sick with its own disease. It is as dogma-ridden as any Red drinking sour beer in 1920s Chicago. It has nothing to offer to anyone except the ideological denunciation of thought crimes and the attendant superiority of being on the right side of the guillotine. And it has the misplaced self-righteousness of those who are busy pretending that they are angry about what is being done to other people, rather than their own egotistical anger with which they confront their sense of futility.