Tag Archives: Ted Cruz

political news, State news

Cruz overstates his case once more

Ted Cruz just cracks me up.

Except that I’m not laughing.

He’s written an essay in which he accuses the president of the United States of acting like a monarch. Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order that tweaks federal immigration policy. He’s going around Congress, which includes the freshman Republican senator from Texas. Yes, Ted Cruz.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/president-obama-is-not-a-monarch-113028.html?hp=c4_3#.VG35X1J0yt9

What the senator and his fellow critics of the president keep ignoring is that previous presidents, including some notable Republicans, have done precisely the same thing that’s about to occur with this president. Where was the congressional outrage then? Well, there wasn’t any.

The link attached to this blog post also notes that Texas may sue the president over his executive order. That’s kind of strange, too, given that I’ve read reports in recent days about how Texas is going to benefit tremendously when the president defers deportation of millions of illegal immigrants. Many thousands of them live and work in Texas and they would be able, under the order, to come out of the shadows and work openly, pay taxes and perhaps start working their way toward legal residency status, if not outright citizenship.

That doesn’t stop loudmouths like the Texas Cruz Missile from overstating his case, which he does with annoying frequency.

 

International news, national news, political news

'Immigrant' gets clarification

The term “immigrant” became the subject of a brief tempest after I posted a blog entry that mentioned U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

I mentioned that Cruz opposes immigration reform and suggested there was a certain irony in his opposition, given that he immigrated to this country from Canada.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/11/17/take-heed-mr-majority-leader/

A friend of mine disagreed with that assertion. He said that Cruz was a U.S. citizen upon birth because his mother is an American. Federal law grants children of U.S. citizens automatic citizenship, so that meant little Teddy was an American the moment he entered this world. That instant citizenship means Cruz isn’t an immigrant, my friend said.

I disagree with my friend.

Thus, I looked up the word “immigrant” in my American Heritage Dictionary.

“Immigrant” is defined simply as “one who immigrates.”

Aha! So, I looked up “immigrate,” which the dictionary defines this way: “To enter and settle in a foreign country.”

Cruz was born in Canada. He and his family subsequently relocated to this country. Teddy grew up to be a smart fellow, went to law school, became a lawyer and now he’s a U.S. senator.

By my reading of the dictionary, that makes Ted Cruz an immigrant.

Why mention this at all? Well, immigration has returned to the front burner of the national discussion. President Obama is likely to issue an executive order that’s going to upset a lot of Republicans, including tea party members of Congress, such as the former immigrant Sen. Cruz. They’ll go apoplectic.

Yes, immigrants such as Cruz entered the country legally. The issue here is how to handle the illegal immigrants who’ve come here. Many in Congress want them deported. The president and his allies in Congress want to give them a chance to achieve legal status and eventually become U.S. citizens.

He’s already deported more illegal immigrants than any president in history. An executive order delaying deportations of about 5 million undocumented residents will constitute a change in policy at the White House.

I just find it curious that a one-time immigrant would feel so strongly that others seeking a better life in this country shouldn’t have a chance to make their dreams come true.

 

 

 

national news, political news

Take heed, Mr. Majority Leader

1 Comment

Mitch McConnell has wanted to become majority leader of the U.S. Senate.

I feel the need to remind the Kentucky Republican to be “careful what you wish for.”

He’s about to have his hands full. Not so much from Democrats, who are licking their wounds and trying to regroup from the pounding they took at the polls Nov. 4. No, McConnell’s worries well might come from within his own Republican caucus.

I’ll sum it up in two words: Ted Cruz.

Cruz is the freshman Republican from Texas who has delusions of grandeur, specifically the White House. He wants to be president someday. Maybe he’ll make a run for it in 2016. He might wait until 2020 and then go full force if a Democrat wins the ’16 contest.

But here’s ol’ Mitch, vowing to take President Obama up on a request to sip some Kentucky bourbon with the new majority leader. I believe deep down that McConnell really wants to “work with” the president. But he’s got that goofy caucus within his GOP caucus that won’t hear of it.

This is the tea party wing, led by Cruz.

It still amazes me that this freshman loudmouth has gotten so much attention in so little time.

Cruz wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with … um, well we don’t know. He said something the other day about “net neutrality” is like “Obamacare for the Internet,” whatever the bleep that means. He seems to oppose immigration reform, which is odd given that he’s an immigrant from Canada.

Here’s the thing with Cruz. He isn’t alone in thinking this way. He’s just managed to become the mouthpiece for many of the hard-righties within the Senate who think as he does.

McConnell is more of an “establishment” guy. He’s actually got friends within the Obama administration, one of them being, for example, Vice President Biden, with whom he served in the Senate until Biden was elected VP in 2008.

So, the question can be asked of Majority Leader-to-be McConnell: Is the job you coveted really worth having if you’re going to have to fend off the challenges from your own extremist wing?

Good luck, Mr. Majority Leader.

 

 

 

legal news, national news, political news

AG should knife the boss in the back?

Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah are making an impossible demand of the woman selected by President Obama to become the nation’s next attorney general.

They want Loretta Lynch to state up front whether a presidential executive order regarding U.S. immigration policy is constitutional and legal. More to the point, they are demanding that she declare such an action unconstitutional and illegal.

Let’s think about this for a moment.

What they’re demanding is that the woman who wants to be attorney general stick a dagger in the back of the individual who has nominated her to that high office.

Cruz and Lee do not appear interested in simply hearing her out. Both men already have declared that they believe such a move — which the president has all but telegraphed will occur — doesn’t pass constitutional muster.

They are among congressional Republicans who already are angry over Obama’s use of executive authority to tweak and tinker with the Affordable Care Act. These men both are dead set against reforming immigration policy at least during the current congressional session.

So now they’re threatening to hold the attorney general nomination hostage to their own agenda.

What’s more, they’re asking the AG-designate to betray the president who’s nominated her.

Good luck with that, senators.

national news, political news

GOP readies for internal fight

One of the many forms of conventional wisdom in the wake of the 2014 mid-term election goes something like this: Republicans, flush with victory at taking over the Senate and expanding their hold in the House, now face a fight between the tea party extremists and the mainstream wing of their party.

Let’s go with that one for a moment, maybe two.

I relish the thought, to be brutally candid.

The likely Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, may be looking over his shoulder at one of the tea party upstarts within his Republican caucus, a fellow named Ted Cruz of Texas.

Cruz wants to lead the party to the extreme right. McConnell is more of a dealmaker, someone who’s been known to actually seek advice and counsel from his old friend and former colleague, Vice President Joe Biden. Cruz, who’s still green to the ways of Washington, wants to shake the place up, seeking to govern in a scorched-Earth kind of way. He wouldn’t mind shutting down the government again if the right issue arises. McConnell won’t have any of that.

So, will the battle commence soon after the next Congress takes over in 2015.

Lessons unlearned doom those who ignore them.

Republicans have been through this kind of intraparty strife before. In 1964, conservatives took control of the GOP after fighting with the establishment. The party nominated Sen. Barry Goldwater as its presidential candidate and then Goldwater got thumped like a drum by President Lyndon Johnson.

They did it again in 1976, with conservative former California Gov. Ronald Reagan challenging President Ford for his party’s nomination. Ford beat back the challenge, but then lost his bid for election to Jimmy Carter.

To be fair, Democrats have fallen victim to the same kind of political cannibalism.

In 1968 and again in 1972, Democrats fought with each over how, or whether, to end the Vietnam War. Sens. Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy challenged LBJ for the nomination in 1968. Johnson dropped out of the race, RFK was assassinated, McCarthy soldiered on to the convention, which erupted in violence and Democrats then nominated Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who then went on to lose to GOP nominee Richard Nixon.

Four years later, the Democratic insurgents nominated Sen. George McGovern after fighting with the party “hawks.” McGovern then lost to President Nixon in a landslide.

So, what’s the lesson?

History has shown — and it goes back a lot farther than just 1964 — that intraparty squabbles quite often don’t make for a stronger party, but a weaker one.

Bring it on, Republicans!

 

 

medical news, national news, political news, State news

Sexual orientation or preference?

Apple boss Tim Cook has just burst out of the closet by declaring he is homosexual.

OK. That’s a big deal? I think not. He is who he is and that’s all fine and dandy.

Then comes U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Loony Bin, to suggest something else is at work here.

“Those are his personal choices,” Cruz said of Cook’s sexual orientation, meaning, I reckon, that Cook chose to be gay.

Cruz then added, “I love my iPhone.”

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/222300-cruz-on-apple-ceo-being-gay-personal-decision

Is there any doubt now as to why Cruz and other outspoken Republicans are having trouble connecting with gay Americans?

I keep coming back to this notion a person’s sexuality is pre-determined. One doesn’t come into this world, in my view, grow toward adolescence, and then, when puberty kicks in, decide to become attracted to individuals of the same sex.

One’s sexuality is part of who they are. It’s in their genetic code, in their DNA.

For the freshman senator from Texas to ridicule someone’s sexual orientation by comparing it to his “love” for his iPhone cheapens the discussion.

As a friend once said to after me he revealed to the world many years ago that he had become infected with HIV/AIDS while also disclosing his own homosexuality, “Why would I ever choose to become the object of scorn and revulsion?”

He answered his own question. He didn’t choose it at all.

 

 

International news, legal news

Here's your judicial activism, Sen. Cruz

Ted Cruz brought it up, so I’ll continue running with it.

The freshman U.S. senator from Texas accused the U.S. Supreme Court of engaging in “judicial activism” when it refused to review state cases relating to same-sex marriage. Activism? Hardly. Restraint? That’s more like it.

The Republican’s silly assertion brought to mind a conversation I had in 2009 with a true-blue judicial activist, who was damn proud of his role in correcting mistakes the legislative body in his country makes on occasion.

Meet Salim Joubran, a member of the Israeli supreme court. I made his acquaintance in June 2009 while traveling through Israel with four other West Texans as part of a Rotary International Group Study Exchange. Our group met him in Jerusalem.

Judge Joubran was unapologetic about his activist nature.

His take on the court’s role in Israel is that judges have to correct mistakes that the Knesset — the Israeli parliament — makes in enacting certain laws. “We are respectful of the Knesset,” he said, “but the court’s activism is necessary.”

Joubran said that Israel doesn’t have a constitution. National law, therefore, makes it “virtually imperative that judges correct mistakes in laws approved by the Knesset,” I wrote after visiting with Joubran.

We’re proud in this country of our judicial system. I know I am. It works well most of the time. I’m not going to advocate for the form of judicial activism that Salim Joubran practices while interpreting Israeli law.

But I’m going to draw a conclusion about how some American politicians define the term “judicial activism.” It’s usually used as a pejorative by conservative pols who take issue with what they see as “liberal” court rulings.

Fine. However, conservative judges can be activists, too. I’ve already cited the Citizens United ruling in 2010 as an example of conservative judicial activism.

I cannot recall five years after meeting with Judge Joubran whether he’d be considered a liberal or conservative judge. He’s an activist — and proud of it.

I found it refreshing and, frankly, courageous.

If only more judges in this country stood up for their own activism and were willing to defend it in front of anyone who challenged them.

national news, political news, State news

Cruz now favors activist federal government

3 Comments

Ted Cruz keeps giving me — and others — so much grist for commentary.

The freshman Texas Republican U.S. senator now has this doozy of an idea. Let’s amend the U.S. Constitution to prevent states from overturning bans on same-sex marriage.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/10/06/cruz-amend-us-constitution-preserve-marriage-bans/

This comes from a tea party darling, someone who’s railed time and again during his still-brief time in the Senate over federal government overreach into states’ business.

Not so, however, when it comes to one more issue that now needs to become part of the federal Constitution.

Oh, Ted. Keep delivering these hits. Please.

Cruz got angry at the U.S. Supreme Court over its refusal to hear some state cases involving the overturning of bans on gay marriage. He called it a matter of gross judicial activism. Indeed, as a learned friend of mine noted, the high court exercised “judicial restraint” in refusing to hear these cases.

That won’t deter the runaway freight train aka Ted Cruz.

He’s going to try to get Congress to approve a constitutional amendment that places federal authority over state authority.

I swear I understood Cruz was a champion of states’ rights. What happened?

Oh, I almost forgot. Cruz wants to run for president in 2016 and he’s got to appease that right-wing GOP “base.”

legal news, national news, political news, State news

One more reason to detest Ted Cruz

That settles it: Ted Cruz is my least favorite of the 100 men and women who serve in the U.S. Senate.

Why the additional scorn? Well, the freshman Republican from Texas said this about the Supreme Court’s decision to refuse to review state laws banning same-sex marriage:

“This is judicial activism at its worst.”

OK, he said some other stuff too in criticizing the high court. He accused the justices of “abdicating its duty to uphold the Constitution.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/ted-cruz-supreme-court-gay-marriage-111655.html?hp=l7

Judicial activism, eh?

I think I can come up with at least one greater example of judicial activism perpetrated on this nation by the Roberts Court, one of the more so-called “conservative” courts in the nation’s history. Let’s try the Citizens United case.

Remember that one, Ted? That’s the case that determined that corporations are people, too — to borrow Mitt Romney’s (in)famous phrase during the 2012 presidential campaign. The court decided to let corporations spend all the money they wanted on political campaigns, just like regular folks. It determined that multi-zillion-dollar business interests have as much say in determining who gets elected as poor schleps like me who might want to write a $20 check to the candidate of my choice.

So, if you’re a candidate who then gets elected, who are you going to listen to more intently: the mega corporation or the individual contributor?

That, Sen. Cruz, is how I would define judicial activism.

This label often is used by conservatives to rip apart liberal judicial rulings. These critics, such as Cruz, ignore at their peril their own brand of judicial activism.

The Roberts Court showed it can be as activist as, say, the Warren Court was in the 1950s.

Cruz surely knows this.

A dear friend of mine who visited my wife and me this past weekend served in government and journalism for more than 40 years. He said of Cruz, who he described as “smart as they come”:

“Intelligence is inherited. Wisdom must be earned.”

national news, political news, State news

Who's going to jump in '16?

It’s getting fun watching the prospective candidates for president in 2016 start hedging whether they’re actually going to make the plunge.

The latest apparently is Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who might run for the Republican nomination in two years.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/219692-rubio-decision-to-run-in-2016-wont-depend-on-bush

Rubio says his decision won’t depend on whether former Florida Gov.Jeb Bush decides to run. Rubio says he hasn’t talked to the former governor, but the fact that he’s talking about it at all suggests — to me, at least — that he’s got Jeb on his radar.

So, let’s ponder these other possibilities:

* U.S. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan says he likely won’t run if his 2012 Republican presidential nominee running mate Mitt Romney jumps in. No word from Romney what he plans to do if Ryan goes ahead with a run.

* Vice President Joe Biden likely will consider backing out of the Democratic contest if former senator, former secretary of state and former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton decides to go for it.

* Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas wants to seek the GOP nomination, but will he go if another talkative Texan, lame-duck Gov. Rick Perry jumps into the race?

* And is Perry going to make the leap if Cruz decides it’s his time to run?

Of all the fascinating what-ifs to ponder, I’m interested mostly in the Texas two-step that might play out between Perry and Cruz.

Perry’s been to the well once already. He flamed out badly before the first primary took place in New Hampshire. He’s trying to re-craft his brand. Cruz is the still-quite-new junior senator from Texas who entered the upper congressional chamber in January 2013 with his mouth blazing away. He hasn’t shut his trap since.

Both of these guys have never seen a TV camera they didn’t like. Cruz is especially enamored of the sound of his voice and the appearance of his face on TV.

It’s going to be tough for both of them to run for president, each trying to outflank the other on the right wing of their already-extreme right-wing party.

Who will jump in first? And will the other one back away?

And what about Ryan and Romney, Biden and Clinton, and Rubio and Bush?

This is going to get tense.