Tag Archives: birther

What? I’m sticking up for Ted Cruz?

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) gestures as the key speaker at the annual Reagan Republican Dinner in Des Moines, Iowa, Friday, October 25, 2013. (David Peterson/MCT via Getty Images)

I’m feeling oddly out of sorts these days.

Why? Well, I’m feeling a bit of sympathy for a patently unsympathetic politician: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

Readers of this blog know that I do not intend to vote for Sen. Cruz for president of the United States. But two things have happened in recent weeks that make me want to stand with him.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/ted-cruz-feud-new-york-times-119981.html?hp=t4_r

He’s now feuding with the New York Times over the paper’s refusal to include his new memoir, “A Time for Truth,” on its list of best-selling books. It’s selling like crazy, being scarfed up from book shelves by supporters who want to read the junior senator’s words of wisdom and how he intends to rescue the United States of America.

Cruz and his allies say the NYT snub is pure partisanship. The liberal publication won’t give this conservative pol the time of day, let alone list his memoir on its vaunted best-seller list.

Cruz’s feud is going win him more friends on the right. I won’t join his campaign, but it does seem a bit churlish on the Times’s part to exclude him from the best-seller list.

The second aspect involves The Donald, who’s bringing up the “birther” controversy all over again. Sen. Cruz is the target this time. Donald Trump said that because Cruz was born in Canada, he’s not qualified to serve as president. “Natural-born citizen,” in Trump’s mind, means he a candidate must be born in the U.S.; that’s how he interprets the Constitution.

Trump is wrong.

Cruz’s mother is an American citizen. That grants him U.S. citizenship by birth. Cruz could have been born on Mars — which is where I sometimes think is Trump’s place of birth — and he still would be qualified to run for and serve as president in the highly unlikely event he is elected next year.

Trump tried to pull the birther stunt on Barack Obama, even though the president actually was born in Hawaii. He’s at it once again with Cruz.

Hey, I’m just trying to be fair here. I might dislike Cruz’s philosophy and don’t want him elected president of the United States. However, I know mistreatment when I see it. Cruz is getting a bum deal from the New York Times.

As for the birther crap that comes from Donald Trump’s pie hole, well … enough said on that.

The Donald presents so many avenues of disgust

DonladTrumpHair

There’s so much to detest about Donald Trump.

I almost don’t where to begin.

His anti-immigrant rant? As the grandson of immigrants — yes, legal immigrants — I was appalled at his description of Mexicans as “rapists, drug dealers and murders,” and “oh, yes, some good ones.”

How about his birther stance? He still thinks President Obama was born in a foreign country, despite having an American mother, which qualifies him for the office he’s held for nearly two full terms. Now he’s going after Ted Cruz, who actually was born in another country, but his mother is an American as well.

I’m beginning to settle on one aspect of Trump I find most annoying. It’s his insistence that he’s “really rich.”

He brags about it. He boasts of all the money he has. He seeks to parlay that good fortune into what he’d do as president, which is create jobs. “I’m a great job creator,” he says.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/dump-on-trump-119932.html?hp=lc1_4

How do you suppose his boasting about wealth is going to play to the very people he wants to win over if he is to have a prayer of being nominated by the Republican Party, let alone elected president of the United States? My guess is that it won’t play well — at all.

He’s going to brag on TV about his wealth. Imagine being a single parent, struggling to make ends meet. You’ve got several children who need food, clothing and shelter. You can barely provide any of that. And then you’re going to hear someone who wants to become your president keep bragging about his material wealth, about all those tall buildings that have his name on them, all his bling, glitter.

How does that make you feel?

I’m a middle-class guy. I’ve had a nice life. My wife and I don’t need too much to consider ourselves successful.

All that boasting makes me crazy!

He’s going after his fellow GOP candidates. They’re returning fire aggressively, as are the Democratic candidates.

I will await with great anticipation the first Republican presidential joint appearance to see how The Donald handles the blistering he’s going to get.

From now on, though, shut up with the “I’m really rich” crap, OK, Donald?

Trump: grand marshal of the clown parade

Donald Trump decided during his 45-minute presidential campaign announcement speech to trash as many groups of people and individuals as he could.

Well done, Donald.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/donald-trump-mexicans-comment-119100.html?hp=rc4_4

I’ll admit that I didn’t have the stomach to sit through the entire speech, but my favorite part occurred when he dissed Mexicans.

Immigrants are coming into the country to rape, murder and steal from Americans. He said that “I’m sure good people” are coming as well, adding the “good people” reference almost as an afterthought.

He thinks conservative columnist/TV pundit Charles Krauthammer is “overrated.” He trashed all his Republican rivals as being half-hearted and afraid to speak the truth.

As this campaign unfolds, though, I’m waiting anxiously for the Birther in Chief — Trump — to raise the issue of Sen. Ted Cruz’s legitimacy as a candidate, just as continues to do with the current president, Barack Obama.

Cruz was born in Canada; his father is Cuban, his mother is American. Thus, he’s an American citizen by birth — just like President Obama, except that the president was born in one of the 50 United States of America.

Will The Donald suggest that Ted Cruz is not qualified to run for, let alone serve as president?

Gosh, I hope he does — and then reveals why he deserves to be in the lead car in the Parade of Clowns.

Go, Louie, go for the speaker's job!

This might be the best news yet of the new year — which, I know, is just four days old.

U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-TEA Party Fringe, has just announced he’s going to challenge John Boehner as speaker of the House of Representatives.

How does it get any better than that?

Gohmert, you see, is in the running as well for being the goofiest member of Congress. He’s got some competition for that honor. The previous frontrunner was fellow Texan Steve Stockman, who had the bad form to challenge Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP primary this past spring; he lost badly. He’s now out of the House. Right up there, too, is Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who said illegal immigrants are packing illegal drug across the border while running on “calves the size of cantaloupes.”

Gohmert hails from East Texas and he’s challenging fellow Republican Donald Trump for the unofficial title of “birther in chief.” He and The Donald just do not believe that President Obama was born in the United States of America, in Hawaii, and that — by golly — he’s constitutionally qualified to serve in the office to which he was elected twice.

Now he’s running for speaker. He told his pal Tucker Carlson on Fox News that someone needs to challenge Boehner. Gohmert says he’s gotten “a lot” of support to mount that challenge.

I’d love to ask him how he defines the measure of so-called support. Maybe it is a lot. It surely must be vocal because that’s how the TEA party wing of the GOP operates. It outshouts the other side within the Republican Party and then it outshouts the Democrats.

Hey, the truth is he’s just firing a shot across Boehner’s bow. He’s telling the speaker to watch his right flank. The TEA party will be watching, waiting and looking for any opportunity to undermine the speaker’s instincts to work with the other side.

I’m still glad to see Rep. Gohmert step up — even if it does embarrass some Texas residents back home who really would prefer that he shut his trap.