Tag Archives: Ted Cruz

national news, political news

How to define a 'Values Voter'?

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It is amusing, although not in a guffawing kind of way.

The Values Voter Summit has declared U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to be its kind of politician. They like his “values.”

Good for him.

I am left to wonder, though, why the conservative wing of the once-great Republican Party has laid claim to speaking for American voters’ values.

It must be marketing. The far right wing of the GOP has managed to brand itself as representing “values.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/ted-cruz-values-voter-conference-111363.html?hp=l4

Once-moderate GOP leaders need not step up to the microphone at this Washington, D.C. gathering. Democrats? Don’t even think about it. The podium belongs to those on the far right. It’s their values that count.

My values? Forget about it.

However, let’s look at the values of those who haven’t attended these “summits.”

I’ll gladly stand as an example of one of those Americans. For instance:

* I’ve served my country in uniform, gone to war for the U.S. of A. and served honorably in the U.S. Army.

* I have been married to the same woman for more than 43 years. We love each other deeply.

* My two sons are both upstanding men who now are in their 40s. We see and hear from them regularly. They’re hard-working, industrious, intelligent, well-educated, good-hearted men who make us proud every single day.

* I pay my taxes on time every year.

* I attend church fairly regularly and have served as an elder at the mainstream Presbyterian church my wife and I attend.

* I have voted in every presidential election since 1972. I split my ticket generously between Democrats and Republicans up and down the ballot. But I have voted Democrat for every presidential candidate going back to that first vote, when the Vietnam War was starting to wind down.

Ah, yes. There it is. That’s why I’ll never be seen at one of those Voters Values Summit meetings. I have voted for those dreaded Democrats for president.

The rest of it? I think I am an individual with pretty sound values — and I am quite sure I speak for many millions of other values-driven Americans who aren’t part of that right-wing fringe of society that shouts about its own values and thinks it speaks for all Americans.

Hardly.

International news, national news, political news

We are not engaging in a religious war

The Values Summit is underway in Washington, D.C., and the usual cavalcade of kooks is drumming up something akin to a religious war.

The international war on terror, they imply strongly, is a war between Christians and Jews against Muslims.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/ted-cruz-values-voter-conference-111363.html?hp=f2

Let’s hold on here.

It is a war pitting civilized human beings against cult followers.

Michelle Bachmann, the lame-duck Minnesota congresswoman, kept harping on what she called “Islamic terrorists.” So did lame-duck Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and a roundtable of “experts” who contend that Muslims pose an existential threat to our way of life.

Give me a break.

Another conservative American president, George W. Bush, was quite astute back when this war began immediately after 9/11 to declare that America is not waging war against Islam. He singled out the terrorists who have perverted a great religion to suit their insane political cause. Does anyone remember when President Bush visited a mosque in New York immediately after touring the wreckage of where the World Trade Center stood?

The Islamic State is not a religious organization. It is a cult. It is a cabal of sociopathic murderers who seek to use religion as a pretext to commit heinous acts of terrorism on innocent people.

They are the enemy. The do not represent Islam any more than, say, the crackpots at Westboro Baptist “Church” in Topeka, Kan., represent Christianity.

The task now is to persuade the goofballs on the right to quit trying to make this a religious war.

It is no such thing.

national news, political news, State news

Sen. Cruz denies the obvious

Someone will have to pass the smelling salts to me. I must have been in a stupor the past year or so.

Either that or U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is utterly delusional.

I’ll go with the latter for now.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2014/09/cruz-denies-playing-role-in-congressional-gridlock/

Cruz is a Texas Republican who has denied playing a role in shutting the government down over a fight about the Affordable Care Act. He said at Texas Tribune Fest that the “blame” belongs to President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Cruz’s role in that debacle? He says he didn’t have any role to play.

Huh? Cruz’s Republican colleague in the Senate, fellow Texan John Cornyn, said otherwise.

So has every observer of Capitol Hill — Democrat, Republican, independent, media observers — said that Cruz was a key player in the shutdown.

He filibustered against the ACA trying to repeal it. Didn’t he do that?

Of course, Cruz blamed the media — which he said sides with Democrats — for the characterizations attached to the junior senator. According to a blog posted by the San Antonio Express-News: “Remarking that Republicans are usually criticized as either crazy or evil, Cruz said he took it as ‘somewhat of a back-handed compliment that the press has invented a third caricature of me, which is crazy.’”

Well, he’s not crazy. Almost everything he’s done publicly since joining the Senate in January 2013, though, reveals a burning ambition. He’s been out front on high-profile issues almost from Day One of his still-young Senate tenure. He ignores Senate decorum. He’s drawn the ire of fellow Republicans as well as Democrats.

Now he says he had nothing to do with the government shutdown.

The young man possesses some serious hubris.

International news, political news

What's this? Ted Cruz is right about something?

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Imagine my shock and horror when I read something that came out of Sen. Ted Cruz’s mouth that I found agreeable.

The Texas Republican says the United States should revoke the citizenship of any American known to have taken up arms with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Being a fair-minded guy, I want to stipulate that not every loathsome politician is utterly devoid of a good idea once in a while.

Cruz’s notion, as I understand it, is perfectly OK with me.

“There can be no clearer renunciation of their citizenship in the United States, and we need to do everything we can to preempt any attempt … to re-enter our country and carry further attacks on American civilians,” Cruz said.

Amen to that.

I’d like to take that point a step or two further.

First, we should revoke the citizenship of any American known to associate with any terrorist organization. Let’s not limit it to ISIL membership. Al-Qaeda has done terrible things to Americans, as we all know; it, too, has boasted of American-born members, some of whom have been killed by U.S. forces in the on-going war against international terror.

Second, revoking U.S. citizenship of known terrorists removes them from any effort to exempt them from becoming victims of military strikes. I’ve said already that I have no difficulty with American forces killing Americans who’ve taken up arms against their country. Others have questioned the correctness of killing U.S. citizens without giving them “due process.” By my way of thinking, those citizens gave up their rights to due process the moment they suited up in enemy colors.

These so-called Americans have all but renounced their citizenship. Ted Cruz’s idea takes that renunciation a key step further.

Now that I’ve said something in agreement with Ted Cruz, I’ll need some smelling salts.

Still, his idea is on point.

 

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'Perry vs. Cruz' enters new phase

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Whether the governor of Texas actually serves any jail time if he’s convicted of anything illegal remains an open question.

I doubt he’ll be eating jail food. I’m not even sure he’ll be convicted.

Rick Perry’s indictment for allegedly abusing the power of his office, however, does bring into question whether he’ll be able to challenge for the White House in 2016. Why, he’s not even the most popular Texas conservative thinking about running for the presidency.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/08/16/while-flirting-2016-perry-cruz-woo-same-groups/

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is the darling of the conservative movement these days, although Perry’s been making inroads with the Republican Party base. He deployed 1,000 National Guard troops to protect us against those children fleeing repression in Central America, which of course has the GOP faithful all fired up.

Texas GOP voters, though, seem to like Cruz’s fiery rhetoric. “As the Texas Tribune reports: Even before his recent legal troubles, Perry was already operating in Cruz’s shadow, as most conservative activists in attendance made clear they would rather see the freshman senator vie for the White House in two years than the three-term governor.”

The indictment issued in Travis County is resonating far beyond the Texas capital city. It gives the governor one more potential embarrassment that he must put behind him. His brief run for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination ended badly in a series of missteps, misstatements, forgetfulness and downright weird behavior.

Now this.

Say this, though, for Cruz. He’s coming to his friend’s defense, issuing this statement: “Unfortunately, there has been a sad history of the Travis County District Attorney’s Office engaging in politically-motivated prosecutions, and this latest indictment of the governor is extremely questionable. Rick Perry is a friend, he’s a man of integrity – I am proud to stand with Rick Perry. The Texas Constitution gives the governor the power to veto legislation, and a criminal indictment predicated on the exercise of his constitutional authority is, on its face, highly suspect.”

That statement isn’t likely to improve Perry’s possible presidential campaign chances. Look for Cruz to ramp up the conservative rhetoric, hitting every GOP base hot button he can find, even at his “friend’s” expense.

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Ted Cruz: Texas-sized embarrassment

Ted Cruz is my senator. I accept that he’s one of two men who serve in the U.S. Senate on behalf of Texas.

I didn’t vote for him in 2012. I likely never will vote for him for anything. Still, he’s my senator.

And that gives me the right to declare that I am ashamed of him. Deeply so, in fact. His latest shameful attack has been leveled at the State Department, the Federal Aviation Administration and the president of the United States over his idiotic suggestion that the FAA ban on U.S. flights to Israel is somehow intended to do actual harm to our strong ally in the Middle East.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/ted-cruz-faa-ban-state-department-109322.html?hp=l21

This guy is a Harvard-educated lawyer, right? He’s supposed to be a bright guy, correct? What on God’s Earth is he suggesting here? It cannot possibly be that President Barack Obama actually wants Israel to be wiped off the map, which is what the Hamas terrorists want to happen.

Hamas launched the conflict in Gaza by firing rockets into Israel. The Israelis have responded with tremendous force to put down the uprising. The terrorists have ratcheted up their own response by landing a rocket near the major international airport outside of Tel Aviv.

The FAA suspended U.S.-carrier flights for less than two days. The ban has been lifted. Cruz, though, has suggested the FAA, the State Department and the White House are politically motivated, that they want to harm Israel.

Commentators on the left have compared Cruz’s fire-breathing rhetoric to the stuff that came out of Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s mouth in the 1950s, when he accused the State Department of hiring communists.

I’m wondering now if Ted Cruz’s reckless implications today will produce the kind of response that McCarthy drew from his critics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1eA5bUzVjA

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Flight ban was no embargo

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The Federal Aviation Administration has lifted its brief ban on commercial U.S. jet service to David Ben-Gurion International Airport.

Did the FAA knuckle under to some ridiculous political criticism? I hope not.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/faa-lifts-flight-ban-to-tel-aviv-109319.html?hp=r5

The FAA had banned the flights into Tel Aviv’s air terminal, citing security concerns created by Hamas’s rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. One rocket landed about a mile from Ben-Gurion, causing the FAA to suspend U.S. air carrier service to the massive airport.

Then came the ridiculousness from the likes of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Their complaint? They called the flight-service suspension an “economic embargo on Israel” that punished the Israelis unfairly.

Bloomberg even went so far as to board an Israeli El Al Airlines jet from New York to Tel Aviv, and fly to Israel to make some kind of bombastic statement criticizing the suspension.

Cruz, of course, wasted no time plastering this decision — which was made independently by the FAA — on President Obama. This has become a common theme from Cruz and other loudmouthed Republican lawmakers: Let’s be sure to politicize this any way we can and, oh yes, be sure to put the blame squarely on the president; and in this case, let’s be sure to imply that he is following some kind of “anti-Israel” policy, which of course is standard for someone with “pro-Muslim” leanings.

Their stupidity is mind-boggling.

And to think Republicans still rail at those who — they contend — still want to blame George W. Bush for the nation’s economic mess and all these foreign-policy crises.

Well, the ban on U.S. carriers’ flights to David Ben-Gurion has lifted. That’s a good thing. The FAA assessed the security risk and determined that it’s OK to fly there.

Take it from me, as one who’s flown in and out of that terminal: You haven’t lived until you’ve been interrogated by an Israeli airport security official prior to boarding an outbound flight from David Ben-Gurion International Airport.

They know how to protect themselves against terrorist attacks.

As for the FAA, they were being extra cautious. Given the stakes involved, I’m glad they locked down those flights.

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Obamacare is — what? — working? Who knew?

The Affordable Care Act has done what? It has reduced the number of uninsured Americans?

Goodness, gracious. That must mean the act — aka Obamacare — is working. It’s doing its job. It’s providing health security for millions of Americans.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/obamacare-lowers-uninsured-108789.html?hp=l1

A story on Politico.com by David Nather reports: “Survey after survey is showing that the number of uninsured people has been going down since the start of enrollment last fall. The numbers don’t all match, and health care experts say they’re not precise enough to give more than a general idea of the trend.”

And yet, House Speaker John Boehner is suing President Obama because the president allegedly changed a law by postponing the mandatory employer mandate provision in the law — which I believe is what Boehner and his Republican colleagues actually wanted done.

My head is spinning.

The numbers being reported aren’t yet rock-solid. Nather reports there remains a “lot of variation” in the statistics of uninsured Americans. Still, the bottom line is that fewer Americans are uninsured today than when the Affordable Care Act was rolled out.

As expected, Republicans continue to call the ACA a failure. Sen. Ted Cruz told Politico: “Four years ago, before the law was implemented, it was possible to have good-faith disagreements about whether the law would work. Today, seeing the utter disaster that has played out … to me, it is the essence of pragmatism to realize that the law isn’t working, and to repeal it and start over.”

Wait a minute, senator. The law is working. The number of uninsured has declined. Isn’t that the goal?

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Butt out, Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz needs to shut his pie hole.

The junior Republican senator from Texas is calling for an investigation into possible voter fraud in Mississippi. His colleague, veteran GOP Sen. Thad Cochran won the runoff there despite signals he’d lose to tea party challenger Chris McDaniel.

Cruz, the loudmouth freshman senator from way out here, thinks some fraud took place. He wanted McDaniel to win the race and he just can’t believe Cochran pulled off a victory.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/ted-cruz-mississippi-gop-primary-thad-cochran-108643.html?hp=l9

Here’s what happened, Ted.

African-American Democrats in Mississippi became alarmed that McDaniel actually might win. So they crossed over — which is as legal in Mississippi as it is in Texas — to vote for Cochran. These crossover voters aren’t exactly enamored of Cochran, but they saw him as far more palatable than the fiery McDaniel, who’s been known to utter racially tinged comments on his radio show.

Those voters put Cochran over the top and positioned him to win a seventh term as senator from the Magnolia State.

Was there actual fraud? I doubt it seriously. There instead was a concerted effort by the Cochran campaign to recruit support where no one expected to find it.

It was a brilliant strategy.

Now, Sen. Cruz, tend to business back home.

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Shocker! Cruz wins Texas GOP poll

Boy, that’s a shocker … not!

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tea Party, won the Texas Republican Party’s presidential straw poll.

Stop the presses!

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/06/07/cruz-runs-away-straw-poll-gop-convention/

Cruz has become the poster boy for virtually all statewide GOP office seekers this election cycle. They want his endorsement, their pictures taken with him, sound bites with Cruz saying their name, pictures of him kissing their small children … you name it, Cruz is The Man if you’re a Texas Republican.

Perhaps the real surprise of the straw poll is that Gov. Rick Perry finished fourth. Perry is now thought widely to be considering another run for the presidency in 2016. He’s a lame duck governor and he’s not going out with a whimper. He’s going out with a whoop and a holler and veiled promise to keep himself available for speaking gigs, fundraisers and other things political.

The Texas GOP gathering is wrapping in Fort Worth. Republicans have good reason to be feeling giddy. They hold every elected statewide office available. One of them, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Larry Meyers, switched to the Democratic Party this past year and is running for the state Supreme Court as such — so he doesn’t really count as a Democratic statewide officeholder.

Our state Republican infatuation with Ted Cruz, though, is fascinating to watch. The young man has hit just about every Republican hot button there is to hit.

He kind of reminds of Perry in that regard.

And think, also, of the delightful contest if both Cruz and Perry decide to run for president in two years.

I can’t wait.