Yes, ladies and gentlemen. [mc_name name=’Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’C001098′ ] used the “L” word and he used it in a speech on the Senate floor:

Firebrand Republican senator and presidential candidate [mc_name name=’Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’C001098′ ] on Friday rushed across a line rarely crossed on the Senate floor: He accused the leader of his party, Majority Leader [mc_name name=’Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’M000355′ ], of lying to his colleagues.

“What we just saw today was an absolute demonstration that not only what he told every Republican senator, but what he told the press over and over and over again, was a simple lie,” Cruz said Friday morning. “We know now that when the majority leader looks us in the eyes and makes an explicit commitment, that he is willing to say things that he knows are false. That has consequences for how this body operates.”

What brought this on was McConnell going back on his word about allowing reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank to act like a baracle on the Highway Bill and McConnell’s chutzpah is offering yet another meaningless vote on repealing ObamaCare.

That move incensed Cruz — who had announced his intention to offer other amendments, and who, like many conservatives, strongly opposes the bank’s reauthorization, though it enjoys support from a supermajority of his Senate colleagues. While McConnell has personally spoken against Ex-Im reauthorization, Democrats said in June he had agreed to schedule an Ex-Im vote in order to get highly divisive trade legislation passed.

But McConnell at the time denied that any deal had been struck, and Cruz said Friday the same assurance was given in a private Republican conference meeting:

We had a Senate Republican lunch where I stood up and I asked the majority leader very directly, what was the deal that was just cut on [trade legislation, and was there a deal for the Export-Import Bank? It was a direct question. I asked the majority leader in front of all the Republican senators. The majority leader was visibly angry with me that I would ask such a question, and the majority leader looked at me and said, “There is no deal, there is no deal, there is no deal.”

“Like Saint Peter, he repeated it three times,” Cruz added.

On the bogus vote offered on ObamaCare:

Cruz, a famously fierce opponent of the Affordable Care Act, was also not at all mollified by McConnell’s move to bring up a repeal vote — the first time that GOP priority has come to the Senate floor this year.

In his speech Friday, Cruz called it “empty showmanship.”

“We’ll have a vote on repealing Obamacare,” he said. “The Republicans will all vote yes; the Democrats will all vote no. It will be at a 60-vote threshold. It will fail. It will be an exercise in meaningless political theater.”

He also compared [mc_name name=’Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’M000355′ ] to [mc_name name=’Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’R000146′ ]. The man is awesome.

This is long overdue. McConnell is a duplicitous bag of pus. He epitomizes what is wrong with the Republican party. If we can’t get rid of a useless relic and an monument of crony capitalism like the Ex-Im Bank, what are the chances of restraining the growth of government much less contemplate reducing its size.