Having taken the floor at 2:41ET Tuesday afternoon,. Senator Ted Cruz's anti-Obamacare filibuster-lite has now become the 4th longest filibuster in Senate history, as The Washington Times repots [3], topping the 1908 speech by Sen Robert La Follette Sr.. Overnight, he read excerpts from both Ayn Rand's “Atlas Shrugged” and from Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham” on the floor, cited approvingly the words of wisdom from actor Ashton Kutcher and hit TV show “Duck Dynasty." Mr. Cruz will not be able to reach the third-longest filibuster in history, a 22-hour and 26-minute affair in 1953, because under the rules, the Senate will have to adjourn its session at noon.
Live Coverage Of the Ongoing Filibuster... Via C-SPAN (click image for live stream)
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1. “I will credit my father, he invented … green eggs and ham. He did it two ways. The easy way was he would put green food coloring in. ‘Green eggs and ham’ was my favorite book as a little boy. You can actually do it – the food coloring is a little bit cheating. But if you take spinach and mix it into the eggs, the eggs turn green.”
2. “I guarantee all of the pundits that we see going on TV and intoning in deep baritone voices, ‘This can’t be done.’ If this were back in the 18th century, they would be going on, I don’t know, maybe [with] pigeon carriers or something.”
3. “The moon might be as intimidating as Obamacare.”
4. “It is apparently very, very important to be invited to all the right cocktail parties in town. Now, I’ll confess: I don’t go to a whole lot of cocktail parties in town.”
5. “They want to make this about a battle of this senator versus that senator, this person versus that person. So it’s all personal. It’s like reading the Hollywood gossip pages. That’s how this issue is covered.”
6. “This fight is not about personalities. Look, most Americans could not give a flying flip about a bunch of politicians in Washington. Who cares? … You know, almost all of us are in cheap suits with bad haircuts. Who cares?”
7. “I don’t know if it’s the water, something in the air, the cherry blossoms, but people get here and they stop listening to the American people.”
8. “We don’t work for the lobbyists with tasseled loafers who walk the halls, but the single mom working in the diner.”
9. “I like their little burgers. … I’m a big fan of eating White Castle burgers.”
10. “I don’t think there’s been a day on this floor that I haven’t worn my argument boots. … I am not in my argument boots and I will confess, I really do feel embarrassed by that.”