Tag Archives: Ted Cruz

Uncategorized

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?

Uncategorized

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.

Uncategorized

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.

Uncategorized

Benghazi = Birtherism

It’s beginning to sound, to me at least, that the Benghazi story is going to stay in the news through the 2016 election cycle.

After the election, it will disappear.

http://mediamatters.org/video/2014/06/01/fox-panel-laughs-at-laura-ingrahams-unrelenting/199529

Why then? It’s becoming clearer by the week that right wing think tanks, media outlets and politicians want to keep the issue roiling as long as former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is in the hunt for the presidency during the next two years.

If she decides to run, which most folks think is a given, it will continue to be a discussion topic right up to Election Day. Then we’ll have the result. She’ll either be elected or defeated by a Republican; I’m assuming, of course, that she’ll be the Democratic nominee for president.

After that, the issue goes away. Quietly. Suddenly. Just disappears.

It kinda/sorta reminds me of the birtherism issue that dogged Barack Obama through two election cycles. There were those on the right who questioned whether he was constitutionally qualified to serve as president, alleging he was born in Kenya, rather than Hawaii.

We all heard the yammering, yes? Forget that we’ve heard very little from the left on the issue regarding another possible presidential candidate, Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who actually was born in Canada. Mama Cruz is an American, however, which makes him a U.S. citizen.

Hey, wait a minute. Wasn’t President Obama’s mother an American, too, which made him qualified to serve as president — even if he had been born in a foreign country?

Whatever. The birthers stopped their preposterous notion the moment he was re-elected in 2012.

I’m betting the same thing will happen with this Benghazi matter, no matter the outcome of the House select panel’s investigation into that horrible Sept. 11, 2012 fire fight that killed four Americans at the consulate in Libya.

These “scandals” do have a way of materializing — and vaporizing — at politically opportune times.

Uncategorized

Dewhurst a goner?

It’s looking like today is going to signal the end of a once-promising political career in Texas.

I’m still trying to figure out how it got to this point.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has been locked in a form of political mud wrestling with state Sen. Dan Patrick for, yes, Dewhurst’s job as presiding officer of the Texas Senate. The Republican runoff is today and it appears — from my vantage point — that Patrick is going to win this thing.

That means Dewhurst likely is finished as an elected political figure.

This leaves me with terribly mixed feelings.

For starters, I grew to respect Dewhurst immensely in all the years I’d reported and commented on his activities first as Texas land commissioner and then as lieutenant governor.

He came out of virtual nowhere to be elected as land commissioner, taking office in 1999. He hadn’t held any political office. He was a big-time political money man in Houston, where he developed his power base. He ran for lieutenant governor in 2002 and won that race too. He was re-elected twice and then ran for the U.S. Senate in 2012 for the seat being vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison.

That’s where the trouble began. He got outmaneuvered on the right by Ted Cruz, whose extreme views forced Dewhurst to seek to outflank Cruz on the right — which was virtually impossible. Cruz won the GOP nomination, while Dewhurst went back to work as lieutenant governor.

Now he’s in another likely futile battle.

My respect for Dewhurst grew as I watched him work the Senate. No one could out-detail this guy when it came to the nuts and bolts of legislation. He could talk both of your ears off with legislative minutiae. Indeed, he did that to me on numerous occasions.

However, in this political climate, intimate knowledge of legislation — and an ability to work with members of both political parties — no longer is good enough to stay in public office. You need to be a quick-tongued, fire-breathing sloganeer. That’s what Ted Cruz proved to be in 2012 and what Dan Patrick has demonstrated this year.

Dewhurst has tried to fire back at Patrick — just as he tried against Cruz — but he has appeared clumsy and unsure of himself. That’s not his style.

Patrick won the March GOP primary, but didn’t get enough votes to avoid a runoff. He’s only pushed the pedal harder against the metal in the runoff.

A part of me wants Dewhurst to win, only to demonstrate that there really is value in experience and knowledge. Another part of me is disappointed in the extreme tone he has taken in this campaign to try to counter the relentless attacks by his runoff opponent.

Therein is the source of my mixed feelings about this race.

I’m afraid David Dewhurst’s time on the stage is about to end. Turn out the lights.

Uncategorized

Texas right wing at war with itself

If you think the conservative wing of the Texas Republican Party — which is pretty conservative from top to bottom as it is — is locking arms in a unified battle … think again.

Some mail I received yesterday and today suggests a serious civil war within the party. Now I will explain.

Four campaign fliers have come to our house in the past two days. They involve Ryan Sitton and Wayne Christian, two men running for the GOP nomination for Texas railroad commissioner.

Sitton and Christian both proclaim themselves to be proud conservatives, one of whom will be nominated next Tuesday when the statewide runoff election occurs.

They both feature themselves standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the current conservative pooh bah of Texas political officeholders, Sen. Ted Cruz. Sitton’s material implies a Cruz endorsement. But wait. Christian’s card today implied more or less the same thing. “Wayne Christian stood with Ted Cruz when others would not,” Christian’s campaign card declares right over a picture with Christian and Cruz standing closely together while grinning for the camera.

Another flier today came from the Young Conservatives of Texas, which listed its preferred candidates for the May 27 GOP runoff. Who’s name is listed under railroad commissioner? Wayne Christian.

OK, that settles it. Right? Wrong.

Another flier also arrived today from … Conservative Republicans of Texas.

That group, based out of Houston, says Christian is “wrong on energy and wrong for Texas.” The flier also notes that Christian is “under fire for pushing green energy mandates and Solyndra-like subsidies.” The text on the flier says that “Christian’s mandate effort received support from liberal tree huggers.”

Green energy mandates? Oh … my … goodness. We can’t have that. We simply cannot have a railroad commissioner advocating for environmentally friendly energy sources to, um, protect the planet.

Whatever.

Christian still is buddies with Ted Cruz. So is Sitton.

Both of these candidates proclaim themselves ready to out-conservative the other guy.

Hurry up and get here, Runoff Election Day. I’m ready for some real knock-downs between actual conservatives and actual liberals.

Uncategorized

Tea party takes it on the chin

Those silly tea party insurgents keep getting their heads handed to them.

Then they keep coming back for more.

The results from this past Tuesday showed that the Republican Party “establishment” is getting stronger while the tea party wing of the GOP is losing its punch.

http://thehill.com/opinion/ab-stoddard/206894-ab-stoddard-tea-party-left-in-the-dark

Tea party challenges lost Senate races in Kentucky, Oregon, Idaho and Georgia. Those equally nutty Republican primary voters decided to go with more “business-friendly” candidates, according to A.B. Stoddard, writing for The Hill.

The tea party has shown this amazing ability to present candidates who become true wack jobs. Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock sought Senate nominations and then made bizarre statements about women, rape and abortion. Remember Christine O’Donnell, the loon who ran for the Senate in Delaware? She proclaimed some fascination with witchcraft. You cannot possibly forget Sharron Angle in Nevada, who proved to be unsuitable at every level possible to serve in the U.S. Senate.

I don’t know what this means for the Republicans down the road. My hope is that sanity may be reasserting itself within the once-great political party.

House Speaker John Boehner in recent months has expressed his disgust with the clowns who have taken his House caucus hostage. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell actually has had the “temerity” to broker a budget deal with Democratic Vice President Joe Biden.

The tea party wing of the GOP has no shortage of goofballs. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas tops the list; Cruz actually is making fellow Republican Sen. John Cornyn, a fellow Texan, look and sound reasonable.

I am longing for a return of the mood in Washington when Democrats and Republicans could work together to solve national problems. Bring back the spirits of Republican Everett Dirksen and Democrat Lyndon Johnson.

Uncategorized

Cruz asks trick question on ACA

Ted Cruz is a smart Texas lawyer and a U.S. senator who ought to know this basic tenet about the legal profession: Never ask a question without knowing the answer you’ll get.

Well, the junior Republican lawmaker from Texas posed this question March 24 on Facebook: “Quick poll: Obamacare was signed into law four years ago yesterday. Are you better off now than you were then? Comment with YES or NO!.”

The question received more than 55,000 responses and the respondents were — are you ready for this one? — quite positive in their comments on the Affordable Care Act.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/ted-cruz-obamacare-facebook-poll-105306.html?ml=tb

You’ll recall that Sen. Cruz staged that fake filibuster on the Senate floor as he sought to persuade his colleagues to join him in killing the ACA. It didn’t work.

Also, you might recall that the Cruz Missile said he’d do “whatever it takes” to eliminate the law, to wipe off the books a law that an earlier Congress approved and the president signed.

One of his tactics, apparently, was to gin up support on Facebook for his effort. That didn’t work out too well, either.

As Politico.com reports, of the 100 most recent comments on Cruz’s Facebook page, only two of them were negative. The rest of them were testimonials on how the ACA has helped people’s lives, provided them with affordable health insurance and actually reformed the nation’s health care system.

Cruz staff says the results were cooked up by liberal websites that had rallied their followers for responses among those who favor the law. The senator’s staff insists the law is wildly unpopular with Americans.

OK, if that’s the case, then where were their responses to this, um, survey?

Uncategorized

Rand Paul makes sense on outreach

Listen up, tea party wing of the Republican Party.

One of your own is making sense on ways your party can reach out more effectively to a growing minority of voters in the United States.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/rand-paul-gop-must-get-beyond-deportation-105241.html

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a possible candidate for president in 2016, says the GOP must get “beyond deportation” if it hopes to attract Latino voters.

Think about that. So many leading Republicans were saying during the 2012 presidential campaign that deportation — or “self-deportation,” as Mitt Romney called it — was one way to rid the country of illegal immigrants.

“The bottom line is, the Hispanic community, the Latino community is not going to hear us until we get beyond that issue,” Paul said this week.

Who wants to wager whether the Republican Party is going to heed this sound advice? I’m not yet willing to believe the tea party wing of the GOP — the minority within the party with the loudest voice — is going to take the bait.

I do admire Paul, though, for telling the harsh truth to his GOP tea party brethren. Indeed, another key member of that wing of the party — Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas — is an immigrant himself. The Texas Cruz Missile, though, keeps talking tough on immigration, brushing off efforts to reform the system in a comprehensive, constructive way.

Keep driving home the message, Sen. Paul. Maybe one day they’ll get it. Then again, maybe they won’t.

Uncategorized

Ted Cruz works for me, too

“I don’t work for the Party bosses in Washington, I work for 26 million Texans.” – Cruz

The above quote was tweeted this morning by the Heritage Foundation, perhaps the nation’s pre-eminent conservative think tank.

The “Cruz” at the end of the tweet is none other than U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who spoke to Heritage today. I caught a little bit of his remarks in which he criticized President Obama for saying at the State of the Union that if Congress doesn’t act on some legislation, “I will.” Cruz noted that Democrats stood and cheered the president. Cruz compared the moment to something out of Alice in Wonderland.

OK, back to the tweet.

He works for Texans, not party bosses. I admire that statement. He does work for us. A majority of Texans who voted in November 2012 elected Cruz to the Senate seat held formerly by another Republican, Kay Bailey Hutchison who, I feel compelled to add, served in a manner that bore no resemblance to the way Cruz has served his bosses back home. Hutchison managed to work quite well with Democrats. As a Republican moderate, Hutchison didn’t feel the need to appeal to the base of her party. She knew that legislating requires compromise.

Yep, Cruz works for all Texans, not just those who voted for him. I was part of the minority of voters who in November 2012 cast a ballot for Democrat Paul Sadler. That doesn’t mean I disavow Cruz’s election. I honor it. However, I expect my elected representatives in Congress to honor my wishes too.

I support the Affordable Care Act. I do not want Congress to threaten to throw this nation into default by reneging on our debt obligations. I support the president’s response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. I believe the president has been measured, nuanced and careful in conducting foreign policy. I favor comprehensive immigration reform. I believe long-term unemployed Americans deserve some help from the government as they look for jobs.

There’s more, but you get the idea. I take positions opposite of where Cruz stands. I am not alone, either.

He works for millions of Texans who oppose his world view. Those of us on the other side of the fence deserve to have our voices heard by our congressional delegation. That includes Sen. Cruz.

I understand the concept of majority rule. That doesn’t mean, though, that the minority is shut out completely. Sen. Cruz acts very much as though he’s listening only to those who agree with him.

He works for 26 millions Texans, not just some of us.