Tag Archives: Ted Cruz

national news, political news, State news

Political alliances are shifting … rapidly

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DonaldAndRick_jpg_800x1000_q100

Rick Perry once called Donald J. Trump a “cancer on conservatism.”

He then backed fellow Texan Ted Cruz, who — before bowing out of the Republican presidential campaign this past week — called Trump a “pathological liar.”

Now the former Texas governor has endorsed Trump.

I guess the “cancer” has been cured.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/05/perry-endorses-trump-president/

According to the Texas Tribune, Perry then offered up the obvious: “‘He is not a perfect man,’ Perry told (CNN). ‘But what I do believe is that he loves this country and he will surround himself with capable, experienced people and he will listen to them.'”

There you go. Yesterday’s cancer becomes today’s panacea.

This is part of what makes politics such a maddening thing to witness.

Opponents are capable of saying the most horrific things about each other. Then, when opportunity knocks, they bury hatchets — and not in each other’s skulls — and make nice as if nothing ever happened.

That’s what Perry seems to have done here. He also told CNN that he “wouldn’t say ‘no'” to Trump if the reality TV celebrity/real estate mogul/presumptive GOP presidential nominee offers a spot on the ticket this fall.

For his part, Trump now says he’s going to stick with a true-blue Republican as his running mate. He wants someone with political experience. He’s also said something about selecting someone with legislative experience.

Former Gov. Perry is a real Republican. He’s got loads of political know-how, although he has been unable to take the success he enjoyed in Texas beyond the state’s borders. The legislative background is a bit sparse, as he didn’t serve all that long in the Texas Legislature before aspiring to statewide office.

It appears, to me at least, that his willingness to endorse Trump after tearing the bark off of him before bowing out of the race himself, that he’s putting party loyalty first.

As the Tribune reports: “Trump, Perry told CNN, ‘is one of the most talented people who has ever run for the president I have ever seen.'”

Trump might have been a “cancer,” but he’s got talent.

Go figure.

 

International news, military news, national news, political news

Trump to get access to top-secret info

Protection Lock

Since 1952, the custom has been to give major-party presidential nominees access to top-secret security briefing material.

The idea has been to keep these individuals in the loop on pressing issues involving the safety of the nation. The 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, got the information from the Obama administration as he ran against Barack Obama; four years earlier, the Bush administration provided the briefings to Sens. Obama and John McCain while they ran against each other. That’s been the norm dating back to the days of the Truman administration.

Consider, then, that in just a few weeks the next Republican Party presidential nominee is going to receive these briefings and will be privy to some highly sensitive material.

Yes, that means Donald J. Trump is going to peek under the national security tent and know much of what the president and his military and intelligence staffers know about the dangers that threaten us.

I am not sure what is more frightening: the material to which Trump will have access or that he’ll actually be given that information in the first place.

This is the guy who this past year told “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd that he derives his national security “expertise” by watching “the shows” on Sunday morning, meaning the news talk shows presented on several of the broadcast and cable news networks.

Trump most recently said that former GOP rival Ted Cruz’s father might have been complicit in the murder of President Kennedy. His source for that disclosure? The National Enquirer.

The real estate mogul also said he wouldn’t have any problems with South Korea and (gulp!) Japan developing nuclear arsenals to deter the idiot/madman who runs North Korea.

President Obama will make the final call on the classification level of the information to be disseminated to the major-party nominees. There’s no law that mandates any of this. It’s strictly a judgment call. The president cannot let one nominee see more than the other, however, which means that Trump and probable Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton will get the same information.

I mentioned all this briefly last night to my wife, that Trump is going to get these national security briefings the moment he becomes the GOP presidential nominee.

Her response? “Oh … my.”

Exactly, my dear.

 

national news, political news

Trump’s innuendo will live on

cruzandfamily

Donald J. Trump has done many seemingly “impossible” things while getting to the brink of the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

Heck, just getting to this stage of the campaign — as the presumptive nominee of a once-great political party — ought to stand as the premier impossible accomplishment.

It isn’t, though. Instead, Trump managed to make Sen. Ted Cruz a sympathetic figure.

How did he do that? By tossing out the innuendo that Cruz’s father had some kind of relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who shot President Kennedy to death in 1963.

Cruz’s campaign for the presidency is now over. But the utterly hideous assertion about the senior Cruz’s supposed “role” in the JFK murder lives on.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/

Dallas Morning News blogger Jim Mitchell calls it a “new low” in a campaign full of new lows.

Trump used a National Enquirer story into a talking point on his campaign. That’s correct. A supermarket tabloid offered grist for Trump to assert something about a member of an opponent’s family.

As Mitchell writes: “What Trump did is what makes him such a loose cannon. He reads or hears something and then repeats it as the truth. Imagine President Trump making policy on hearsay, or an outright lie, or a plotline he picked up from a television show the night before. I can imagine waking up and having a President Trump explaining why he ordered a nuclear strike with this rationale.”

In truth, I cannot even imagine the words “President” and “Trump” next to each other in a written or spoken sentence.

The Cruz/Oswald innuendo is likely to stand out in the endless list of ghastly assertions Trump has made on his way to becoming the Republican Party nominee for president of the United States.

Unbelievable.

 

local news, national news, political news, State news

Now, Sen. Cruz, get to work on behalf of Texas

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I’m not sad to see U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz bow out of the Republican Party presidential primary contest.

He got shellacked Tuesday in Indiana, which would have been his last chance at derailing Donald J. Trump’s march to the GOP nomination.

As New York Times columnist Frank Bruni notes, the Cruz Missile likely will make another run for the presidency down the road. He’ll now “rest in peevishness,” Bruni writes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/04/opinion/ted-cruzs-bitter-end.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=0

Here’s a thought for Cruz to consider, though, as he licks his wounds and ponders the future.

He ought to simply go back to work in the U.S. Senate and start governing on behalf of those who sent him to Washington in the first place.

Cruz might not be wired to actually legislate. He ran against the institution in which he has served since January 2013. He has burned a bridge or three among his colleagues. He called himself an “outsider” despite working from the “inside” the legislative branch of government.

The state has some issues that need federal attention. Cruz pulls down 175 grand annually to represent the state. Taxpayers aren’t paying his salary to grandstand and promote his next search for higher political office.

The coastline needs protection against hurricanes. We need to invest in alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar; surely, Sen. Cruz is aware of the abundant quantities of both of those commodities out here on the High Plains of his state. Our highway infrastructure needs attention. Oh, yes, we need to shore up our border against illegal immigrants.

This is going to require Sen. Cruz to try a new tactic. He’s going to have to learn how to legislate and actually govern.

Cruz has had his shot at stardom. He fell short.

However, he’s got a pretty good, well-paying day job awaiting him on Capitol Hill.

Get back to work, Sen. Cruz.

***

PS: Here’s an interesting Texas Tribune analysis on how Cruz might seek to resume his actual job.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/03/how-does-ted-cruz-return-senate/

 

national news, political news

Why not Kasich, indeed?

cruz and kasich

No one is talking about him this morning.

The political story line of the day — and perhaps for the rest of the week — will be the epic crash of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s Republican Party primary presidential campaign and the pending nomination of one Donald J. Trump as the party’s next standard-bearer.

But there is Ohio Gov. John Kasich, all alone in the corner, wondering what in the name of political punditry he’s got to do to get anyone’s attention.

As the co-founder of RealClearPolitics, Tom Bevan, has noted: Kasich is the one Republican candidate who polls ahead of Hillary Clinton — but the GOP voter base is rejecting him.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/05/03/tom_bevan_will_bernie_voters_shift_to_trump.html

From my vantage point out here in Middle America, it appears Kasich’s dilemma serves as a fitting metaphor for the demise of what we used to know as the Republican Party.

Kasich is a traditional Republican. He’s been a player in the “establishment” for more than two decades. He served in Congress and became a party leader. He chaired the House Budget Committee and worked with Democrats and fellow Republicans to balance the federal budget.

That’s a big deal, dude.

However, he’s getting zero traction — none! — on that record.

The GOP voting base is now turning its attention and showering its love on a guy who’s got zero government experience, no philosophy and seemingly not a scintilla of grace.

Those voters are angry. So they’re going with the guy who shares their anger.

Can this guy govern? No.

What the hell. That doesn’t matter.

The Grand Old Party as we used to know it appears to have died. Its demise wasn’t entirely peaceful. It’s being replaced by something that is still taking form.

One of those formerly important Republicans — Gov. Kasich — is now among its casualties.

 

national news, political news

Trump dispatches main rival … who knew?

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I’m going to need some more time to ponder what has just happened.

Donald J. Trump has won the Indiana Republican presidential primary. That wasn’t the big surprise of the night. Pre-primary polls pointed toward a big Trump win.

Oh, no. The surprise came from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who cried “Uncle!” He ended his campaign.

Technically, the GOP campaign continues to be a two-man race. The other contestant is Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who continues to adhere to the myth that he’s going to the GOP convention in Cleveland with hopes of peeling off delegates who cannot support Trump.

A part of me wishes that would happen. The bigger part of me says it won’t. I happen to think highly of Gov. Kasich, who actually has a record of accomplishment that in any other election cycle would have been enough to win. Not this time.

Trump will be nominated by the Republican Party to run for the presidency of the United States.

Which makes me wonder: What in the world has happened to this once-great political party?

They are about to nominate a glitzy reality TV star who made a fortune building shiny hotels and who has demonstrated more times than I can remember the astonishing ability to win on the basis of insult and innuendo. His insult targets have included women, illegal immigrants, Muslims, veterans, physically disabled individuals … who have I left out?

He hasn’t formulated any form of philosophical foundation. Trump hasn’t laid out a formula for anything other than he’s going to “build a beautiful wall” along our southern border and will cut the “best deals you’ve ever seen” to get other world leaders to do business on his terms.

This, folks, is the basis for running for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016.

Holy smokes, man!

national news, political news

JFK becomes part of this campaign?

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Chris Matthews is a well-known liberal commentator with a reputation of talking over anyone he’s interviewing.

When the MSNBC pundit gets his dander up, he’s quite capable of delivering profound analysis of all things political.

Consider this: Matthews is incensed at Donald J. Trump’s assertion that Ted Cruz’s father somehow was complicit in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Matthews’ point? It is that Trump has crossed yet another boundary of good taste as he campaigns for the Republican Party presidential nomination. This time he has invoked a tragic memory that has burned itself indelibly into the minds of Americans old enough to remember the Nov. 22, 1963 murder of a president.

And for what purpose? Matthews called it cheap politics. Trump has cheapened Americans’ heartbreak by using the JFK murder as a political cudgel with which he seeks to beat a political opponent.

Trump remembers that day, just like the rest of us who were old enough to recall it.

I have to agree wholeheartedly with Matthews’ belief that Trump once again has displayed an utter and absolute lack of respect for historical context.

Matthews also believes Trump’s preposterous assertion about Cruz’s father’s relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald is going to “matter.”

I’m not sure about that.

I do believe, though, that Trump lacks a fundamental trait necessary to become the head of state of the world’s greatest nation.

It is decency.

 

national news, political news

Don’t look for these rivals to make up

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Recent political history is full of examples of how rivals for the presidency have said means and occasionally disgusting things to and about each other … and then hooked up as allies.

In 1960, U.S. Sens. John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson fought each other for the Democratic presidential nomination. JFK was nominated and then picked LBJ to run with him. They won the election and the rest is, well, history.

Twenty years later, former Gov. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush battled for the 1980 Republican nomination, with Bush labeling Reagan’s tax plan as “voodoo economics.” Reagan won the GOP nod and then picked Bush to run alongside him as vice president.

In 2008, the combatants were Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden fighting for the Democratic nomination. Biden dropped out, Obama won the nomination and picked Biden to run with him. President-elect Obama then turned to another campaign rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and selected her to be secretary of state.

In 2016, well, matters are quite a bit different.

The battlers this time are Donald J. Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz. They are fighting for the Republican nomination.

The gloves are off. The brass knuckles are on. The men loathe each other. Trump calls Cruz “Lyin’ Ted.” Cruz is now responding with attacks on Trump, referring to him as a “pathological liar” and a “serial philanderer.”

Trump now says that Cruz’s father might have been a principal — are you ready for this one? — in the assassination of President Kennedy. Cruz’s response was classic: “Let’s be clear: This is nuts. This is not a reasonable position. This is kooky,” Cruz said in Evansville, Ind. “While I’m at it, I should go ahead and admit yes, my dad killed JFK, he is secretly Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa is buried in his backyard.”

Cruz is likely to get battered badly in today’s Indiana GOP primary. He’s going all-out against Trump. The men seem to truly despise each other.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/03/bracing-indiana-loss-cruz-unloads-trump/

Trying to predict any outcome in this year’s wacky presidential contest is a dicey proposition at best.

I feel comfortable, though, in asserting that Trump and Cruz will not team up for the fall campaign.

media news, national news, political news

Cruz channels Newt by blaming the media

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz speaks during the NRA-ILA Leadership Forum at the National Rifle Association's 142 Annual Meetings and Exhibits in the George R. Brown Convention Center Friday, May 3, 2013, in Houston. The 2013 NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits runs from Friday, May 3, through Sunday, May 5. More than 70,000 are expected to attend the event with more than 500 exhibitors represented. The convention will features training and education demos, the Antiques Guns and Gold Showcase, book signings, speakers including Glenn Beck, Ted Nugent and Sarah Palin as well as NRA Youth Day on Sunday ( Johnny Hanson / Houston Chronicle )

Ted Cruz is likely to get beat Tuesday in Indiana.

With a probable win in the Hoosier State’s Republican presidential primary, Donald J. Trump  will be standing as the presumptive GOP nominee.

So, who’s Ted Cruz blaming for the flameout his campaign suddenly is experiencing? The media.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/05/01/chuck_todd_to_ted_cruz_republican_voters_are_the_ones_rejecting_you_this_is_not_a_media_conspiracy.html

It’s not going to work for the junior U.S. senator from Texas any more than it worked for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich four years ago when he sought to blame the messenger for reporting negative things about his campaign.

“Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd tried in vain Sunday to get Cruz to answer a simple declarative question: Will you support Trump if he’s the nominee?

Cruz didn’t answer. He then sought to blame the media, which he said are controlled by liberal Democrats.

“That’s what people hate about politics and the media,” Todd answered. “The broad brush.”

Yes, Cruz was painting the media with the broadest of brushes. Gingrich sought to do the same thing in 2012 with his broadsides against the “mainstream media.”

I just feel compelled to remind all of those who keep insisting the media speak with one voice that the “mainstream media” also comprise a large number of conservative voices. Fox News Channel? The bevy of radio talk-show hosts? All the right-leaning publications around the country — The Weekly Standard, The National Review? They, too, are part of the mainstream.

And let’s not ignore the torrent of online outlets that give the conservatives — even the “true conservatives,” such as Sen. Cruz — plenty of opportunities to air their views.

As Todd told Cruz on Sunday, Republican voters — not the media — are rejecting his message.

national news, political news

Cruz turns insult into a compliment

ted

Didn’t you just know that Ted Cruz was going to turn the former speaker of the House’s comments about him into a compliment?

Sure you did.

The junior U.S. senator from Texas is “Lucifer in the flesh,” according to former Speaker John Boehner, who also called Cruz the “most miserable son of a b****” he’s ever worked with.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/cruz-boehner-trump-lucifer-222677

Cruz’s reaction. It just proves he’s a real “outsider.”

The Republican presidential candidate is proud of running as an outsider, even though he’s worked on the inside for all of three-plus years. He was elected to the Senate in 2012 in his first race for elective office ever.

He has taken pride in his ability to get under people’s skin. He’s called the Senate majority leader a liar; he’s questioned the commitment to the military of genuine war heroes; he sought to shut down the government in a failed attempt to overturn the Affordable Care Act.

What a guy.

Boehner quit the House because he had grown fed up with legislators like Cruz.

Hey, it’s a badge of honor, according to the Cruz Missile.

Let’s try to set this into some perspective.

The federal government is a complicated piece of machinery. It requires knowledge, skill, nuance, diplomacy, tact and, oh yes, the ability to compromise on occasion.

Cruz keeps harping along the GOP primary campaign trail that he isn’t going to compromise on anything. He sounds for all the world like one of those lawmakers who sees the folks on the other side of the aisle as enemies, not just adversaries.

Sure, the other side has its share of haters. Florida U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, a Democrat, comes to mind immediately. He’s got about as much actual experience in the federal government as Cruz, but he manages to shoot off his mouth whenever the cameras are rolling.

He’s the clown who said he’d file suit against Cruz to challenge whether the Canadian-born senator is constitutionally qualified to run for president.

Memo to Grayson: He’s qualified.

Back to Cruz.

He’s a self-proclaimed hotshot with little legislative accomplishment to show for all his fiery rhetoric.

He can proclaim his outsider street cred all he wants. However, if he intends to work with the very people he condemns — namely his colleagues in the legislative branch of government — then he’s got to build some relationships that so far simply do not exist.