Aaron Hernandez Involved In Gun-Running Scheme, Mike Pouncey Served Related Subpoena: Miami Dolphins center Mike Pouncey was served with a subpoena by Massachusetts State Police at Gillette Stadium on Sunday afternoon, as first reported by Sports Illustrated’s Pete Thamel and Greg Bedard. The subpoena is related to the investigation of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez's connections to interstate gun trafficking, according to an unnamed SI source.Citing unnamed Dolphins sources, Albert Breer of NFL.com also reported that Pouncey had been served with a subpoena outside the visitors' locker room on Sunday after the Patriots defeated the Dolphins 27-17 in Foxborough, Mass. Breer reported that the subpoena doesn't necessarily mean Pouncey is "is being implicated in any wrongdoing." Similarly, the Sports Illustrated report indicated authorities view Pouncey "as a material witness who could advance their case against Hernandez."Neither the NFL or the Patriots were aware that papers were going to be served following the game at Gillette Stadium on Sunday, reported Kevin Clark of the Wall Street Journal, citing an unnamed source familiar with the matter."The next thing that will happen is Pouncey will have to find a lawyer," ESPN legal analyst Lester Munson explained after the SI report. "He's going to have to decide whether he is going to answer questions from the prosecutors in Massachusetts or he's going to protect himself with the fifth amendment. And then the state police will evaluate everything that Pouncey says and determine the next step in the investigation."The 24-year-old offensive lineman and his twin brother, Maurkice, attended the University of Florida with Hernandez. The Pouncey brothers' friendship with Hernandez generated headlines in July when they were photographed at a nightclub wearing hats with the message "FREE HERNANDEZ.
Maurkice apologized for the hats but Mike refused to discuss them after the photograph garnered so much unwanted attention.Hernandez is facing first-degree murder and weapons charges in the fatal shooting of semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd in June. Hernandez has pleaded not guilty and has been held without bail at the Bristol County House of Correction.
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How Rubio Went From Championing Immigration Reform To Vehemently Opposing His Own Bill:
BY IGOR VOLSKYAs a coalition of Republican business executives, prominent conservatives and evangelical leaders kick off a new campaign urging the GOP to take-up immigration reform, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) — the most prominent Republican senator to support an overhaul of the immigration system — formally walked away from his own immigration bill. A spokesperson for the senator said on Saturday that Rubio opposes conferencing a piecemeal House-passed bill with the Senate’s proposal in order to produce a comprehensive measure that both chambers could support.
His decision to abandon the policy comes after months of wavering and careful political calculation. The first-term senator at times tied himself in rhetorical knots trying to appeal to moderate voters while still courting the conservative Tea Party supporters who helped propel him to the Senate in 2010.
During that election, Rubio claimed that undocumented immigrants had to leave the country and re-enter legally if they ever hoped to attain citizenship. By January 2013 — after President Obama won re-election with a broad coalition of Hispanic voters — he had joined a bipartisan group of senators hoping to overhaul the system through a comprehensive bill that included a pathway to citizenship and began actively courting conservative support for reform. As that group — the so-called immigration “Gang of 8″ — prepared to release the legislation that would eventually clear the Senate, Rubio appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press and painted himself as the strongest ally of reform, telling host David Gregory that he didn’t anticipate ever abandoning the measure.
Nine months later, Rubio has moved on. Below is a short timeline of the senator’s many stances on immigration reform:
JAN 14: BLASTS OBAMA FOR NOT ADVOCATING IMMIGRATION REFORM. Rubio tells the Wall Street Journal that Obama has “not done a thing” on reform and is likely using the issue to mobilize the Democratic base. During the presidential campaign, Rubio criticized Obama for failing to achieve reform in his first term. “His party controlled Congress for two years,” he told Fox News in October, “and they did absolutely nothing.”
JAN 14: SAYS HE SUPPORTS A PIECEMEAL APPROACH TO REFORM. Rubio says he would like to see “a comprehensive package of bills”—maybe four or five as opposed to one omnibus—move through Congress. “He says other experience with ‘comprehensive’ reform (ObamaCare, the recent debt deal) shows how bad policy easily sneaks into big bills. But adds, “It’s not a line in the sand for me.”
JAN 28: OUTLINES PRINCIPLES FOR IMMIGRATION REFORM. Shorty after joining a “Gang of 8″ senators dedicated to overhauling the immigration system, Rubio toured conservative talk shows advocating his approach to reform. “All we can come up with is a starting point…there are, you know, 94 other senators who have opinions about what this law should look like and there is the American public and there is the House and the Executive Branch so obviously people are going to have some input as to what they want it to look like …this is the first step, this is the architecture,” Rubio tells Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey in January. “We just have to get this thing done for once and for all,” he tells the New York Times.
FEB 17: BLASTS OBAMA FOR DRAFTING IMMIGRATION BILL. After USA Today published a leaked and incomplete draft of President Obama’s immigration reform bill — which resembles 2007′s bipartisan legislation and Rubio’s own principles — Rubio rushes a statement condemning the administration for contributing to the very debate he claimed would be incomplete without its input. Rather than offering a constructive critique of the leaked portions or highlighting areas of similarity, Rubio announced that Obama’s bill is “disappointing to those of us working on a serious solution” and is “dead on arrival in Congress.”
MARCH 31: WARNS SENATORS AGAINST RUSHING IMMIGRATION REFORM. “A rush to legislate, without fully considering all views and input from all senators, would be fatal to the effort of earning the public’s confidence” Rubtio writes in a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the chairman of Senate judiciary committee.
APRIL 14: PREDICTS SENATE BILL WILL WIN ‘BROAD SUPPORT. “And this bill modernizes it in a way that’s going to get broad-based support,” Rubio tells NBC’s Meet The Press. “We also have to be able to enforce our laws. This bill once introduced, as we’ve agreed to, I think, will show that a broad base of enforcement measures, unlike anything this country’s ever seen. And what it does is it creates a way for us to address the millions of people that are here undocumented in a way that’s compassionate, but also, in a way that’s responsible.”
APRIL 14: PLEDGES TO SUPPORT IMMIGRATION REFORM. Asked by Meet The Press host David Gregory if he would “step back and say, ‘I can no longer support this compromise agreement?,’” Rubio says: “Well, I’ve been very clear about my principles of what reform needs to look like. And if this bill were to somehow to abandon those principles via the amendment process or what have you, certainly I wouldn’t support that. But I don’t anticipate that.”
APRIL 24: ENTERTAINS THE IDEA OF NOT GRANTING VISAS TO MUSLIM STUDENTS. Rubio suggests that, given the attack on Boston carried out by two immigrants, he would consider barring young foreign Muslims from getting student visas to come the United States.
MAY 7: SLAMS HERITAGE ANALYSIS OF SENATE BILL. Rubio joins the growing chorus of conservative criticism of the Heritage Foundation’s anti-immigrant report, which claims the Senate’s immigration bill would cost the economy $6.3 trillion. Rubio denounces the report’s assumption that all immigrants will forever be poor and uneducated, pointing to how his own family flourished after entering the U.S.
MAY 9: REQUESTS ANALYSIS SHOWING SENATE BILL WILL BOOST SOCIAL SECURITY. Analysis from the Social Security Administration finds that the Senate immigration bill “would strengthen the Social Security trust fund by adding millions of workers to tax rolls and provide a boost to the overall economy.” The report was requested by Rubio.
MAY 24: URGES CONSERVATIVES TO SUPPORT SENATE BILL. Rubio appears on Fox News’ Hannity to argue that undocumented immigrants will have to earn citizenship and won’t disadvantage people applying for legal status. “Undocumented immigrants living in the United States will apply for temporary legal status, begin working and paying taxes, and apply for lawful permanent resident status though the same merit based system everyone else must use to earn a green card and if all people currently waiting for family and employment green cards have had their priority,” he says.
JUNE 4: SAYS HE MIGHT VOTE AGAINST HIS OWN BILL. Rubio tells conservative talker Hugh Hewitt that he would vote against a bipartisan immigration reform bill he helped draft unless lawmakers approve an amendment that would limit the Department of Homeland Security’s discretion over border security and potentially lengthen undocumented immigrants’ path to citizenship.
JUNE 11: URGES SENATORS NOT TO ENDORSE HIS OWN BILL. Rubio urges his Republican colleagues to refrain from publicly endorsing a comprehensive immigration bill he helped write in hopes of bolstering its border security provisions.
JUNE 13: REFUSES TO SAY IF HE SUPPORTS HIS OWN BILL. “I don’t want to get involved in the hypotheticals and ultimatums,” Rubio tells ABC’s This Week when asked if he would back the immigration bill he helped draft.
JUNE 27: VOTES FOR HIS OWN BILL. “Here, immigrants will give their children the life they once wanted for themselves,” he says on the floor. “Here generations of unfulfilled dreams will finally come to pass. Even with all our challenges, we remain the shining city on the hill. We are still the hope of the world. And in the end, that is why I support this reform.”
AUG. 12: WARNS REPUBLICANS THAT IF CONGRESS DOESN’T ACT, OBAMA WILL. “I have maintained that for more than a year, that I believe that this President will be tempted if nothing happens in Congress,” Rubio says in on interview on the Morning Show With Preston Scott.
AUG. 30: STOPS TALKING ABOUT IMMIGRATION REFORM. “On a six-city, three-day swing through North Florida last week, Rubio emphasized his opposition to funding the health care law and barely mentioned immigration…In a 35-minute speech to the Rotary Club of Jacksonville, he devoted just one minute to the reform legislation he helped shepherd through the Senate,” The Associated Press reports.
OCT. 20: CLAIMS OBAMA HAS JEOPARDIZED IMMIGRATION REFORM. Rubio says that President Obama’s refusal to compromise with Republicans on Obamacare to re-open the government and raise the nation’s debt ceiling has jeopardized the chances of passing comprehensive immigration reform. “I think immigration reform is harder to achieve today than it was three weeks ago because of what happened here,” the first-term senator said during an appearance on Fox News Sunday, before agreeing with opponents of immigration reform who warn that the Obama Administration will simply fail to enforce border security or other aspects of a bill he disagrees with.
OCT. 26: ABANDONS HIS OWN BILL. A Rubio spokesman tells Brietbart News that the House shouldn’t pass an immigration bill to trigger a conference with the Senate legislation. “At this point, the most realistic way to make progress on immigration would be through a series of individual bills,” Rubio spokesman Alex Conant says. “Any effort to use a limited bill as a ruse to trigger a conference that would then produce a comprehensive bill would be counterproductive. Furthermore, any such effort would fail, because any single senator can and will block conference unless such conference is specifically instructed to limit the conference to only the issue dealt with in the underlying bill.”
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5 Reasons Why Cutting Social Security Would Be Irrational:Even for Congress.Even for Congress. They, and others who apparently don't study the facts, believe that Social Security is a government handout. But 'entitlement' means that people who have paid into a program all their lives are entitled to a reasonable return on their investment. A better definition, as pointed out by Mark Karlin at Truthout, is a "mandated retirement savings plan."  Cutting this popular and well-run and life-sustaining program would be irrational. There are many reasons for this.  1. Americans Have Paid For It Throughout Their Working Lives  As of 2010, according to the Urban Institute, the average two-earner couple making average wages throughout their lifetimes receive less in Social Security benefits than they paid in. Same for single males. Same by now for single females. One-earner couples get back more than they paid in.  2. It's a Small Benefit, But Most Seniors Depend On It  The average Social Security benefit is less than $15,000 a year, but most of our seniors rely on this for the majority of their income. Even the second richest quartile of Americans depends on Social Security for over half of its retirement income.  3. It's Been Well-Run for Over Half a Century  The poverty rate has decreased dramatically over the past 50 years, in large part because of the benefits of the Social Security program.  Social Security is running on a surplus of $2.6 trillion, it's funded until 2037, it cannot run out of money, it cannotcontribute to the deficit, it has lower administrative costs than private sector 401k retirement plans, and it's wildlypopular.  On top of all this, a report by the AARP Public Policy Institute found that Social Security stimulates the economy, adding more than $1 trillion to the U.S. economy each year as recipients spend their benefits on goods and services.  Dean Baker calls Social Security "perhaps the greatest success story of any program in US history."  4. The Free-Market Alternative Doesn't Work  The free-market alternative is everybody for themselves. That's fine for people with good jobs and retirement plans. But stunningly, the number of private sector workers covered by a pension with a guaranteed payout has dropped from 60 percent to 10 percent in a little over thirty years.  Americans are going into debt faster than they're saving for retirement, and those able to put something aside often make wrong choices with their money.  Financial experts, who generally speak for the people with enough money to hire a financial expert, tell us to have $200,000 to $300,000 in personal retirement savings. Most Americans have about a tenth of that, less than $25,000.  5. Redistribution Has Moved Retirement Money from the Middle Class to the Rich  Tax Expenditures -- subsidies from special deductions, exemptions, exclusions, credits, capital gains, and loopholes that move tax money to the richest taxpayers -- are estimated to be worth up to 8% of the GDP, or about $1.2 trillion.  That alone is more than enough to pay for Social Security ($883 billion).  Because of this misdirected revenue, government has been forced to borrow from Social Security to fund its programs. Most notably, George W. Bush took our retirement money to pay for his two wars and his tax cuts for the rich.  This last reason, more than any of the others, reveals the overwhelming unfairness of cutting Social Security. In effect, the middle class is being told to replenish its own savings account after those savings were passed along to the military and the super-rich.
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Over 10 Percent Of America’s Largest Companies Pay Zero Percent Tax Rates:
BY ALAN PYKE,
Among companies listed on the S&P 500, almost one in nine paid an effective tax rate of zero percent — or even lower — over the past year, according to an analysis by USA Today.
There are 57 separate companies listed on the index that paid a zero percent rate from the past year. Those companies include both household names like Verizon and News Corp. and lesser-known corporate giants like the data storage manufacturer Seagate (market value $15.9 billion) and Public Storage (market value $29.5 billion). Many of the companies USA Today identified in its analysis as paying negative rates make the list because they lost money, but several were profitable. Previous analyses have shown that the typical corporation pays a lower effective tax rate than most middle-class families, and a far lower one than the statutory corporate tax rate against which business interests disingenuously rail.
Getting to a zero percent tax rate despite turning a profit requires creative accounting, but not lawbreaking. The corporate tax code allows companies to avoid tax liability even in years when they turn a profit. Some of the profitable companies on the newspaper’s list, such as General Motors, achieved a zero percent rate by banking tax credits from previous years when business was bad. But the more common gambit involves moving revenues from parent companies to offshore subsidiaries based in tax haven countries in the Caribbean, Europe, and elsewhere.
Such offshoring of profits has caught the attention of policymakers in the United States and Europe this year, with the focus predominantly on Apple Inc. The U.S. tech giant not only avoided the American tax system, but managed to shelter about $100 billion in revenues from any taxes at all. That scheme relied upon a loophole in Irish law which that country’s government says it intends to fix, but the narrow change proposed by Ireland’s finance minister will not address the larger problem of corporate tax avoidance.
Tax dodging costs the U.S. about $300 billion per year. Much of that lost revenue is from individuals, rather than corporations. The country is cracking down on individual tax dodgers and striking deals with countries like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands that will help identify tax cheats starting in 2014. The corporate tax avoidance problem is thornier, as it is generally done through entirely legal methods. Coordinating international tax law in a way that would minimize corporate tax trickery is very difficult under the current approach, and a paradigm shift in business tax law may be necessary to end the accounting practices that rob countries of tax revenue.
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Wendy Davis Taps Karin Johanson For Gubernatorial Campaign:
Ashley Alman,
Sen. Wendy Davis's (D-Fort Worth) camp announced Sunday that Karin Johanson will manage her campaign for Texas governor.Johanson, the former executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and chief of staff to House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), managed Sen. Tammy Baldwin's (D-Wis.) historic campaign in 2012.“Karin has proven that she can win tough races. She has taken on and beaten a full arsenal of failed leadership, despite millions in negative ads,” Davis Communications Director Bo Delp said in a statement. “Karin will be an excellent and outstanding addition to this historic and exciting campaign.”Davis announced her gubernatorial bid earlier in October."As long as we can make this great state even greater, we will keep going," she said during her announcement in Haltom City, Texas. "Because with the right kind of leadership, the great state of Texas will keep its sacred promise that where you start has nothing to do with how far you can go."
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Lawrence E. ‘Shine' Thornton Killed: 4 Teens Arrested In WWII Vet's DeathFour teens have been charged with capital murder after an 87-year-old WWII veteran died from injuries sustained during a brutal mugging.The Delta Democrat Times reports that Lawrence E. Shine Thornton of Greenville, Miss., died two days after the October 18th mugging, allegedly at the hands of Terrance Morgan, 19; Edward Johnson,19; Leslie Litt, 18; and Geblonski Murray, 18.Thornton was attacked in his own driveway, according to CNS News. The teens allegedly pushed him down on the ground and stole his wallet.CNS News' Eric Scheiner described Thornton's life as "a story of hard work, overcoming adversity, belief in God and finding some success in doing something you love."The Associated Press reports that the four individuals accused in Thornton's death are being held without bond. Each of the four suspects is also charged with robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery.
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Fast-Food Chains Costing Taxpayers The Most Money:
The fast-food industry is one of the nation’s largest employers of low and minimum wage workers. According to one group, often the industry workers’ pay is not enough and many turn to government programs for assistance.According to the National Employment Law Project’s (NELP) newest report, because the fast-food industry pays its workers less than a living wage, U.S. taxpayers must foot the bill in the form of the public assistance programs these workers must use to get by. McDonald’s alone, according to the group, cost taxpayers $1.2 billion last year. Based on NELP’s estimates, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the annual costs of providing public assistance to low wage employees working at the seven largest publicly traded fast-food companies.“What this report shows,” explained NELP policy analyst Jack Temple, “is that whether or not you work in the fast-food industry or eat fast-food, the industry is costing you. The low wage business model that this industry is based on drains resources from the economy by forcing low-pay workers to rely on public assistance in order to make ends meet.”These public assistance programs include the earned income tax credit, SNAP benefits (also known as food stamps), Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. The largest of these is Medicaid. “Almost 90% of workers in the fast-food industry do not get health insurance,” Temple said. “In addition to being a low-wage business model, it is also a virtually no-benefit business.”emple added that while these companies are attempting to save money by paying their employees less, they may in fact be saving much less than they think. One such cost may come in the form of the industry’s high turnover rate. “Companies are just churning workers, and that’s due to low wages. When you invest in higher wages, you actually get significant savings in the form of reduced employee turnover.”At least one group has taken issue with NELP’s argument. Employment Policies Institute research director Michael Saltsman explained that the current system of lower wages and government benefits is much more ideal than raising the minimum wage substantially. “The earned income tax credit has lifted thousands of people out of poverty, and it has done it without the consequences of increasing the minimum wage,” Saltsman said.Saltsman added that companies simply are not going to hire as many people if wages increase substantially. “You can have a $15 minimum wage, or have the same number of opportunities that currently exist in the fast-food restaurant industry — but you can’t have both.”NELP argues, on the other hand, that these companies are in fact in the position to pay their workers more without hurting their bottom line. The two largest companies, McDonald’s and Yum! Brands, had a combined net income of $7 billion. These companies are profitable and growing, the group argues, and they owe it to the employees who help make them successful to pay them closer to a living wage.In addition, while these companies pay many of their low-level workers a minimum wage, CEO compensation for these seven companies was a combined $52.7 million in fiscal 2012. Yum! Brands CEO David Novak alone earned $14.1 million last year.Based on a recent report by the National Employment Law Project (NELP), “Super-Sizing Public Costs,” 24/7 Wall St. determined the seven publicly-traded companies that cost the government the most money. Figures on CEO compensation, and the money the companies’ spent on dividends and share buybacks for stockholders in fiscal 2012, were also provided by NELP. Income and revenue figures are from Morningstar and also for fiscal 2012. Salary figures for individual occupations are from Glassdoor.com. Changes in share prices are from Google Finance.
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Juan Williams Accuses Republicans Of 'Empty Rhetoric' On Obamacare:Fox News analyst Juan Williams hit out at Republicans on Sunday over their opposition to Obamacare.Williams appeared on a "Fox News Sunday" panel. He responded to Chris Wallace's charge that some Americans are losing their health insurance plans under Obamacare."I get the sense that people on the Republican side are enjoying this moment, but this is empty rhetoric," Williams said. He added that some plans are being cancelled because they do not meet Obamacare standards, but that those affected have received offers "for better packages at lower costs with more benefits.""This is not the apocalypse," Williams added.Brit Hume disagreed, saying, “The president promised explicitly — we heard it on this program—if you like the coverage you have now you can keep it, period... They’re now being told they can’t have those polices anymore. They must have policies that involve coverage for things they may feel they don’t need.”
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Ted Cruz Defends Dick Cheney For Shooting Friend In Face:Rep. Steve King is one of the more outspoken tea party politicians and one of the more outrageous too. All you need to see is the video of his trip to Egypt with tea partiers Louie Gohmert and Michelle Bachmann.My name is Michelle Bachmann. I'm a member of the United States Congress from the United States.It went even further downhill from there. Now if you were going hunting, would you let Rep. Steve King be your guide?Republicans have become accustomed to defending former Vice President Dick Cheney's political record, but Texas firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz is now defending his reputation as a hunter. Cruz joined Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, for a pheasant hunt in western Iowa on Saturday, and the two discussed the now infamous 2006 incident when Cheney accidentally shot a friend while quail hunting in Texas."Look, it happens," said Cruz.King said the incident "doesn't bother me a bit. The way I understood it, he was standing in the wrong place."Cheney wounded campaign contributor Harry Whittington, who Cruz said was a friend. The Tea Party Republican said Whittington still has pellets in his shoulder that set off airport metal detectors.Cruz and King spent hours Saturday trudging through brush in western Iowa with a group of hunters in the hopes of bagging a few pheasants. King has hosted past Republican presidential hopefuls.Rick Santorum and Rick Perry for similar hunting outings in the first-in-the-nation voting state.King also jokingly acknowledged Cruz's status as a political target since the prominent role the senator played in orchestrating the 16-day government shutdown. At a speech in front of Iowa Republicans on Friday, Cruz made the case that the battle against President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act helped to shed light on the problems with the legislation and will aid the GOP in the 2014 midterm elections."There are a lot of people who would like to shoot me and you, I've noticed," King said to Cruz before they took off."That would be a fundraiser to end them all, wouldn't it?"Hey, shooting people in the face happens all the time when you go hunting, doesn't it? Ted Tea Cruz sure loves the limelight. Steve King thinks it's Whittington's fault for standing in front of Cheney's rifle, but doesn't any shooter have a responsibility of not shooting someone in the face when they are in the line of fire? But the real question is would Ted Cruz go hunting with Dick Cheney?
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Rick Santorum: Ted Cruz 'Did More Harm' Than Good With Government Shutdown
Mollie Reilly,
Former senator and Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) criticized Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for the partial government shutdown, admitting Cruz "did more harm" than good with his attempt to defund President Barack Obama's health care law."I would say that in the end he did more harm," Santorum said during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "I think it was not his objective. I think his objective was a laudable one."Prior to the shutdown, which left hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed without pay for over two weeks and cost the U.S. economy an estimated $24 billion, Santorum voiced support for Cruz's plan to tie anti-Obamacare measures to the government funding bill."It’s too soon to tell whether the strategy has worked or not, will it move the debate this way? But I think that’s really ultimately, what I think Ted’s is trying to accomplish and I think he’s certainly is pulling out all the bullets to get it done," Santorum told CNN in September.However, on Sunday, Santorum said Cruz's plan failed in its execution."I think he didn't do a very good job in pointing [his objective] out," Santorum said. "It's one thing to have a goal, and another thing to have a plan to get you to that goal, and he didn't figure that out."While Cruz has faced backlash from both sides of the aisle in the aftermath of the 16-day shutdown, he maintains that his efforts were worthwhile."One of the things we accomplished in the fight over Obamacare is we elevated the national debate over what a disaster, what a train wreck, how much Obamacare is hurting millions of Americans across this country," Cruz said Friday at a GOP dinner in Iowa.
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