Before he ran for president, Cruz was best known for using hearings in the Senate to irritate his colleagues and imply that Chuck Hagel had ties to Islamic extremists. Now that he’s back in D.C., he has decided to hold hearings on the “willful blindness” of law enforcement agencies that choose to “deemphasize radical Islam in combating terrorism.”
The hearings, scheduled for next Tuesday, come as Republicans try to reframe the debate following the Orlando shootings to focus on anything but easy access to military grade rifles. As Cruz wrote for the Conservative Review website: “What happened in Orlando is not a gun control issue—it is a terrorism issue.”
But at least we can be thankful that Cruz is no longer in the limelight, his demagoguery confined to the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights, and Federal Courts.