Ted Cruze is blaming Reid for holding the American People hostage

Drivers speeding down a busy highway about 70 miles outside Houston have been greeted with two blunt messages that Bruce Labay put up at his oil field services business. One declared that Mr. Labay was tired of softhearted Republicans, though he used a more colorful adjective. The other read, “We Need More Republicans Like Ted Cruz.”

Mr. Labay, 55, made his signs by sticking 1,200 plastic foam cups, one by one, into the loops of his chain-link fence, a 90-minute project that filled much of the fencing around BL Oilfield Services in the town of El Campo.

“I was proud of him,” Mr. Labay said of the state’s junior senator. “I was proud he was a Texan. I wish they would have held firm, and we’d still be shut down.”

Home states and districts are usually loyal to their senators and representatives in times of political crisis. But the continued support for Mr. Cruz among Texas Republicans illustrates something larger: the cultural and political divide that continues to widen between a red state that President Obama lost by nearly 16 points in the 2012 election and the blue or even purple parts of the country where Mr. Cruz’s tone and tactics have caused outrage and consternation.

Businesses are seeing fewer customers. Research institutions are cutting back. Court cases are being delayed. Assistance for low-income families has stopped. Entire industries have been placed on pause.

In many cases, there is real pain. As one Huffington Post reader emailed:

"I'm a federal employee working in an agency affected by the shutdown. I am an attorney and single mother of two children. I have been employed with the government since 2005. I've been able to make a comfortable life for myself and my children working as an attorney for the federal government; however, living without my income is not an option. I have to feed my children, pay a mortgage, car payments, taxes, and utility bills in order to keep us together. What if I'm unable to make my mortgage or car payments? What if I cannot afford to feed my children? I am most concerned about them and about my health. I have several chronic illnesses that require medication; what if I cannot afford my medications?"

Crazies supporting a crazy senator is about their speed. I would just like to find out how many Houstonians the freeze affected with job and/or income loss.

BBVA Compass estimates the shutdown will knock 0.2% off America’s gross domestic product for the fourth quarter. The bank says Houston is likely to get off easy. Its low concentration of federal workers means the region’s economy will take a hit of only 0.1%.

Crazies supporting a crazy senator is about their speed. I would just like to find out how many Houstonians the freeze affected with job and/or income loss.

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hawk, You are pretty stupid, aren't you? The people who have lost jobs and income goes way beyond the bounderies of Houston. That they suffered minimal loss in Houston doesn't mean much to the people it affected across the country.

Yup, you're pretty stupid! You continue to prove yourself regularly!

BTW, that report that Houston only lost .01% doesn't mean much. When the US economy hurts, everybody hurts. That's because even Houstonians have family and friends outside of Houston who lost jobs and income.

Some news outlets earlier today inaccurately characterized our Wednesday editorial offering tribute to the statesman-like ways of former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. We did not pull our endorsement of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. Our references to Cruz served to provide context to the Hutchison tribute by emphasizing her ability to reach across the aisle when necessary. When we endorsed Cruz in October 2012, we also pointed to Hutchison as an exemplary role model for Texas lawmakers in Washington and suggested that he emulate the Texas statesmen who had come before him. Our editorial today simply referred back to that recommendation.

It is not unusual, and certainly not extraordinary, for newspaper editorial boards to constructively reflect on the tenures of elected officials whom the panel has endorsed and criticize their performances when we deem it necessary. Our evaluation of elected officials’ work is an active, ongoing process. An endorsement does not preclude sharp criticism.

You thought your rebut had some meaning, but it doesn't. You're too stupid to understand. Houston does not live in isolation from the rest of the country; that's about macro-economics.

In a longer time frame, all this must be counted as a victory. Increasingly, the tea party is looking like the Bolsheviks to Boehner's Mensheviks, with the Democrats playing the role of the wobbly czarist regime (despite Obama's show of toughness this time around). And if you recall, the Bolsheviks—the most zealous, no-compromise revolutionaries, in other words—were the ones who gained the power in the end. What of the polls and the 2014 election? That's another reason Democrats are declaring victory, of course. Some are even deliriously sensing a possible takeover of the House. But that's highly unlikely either, along with the much-hoped-for disappearance of the tea party. Remember: The tea-party adherents in the House just don't care about the polls. At home, in their scarlet-red districts, they're still beloved. The only thing most of them worry about is whether they are far-right enough to survive a primary challenge. And as long as the current gerrymandered congressional map remains in place, that's probably all they're going to have to worry about
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Still, the Democrats' accounting of their triumphs misses the bigger point. The real fight here was not about the shutdown, as uncomfortable as that was for the hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal employees and for others who rely on government services. It was about the debt ceiling. Some Democrats have likened the tea partiers to terrorists taking the nation hostage. Now they are terrorists who have obtained a weapon of mass destruction. They've discovered they can scare everybody if they threaten to put the nation's entire 237-year reputation on the line. And whether or not Obama will refuse to negotiate again, the next national hostage crisis is not far off, since the debt ceiling has been extended until only Feb. 7. This short window allows Republicans to simply resurrect the battle and to dictate terms, which they'll be able to do as long as they stick to spending rather than quixotic bids to roll back the Affordable Care Act.

I believe he is diligently representing every government hating racist in his little piece of gerrymandered heaven.

What Cruz doesn't realize is that he's on a downward path that he will not be able to stop. His ride will have a sad ending.