[mc_name name=’Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’C001098′ ] is the one intelligent sound bite in a bag of hammers.  Senate GOP members have thoroughly caved to President Obama’s will in the battle for congressional control of the country versus executive edict.  Cruz said

“We should pass a short-term continuing resolution that includes language defunding the implementation of the president’s executive action on amnesty.”

The bag of hammers pounded some sound bites from the last government shutdown, citing Obamacare.  [mc_name name=’Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’M000303′ ] seemed to praise Obamacare and pronounced anything more palatable than a federal government shutdown.

“I hope everybody learned the lesson of the last time we shut down the government. If it hadn’t been for the crisis of Obamacare, it would have done much more damage than it did,” McCain said. “The overwhelming majority of us are against shutting down the government.”

The bag of hammers also includes Boehner crony [mc_name name=’Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’B001135′ ].

“The challenging thing is we’re limited in the toolbox of how to show outrage without a shutdown,” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), a close ally of Boehner who agrees with the speaker’s plan. “What we’ve got to do is have a measured, calculated response to it. And I don’t think you can do that when you’re only limited to one avenue. We’ll be in a different situation in January.”

The outrage is just seething through his measured, calculated statement.  [mc_name name=’Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’M000934′ ] and [mc_name name=’Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’M000355′ ] agree that there’s no way to stop Obama, so why not just join him.  Except that the government will certainly shut down on December 11 if the House doesn’t pass the monster CRomnibus bill.  Speaker Boehner’s plan to retreat in utter cowardice with only a symbolic bewailing of Obama’s amnesty order is well underway.  The House has already passed its useless bill to bar the president from carrying out his executive order, which will never see the light of day in [mc_name name=’Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’R000146′ ]’s Senate.

Conservative groups have pressed the GOP to defund agencies implementing Obama’s order in response to the president’s actions.

But Boehner and his leadership team have settled on a strategy that would fund most of the government through September 2015, while only funding the Department of Homeland Security for a few months. Appropriators are expected to release the legislation on Monday.

Stripped of the power of the purse by the poltroons in the House, the Senate is a sure bet to pass everything Obama wants.  Thinking that paying the bills on $18 trillion of federal debt through 2015 is going to help their cause in January is a singular act of callowness.

We now know that much of the Senate GOP is either as scared as their House counterparts, or they’re dumber than a bag of hammers.