Ted Cruz twitter fun thread

[Blake]

587405537588809728

Smh

[Blake]

587406159826526208

[Blake]

587414216874663936

[Blake]

587448531364872192

Lol

[DarrinS]

Blake -- which of these is your twitter account?

[DarrinS]

Jeebus freaks, everywhere

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.politicsdaily.com/media/2010/04/obama-easter-2.jpg

[Blake]

Blake -- which of these is your twitter account?

All of them

[Blake]

Jeebus freaks, everywhere

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.politicsdaily.com/media/2010/04/obama-easter-2.jpg

what policies has he made that were Christian based?

[Spurminator]

Clearly anyone who prays is comparable to John Hagee.

And how silly to question a Presidential candidate's association with a specific church minister as though that's going to affect his policy decisions, right? I can't think of any other time that's happened.

[Blake]

Lol i wanna see the background checks on these entries

587720427323011072

[Blake]

Background question 1: Are you going to shoot at Ted Cruz?

[RandomGuy]

Background question 1: Are you going to shoot at Ted Cruz?

Wonder if Dick Cheney is up for it.... hehehehehehe

[boutons_deux]

Clearly anyone who prays is comparable to John Hagee.

And how silly to question a Presidential candidate's association with a specific church minister as though that's going to affect his policy decisions, right? I can't think of any other time that's happened.

Cruz and Hagee are both extreme right Bible humping religious extremists, just like Cruz' fucked up father. To think Pres Krazy Kruz + a Repug Congress wouldn't implement Christian-preferential regs, laws is naive.

[Blake]

588360421679083520

[boutons_deux]

Flat tax = conservative dream to screw the poor

[Infinite_limit]

If Republicans nominate this guy, they will get steam rolled again

[Nbadan]

Guess Cruz has never been to Austin...

Ted Cruz: 'I don't think I've ever seen an Hispanic panhandler'


Presidential candidate and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said on Wednesday that he has never seen a Hispanic person begging for money on the street.

"I don't think I've ever seen an Hispanic panhandler. And the reason is: In our community it would be shameful to be begging on the street," Cruz said, recalling a conversation he once had with a Latino businessman on the topic.

Cruz, who is of Cuban descent, made the point while speaking in Washington at a question-and-answer session with the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

He used the example to argue the Republican Party should be able to compete for the Latino vote. Hispanics, Cruz said, share many of the same values that are championed by GOP leaders.

http://www.businessinsider.com/ted-cruz-says-hes-never-seen-an-hispanic-panhandler-2015-4

Stupid GOP think they attract Hispanics with Cubans...

[Blake]

How the hell do we have dumbfucks like this making semi serious runs at president

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz blames Obama — saying the first black president has ‘inflamed racial tensions’

The speech (http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/ted-cruz-obama-has-inflamed-racial-tensions-n350721)included other controversial assertions, including that the growth of national support for same-sex marriage was “heartbreaking” and that Democrats had tried to “scare” Hispanics into voting for them by talking about immigration.

Cruz said that Obama “could have chosen to be a leader” on race relations, but instead “has made decisions that I think have inflamed racial tensions – that have divided us rather than bringing us together”

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/04/ted-cruz-blames-obama-saying-the-first-black-president-has-inflamed-racial-tensions/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

... sez Krazy Kruz, the inflamed, flaming asshole

[Blake]

Ted just doing wut many good Christians do. Make bad jokes about other people that don't agree with them.


Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz has apologized for making a joke about Joe Biden just days after the vice president's eldest son died from brain cancer.

"Vice President Joe Biden. You know the nice thing? You don't need a punchline," the Texas senator said at a GOP dinner in Howell, Michigan, on Wednesday night.

"I promise you it works. The next party you're at, just walk up to someone and say, 'Vice President Joe Biden' and just close your mouth. They will crack up laughing," he said, repeating a joke he has used in previous speeches.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/ted-cruz-apologizes-making-joe-biden-joke-during-his-time-n369566

[Blake]

621449695588540417

[Blake]

628214539100667905

[Blake]

628204057614786560

[RandomGuy]

Flat tax = conservative dream to screw the poor

No, actually.

Flat tax would be neutral, all things equal.

The flat tax proposals I have seen have been fairly straightforward, with generous exemptions for the poor.

The overall benefits to the economy in terms of reducing a lot of the cost associated with filing taxes would arguably help.

I would agree that most conservatives really don't care about poor people, even when those conservatives are themselves poor, but the flat tax is an idea that stands out as something that deserves bipartisan support, IMO.

[boutons_deux]

At Koch Brothers funded summit, Ted Cruz attacks Democrats and fellow GOP lawmakers for kowtowing to billionaires

Cruz also embraced "full out denial" on climate change, claiming it's a liberal plan to control the economy

http://www.salon.com/2015/08/03/at_koch_brothers_funded_summit_ted_cruz_attacks_de mocrats_and_fellow_gop_lawmakers_for_kowtowing_to_ billionaires/

and :lol

Meet Ted Cruz’s Billionaire Donors

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/416643/meet-ted-cruzs-billionaire-donors-eliana-johnson

:lol

[Blake]

631864890701905920

[Blake]

639520672151048192

[boutons_deux]

Cruz Renews Assault on GOP Leaders From Senate Floor

GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz took to the floor of the U.S. Senate for an hour on Monday night to again criticize the leadership of his party and to expand the scope of his criticism to include outgoing House Speaker John Boehner and Texas' senior Senator, John Cornyn.

Cruz, wrote (http://www.texastribune.org/2015/09/28/cruz-rips-everyone-senate-floor/) the Tribune's Abby Livingston, "specifically called out Cornyn, along with a handful of other senior Republican senators, for voting down a Cruz amendment targeting funding for Planned Parenthood and the Iran nuclear weapons deal via voice vote. In contrast, Cruz cast himself and conservative senators and House members who frequently vote with him as the only elected members performing their jobs with the will of the American public in mind."

The speech, which was given to a nearly empty Senate chamber, was filled with several cultural references, a rhetorical device similar to his famous 2013 filibuster during which he read from Dr. Seuss.

Cruz's renewed assault on his party's leadership comes as his campaign pursues an "unconventional in modern Republican politics" strategy toward collecting delegates in March's Texas primary.

The campaign, as Livingston writes (http://www.texastribune.org/2015/09/29/ted-cruz-and-texas-delegate-chase/), is looking to maximize delegate counts rather than the traditional strategy of winning states. The Cruz gambit is helped by the fact that his home state of Texas will award its delegates on a proportional basis and that it is the biggest prize among the raft of presidential nominating contest set to take place across the South on March 1.

"We’re working ... to do everything possible to bank those 155 [Texas] delegates on March 1," Cruz's chief strategist, Jason Johnson, told Livingston (http://www.texastribune.org/2015/09/29/ted-cruz-and-texas-delegate-chase/). "If we’re able to do so, the odds are that Ted is the conservative standing after March 15 to square off against whoever the establishment candidate is at that point."

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/09/29/brief/?mc_cid=5ee827732d&mc_eid=d070f58998

Religion makes you Krazy

[pgardn]

Blake -- which of these is your twitter account?

Do you live in San Antonio?

If you do you should understand that there are plenty of Christians who want to throw up when Hagee is mentioned.

[boutons_deux]

No, actually.

Flat tax would be neutral, all things equal.

The flat tax proposals I have seen have been fairly straightforward, with generous exemptions for the poor.

The overall benefits to the economy in terms of reducing a lot of the cost associated with filing taxes would arguably help.

I would agree that most conservatives really don't care about poor people, even when those conservatives are themselves poor, but the flat tax is an idea that stands out as something that deserves bipartisan support, IMO.

if flat tax plan has exemptions for the low end, then it's not flat.

As with any oligarchy tax plan (including Donny T's), flat tax is meant to reduce taxes on the wealthy while increasing taxes on the non-wealthy, esp the poor so that the poor have "some skin in the game" rather than being just freeloaders, takers, criminal frauds.

[RandomGuy]

if flat tax plan has exemptions for the low end, then it's not flat.

As with any oligarchy tax plan (including Donny T's), flat tax is meant to reduce taxes on the wealthy while increasing taxes on the non-wealthy, esp the poor so that the poor have "some skin in the game" rather than being just freeloaders, takers, criminal frauds.

"flat" in terms of progressivity, no.

It is easy though to apply the same rate to everyone, and be "flat" in that regard, but still give the exemptions that make the flat tax a progressive one, instead of regressive in terms of income and fairness.

Trumps plan is garbage, and he knows it. Brings to mind the old saw about "useful idiots", when I see people support it.

[DarrinS]

"flat" in terms of progressivity, no.

It is easy though to apply the same rate to everyone, and be "flat" in that regard, but still give the exemptions that make the flat tax a progressive one, instead of regressive in terms of income and fairness.

Trumps plan is garbage, and he knows it. Brings to mind the old saw about "useful idiots", when I see people support it.



What, specifically, makes it garbage?

I wouldn't mind paying 20% instead of 28%, tbh.

[boutons_deux]

What, specifically, makes it garbage?

... it's from Donny T

[RandomGuy]

What, specifically, makes it garbage?

I wouldn't mind paying 20% instead of 28%, tbh.




What would this largesse cost? Mr Bush’s number crunchers reckoned his plan, which is modest in comparison, would reduce annual receipts by $376 billion, or about 7.5%, by 2025, before accounting for its effect on the economy. Allow—optimistically—for a boost to growth of half a percentage point per year, and the cost falls by two thirds. Mr Trump provides no such detailed estimates but claims, incredibly, that his plan pays for itself. In his press conference, Mr Trump suggested that under his stewardship, the economy might achieve annual growth of five or six percent. That would certainly pay for huge tax cuts, but is a fantasy. :rollin


Mr Trump does suggest some new sources of revenue. He would eliminate many tax deductions, most of which remain unspecified. In particular, the controversial “carried interest” deduction, beloved of partners in private equity firms and hedge funds, would go. This raises, perhaps, $1 billion-2 billion. But Mr Bush promised this too, so it was included in his costings. Mr Trump would cap the tax-deductibility of debt interest. But Mr Bush would abolish it altogether, saving more. The only part of Mr Trump’s plan which is clearly cheaper than Mr Bush’s pertains to the overseas profits of American corporations. Unlike Mr Bush, Mr Trump would keep taxing these earnings (though companies will no longer be able to defer paying until the money is brought back, ending the incentive to stash cash overseas).

Mr Trump is supposed to be a new kind of politician; a straight-talker who, freed from the usual constraints of politics by his billions, tells it like it is. But promising to fund tax cuts by closing unspecified loopholes is an old political wheeze. Mr Trump says the country’s “top” economists helped to develop his plan; alas, for now they remain anonymous. Any contributor would be wise to stay in the background. Mr Trump’s plan is twaddle.



http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/09/trumponomics

"Twaddle" :wow This from a rather staid, English publication. That is about as harsh as I have ever seen the Economist get. It is about like anyone else saying "fucking nonsensical bullshit".

[boutons_deux]

Donny T's garbage is based on the same garbage as ALL Repugs: cutting taxes stimulates the economy.

[DarrinS]

Well, as it currently stands, I'm highly discouraged from ever making $150K or more. Holy shit, 40%?

[Splits]

Well, as it currently stands, I'm highly discouraged from ever making $150K or more. Holy shit, 40%?

:lol you don't know how taxes work, do you?

[DarrinS]

:lol you don't know how taxes work, do you?

I got it from the Economist link.

"The plan burnishes Mr Trump’s Republican credentials by giving high earners whacking tax cuts. Individuals earning more than $150,000 will see their marginal tax rate fall from close to 40% now to 25%"

[Splits]

I got it from the Economist link.

"The plan burnishes Mr Trump’s Republican credentials by giving high earners whacking tax cuts. Individuals earning more than $150,000 will see their marginal tax rate fall from close to 40% now to 25%"

Right. So you don't know how taxes work. The term "marginal" is the key. Look it up.

[DarrinS]

Right. So you don't know how taxes work. The term "marginal" is the key. Look it up.


Yeah, because nobody understands marginal tax rates. The maths are so hard!

[Splits]

Well, as it currently stands, I'm highly discouraged from ever making $150K or more. Holy shit, 40%?


Yeah, because nobody understands marginal tax rates. The maths are so hard!

Anyone who would make that first statement does not know how marginal tax rates work. Period. End of discussion.

[DarrinS]

Anyone who would make that first statement does not know how marginal tax rates work. Period. End of discussion.

Me: holy shit, 40% (as in, 40% > 25%)

Shits: You don't understand how marginal tax rates work!


Meh, whatever.

[Spurminator]

Well, as it currently stands, I'm highly discouraged from ever making $150K or more. Holy shit, 40%?

Tell you what, you take your 149k and send me the rest, I will gladly pay the 40% taxes on those dollars.

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz Has No Friends And Everybody Hates Him

Awwww, are all the other Republicans being mean to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Canada) again and pulling his pigtails and telling him he cannot eat his PB&J at their table in the cafeteria, because what a loser, YOU SUCK, TED? Why yes, indeed, they are doing that. Again: (http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/ted-cruz-senate-rebuke-planned-parenthood-214183#ixzz3n7rx3YOC)

Ted Cruz can’t even get a protest vote in the Senate anymore.



On Monday night, Cruz’s colleagues ignored his attempt to disrupt Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s efforts to fund the government without attacking Planned Parenthood.


You may recall the last time Cruz tried to hijack the Senate to push his presidential campaign platform of Vote Cruz To Make His Dry-Drunk Daddy The Lord God Our King Of The Supreme Court (http://wonkette.com/581995/ted-cruz-will-repeal-supreme-court-replace-it-with-his-dad).

Cruz was all butthurt in July because Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was not trying hard enough to defund Planned Parenthood or even issuing idle threats to shut down the government, what a RINO.

McConnell, like his run-out-of-town-on-a-rail pal Speaker John Boehner, (http://wonkette.com/594271/john-boehner-quitting-congress-to-spend-more-time-crying-into-his-wine-glass) is aware that his Democratic colleagues will never allow Congress to enact such a bill, and even if the entire Blue Team called in dead on the day of the vote, President Obama would veto the blazing spitballs (http://wonkette.com/594233/defunding-planned-parenthood-officially-stupidest-gop-idea-since-last-stupidest-idea) out of that sucker, SO THERE IS NO FRIGGIN’ POINT.

(Also, side note, as you know, a huge majority of Americans really do want their taxpayer buckeroos to keep going to Planned Parenthood, please and thank you.)

Read more at http://wonkette.com/594376/ted-cruz-has-no-friends-and-everybody-hates-him-lol#UcGC1vAZypSmw0LI.99

[RandomGuy]

:lol you don't know how taxes work, do you?

I am going to guess not. DarrinS never fails to fail. It is the easiest thing to do, and he does it with such an unself-conscious elan...

[RandomGuy]

Well, as it currently stands, I'm highly discouraged from ever making $150K or more. Holy shit, 40%?

"highly discouraged" :lol

Nobody here, and I mean nobody, believes you would turn down the extra $30k per year you would earn if someone was stupid enough to offer your dumb ass a $200,000 a year job.

GMAFB.

[RandomGuy]

Ted Cruz Has No Friends And Everybody Hates Him

Awwww, are all the other Republicans being mean to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Canada) again and pulling his pigtails and telling him he cannot eat his PB&J at their table in the cafeteria, because what a loser, YOU SUCK, TED? Why yes, indeed, they are doing that. Again: (http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/ted-cruz-senate-rebuke-planned-parenthood-214183#ixzz3n7rx3YOC)

Ted Cruz can’t even get a protest vote in the Senate anymore.



On Monday night, Cruz’s colleagues ignored his attempt to disrupt Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s efforts to fund the government without attacking Planned Parenthood.


You may recall the last time Cruz tried to hijack the Senate to push his presidential campaign platform of Vote Cruz To Make His Dry-Drunk Daddy The Lord God Our King Of The Supreme Court (http://wonkette.com/581995/ted-cruz-will-repeal-supreme-court-replace-it-with-his-dad).

Cruz was all butthurt in July because Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was not trying hard enough to defund Planned Parenthood or even issuing idle threats to shut down the government, what a RINO.

McConnell, like his run-out-of-town-on-a-rail pal Speaker John Boehner, (http://wonkette.com/594271/john-boehner-quitting-congress-to-spend-more-time-crying-into-his-wine-glass) is aware that his Democratic colleagues will never allow Congress to enact such a bill, and even if the entire Blue Team called in dead on the day of the vote, President Obama would veto the blazing spitballs (http://wonkette.com/594233/defunding-planned-parenthood-officially-stupidest-gop-idea-since-last-stupidest-idea) out of that sucker, SO THERE IS NO FRIGGIN’ POINT.

(Also, side note, as you know, a huge majority of Americans really do want their taxpayer buckeroos to keep going to Planned Parenthood, please and thank you.)

Read more at http://wonkette.com/594376/ted-cruz-has-no-friends-and-everybody-hates-him-lol#UcGC1vAZypSmw0LI.99



ROFL.... Ok, gotta admire the good turn of phrase by wonkettes writer...

[RandomGuy]

Plus, like Boehner, he is kinda sick of being bossed around by these uber-conservative newbies who do not understand how Being A Grown-Up Congressperson is supposed to work. (Hahaha, maybe you Republican Party jerkholes shouldn’t have sucked on all those teabags, back when you thought those screeching extremists might help institute a permanent Republican majority!)
In July, when Cruz did not get his way, he had hisself a right hissy fit and called McConnell a stupid dumb-dumb liar, and then Cruz’s Republican colleagues — from his own Republican Party — spent their weekend calling Cruz a stupid dumb-dumb dick stump and saying shade-throwing words like, “We must ensure that the pernicious trend of turning the Senate floor into a forum for advancing personal ambitions, for promoting political campaigns, or for enhancing fundraising activities comes to a stop.” And boy, that was a Sunday funday for everyone who was not Ted Cruz!


Cruz really makes it embarrassing to be a Texan. :(

[admiralsnackbar]

ROFL.... Ok, gotta admire the good turn of phrase by wonkettes writer... Funny... I actually think colloquial, snarky "journalism" like this is one of the principal roots of un-constructive partisan polarization. Different strokes, I guess.

[boutons_deux]

Funny... I actually think colloquial, snarky "journalism" like this is one of the principal roots of un-constructive partisan polarization. Different strokes, I guess.

yes, the Krazy Kruz perpetrator of Christian Sharia, right wing extremism, etc CREATED the polarization. Wonkette is simply trashing him for his, and his fucked up pastor father's Kraziness, which is really being too kind.

[admiralsnackbar]

yes, the Krazy Kruz perpetrator of Christian Sharia, right wing extremism, etc CREATED the polarization. Wonkette is simply trashing him for his, and his fucked up pastor father's Kraziness, which is really being too kind. smh

[Winehole23]

What, specifically, makes it garbage?

I wouldn't mind paying 20% instead of 28%, tbh.Raises the deficit by $12T: http://nypost.com/2015/09/30/trumps-tax-plan-would-raise-deficit-12-trillion-analysis/

[DarrinS]

lol


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsxXty6vEBA

[DMX7]

That first women looks like she related to Hillary Clinton.

[Spurminator]

Whoa, George W. Bush likes practically everyone. If he doesn't like you, something's up.

George W. Bush unleashes on Ted Cruz'I just don't like that guy,' the former president tells donors.
By Eli Stokols (http://www.politico.com/staff/eli-stokols)
10/19/15 07:50 PM EDT
Updated 10/19/15 11:24 PM EDT

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/jeb-bush-george-bush-donors-ted-cruz-214933#ixzz3pFDiB8pM

[spurraider21]

ok

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz: ‘Climate Change Is Not Science. It’s Religion.’

Sen. Ted Cruz, candidate for the highest office in the land, thinks that climate change — a phenomenon widely accepted by the scientists who study it — is a religious belief.

“Climate change is not science. It’s religion,” Cruz told Glenn Beck (http://www.glennbeck.com/2015/10/29/ted-cruz-climate-change-is-not-science-its-religion/) on Thursday.

To back up his claim, Cruz pointed to the way we talk about climate change.

“Look at the language, where they call you a denier,” he said (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-climate-change-not-science-its-religion#sthash.XubbpLCe.dpuf). “Denier is not the language of science … Any good scientist is a skeptic; if he’s not, he or she should not be a scientist. But yet the language of the global warming alarmists, ‘denier’ is the language of religion, it’s heretic, you are a blasphemer.”

During Thursday’s interview, Cruz also patted himself on the back for challenging the president of the Sierra Club at a hearing last month on “the data.”

“He couldn’t answer the most basic fact that for the last 18 years, the satellite data showed no significant warming whatsoever,” Cruz said.

The data he is referring to is very specific (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/03/24/ted-cruz-says-satellite-data-show-the-globe-isnt-warming-this-satellite-scientist-feels-otherwise/). Cruz is looking only at satellite data — not ground-level data or oceanographic data — and he does not say “18 years” just as a random number.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/10/30/3717795/ted-cruz-doesnt-know-the-difference-between-science-and-religion/

language? vocabulary? semantics? all prove climate science is a religion. :lol

Thanks, you ignorant, suckered Texians, for giving this evil asshole a national platform.

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz’s pyrrhic victory: He’s looking better and better — but that means disaster for the GOP

He may be a longshot, but the anti-establishmentarian is on the ascent. But what's good for Cruz is bad for the GOP

If you thought Ted Cruz was going away anytime soon, I’ve got some bad news. The singularly annoying obstructionist has real staying power, and he’s as well-positioned as any of the candidates moving forward. The more Cruz irks his opponents, the more he grandstands, the more entrenched and profitable his campaign becomes.

Even Cruz’s Republican colleagues appear resigned to this fact. “Ted Cruz has been branded a ‘wacko bird’ by a Senate colleague,” write Katie Zezima and David Weigel in the Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-lot-of-people-just-dont-like-ted-cruz-how-come-thats-okay-with-him/2015/11/08/b55a0782-7758-11e5-bc80-9091021aeb69_story.html).

“A GOP consultant labeled him a show horse, and a strategist for a rival presidential campaign call him the Mitt Romney of 2016 – the Republican no other Republican can stand.”

Harsh words indeed, but none of this matters to Cruz. He knows he’s hated by his colleagues in the Senate and by establishment Republicans in general.

But this is a good thing for Cruz. Being loathed by those responsible for governing plays right into his “outsider” narrative. When then-Speaker Boehner called Cruz a “jackass” earlier this year, he responded by saying, “I will wear it as a badge of honor because I refuse to join their club.” The “club,” I presume, is everyone in Washington making a serious effort to navigate the challenges of policymaking in a partisan climate.

Understanding this is key to understanding Cruz’s appeal. There’s a huge swath of the conservative base that doesn’t want to fix Washington so much as explode it (politically speaking, of course). Every time one of those Washington politicians (the “Washington cartel,” as Cruz is fond of saying) criticizes Cruz for his self-serving obstinacy, he capitalizes by sending out fundraising emails touting his anti-establishment credentials. And it’s working.

So far the race has unfolded perfectly for Cruz. His only path to the nomination is as an outsider, someone who can appeal to religious and anti-government conservatives. Cruz is playing the long game right now. He’s comfortably in fourth place in the national polls (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/2016_republican_presidential_nomination-3823.html), just behind Trump, Carson and Rubio.

Cruz’s bet, however, is that Trump and Carson eventually collapse. Although it’s possible that Trump and Carson hang around until the convention, it’s not the most likely scenario. Trump has proven himself vulnerable (http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/donald-trump-poll-drop-rivals-react-215191) in recent months, and one suspects his farcical adventure could end at any moment. The RNC also knows Trump would be a disaster as a general election candidate, and they’ll do everything possible to torpedo his campaign. I’m not confident they can stop Trump, but it remains to be seen.


Carson’s implosion may be underway already. He’s out of his depth and he’s lied with impunity for the entirety of his campaign. But he’s yet to pay a political price for that dishonesty. Things have changed, however. The increased scrutiny (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/opinion/ben-carson-and-the-truth.html) that comes with being a frontrunner has damaged Carson’s brand, and it’s not clear that he can survive for much longer. If Carson does slip in the polls, especially in Iowa, it’s Cruz who is most likely to benefit.

If Trump and Carson do fall, that leaves a massive opening for Cruz in the outsider conservative lane. He’s the logical alternative for Trump and Carson supporters. Cruz knows it, too — he’s been waiting patiently for this to happen. And now that Jeb’s political misadventure is coming to an end, there is only one establishment candidate for Cruz to attack: Marco Rubio.

According to a new Bloomberg report (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-11-09/ted-cruz-sets-sights-on-moderate-marco-rubio), Cruz is already working to brand Rubio as a “moderate.”

“As I look at the race, historically,” Cruz said, “there have been two major lanes in the Republican primary. There’s been a moderate lane and a conservative lane. Marco is certainly formidable in that [moderate] lane.” This is a smart move on Cruz’s part: Calling Rubio a “moderate” is a not-so-thinly-veiled insult in this Republican climate. The base is clamoring for a right-wing outsider, and will reflexively reject anyone who doesn’t fit the bill.

Cruz is still a long-shot to win the nomination, but things are shaping up as well as they possibly could for him at this point.

This race will, ultimately, come down to a battle between the establishment and the base.

History says the establishment will win, but I’m not so sure that will happen in 2016. In any case, Cruz’s only real competition for the non-establishment choice is Trump and Carson, and my money’s on Cruz.

Rubio may end up with the nomination by the end of the convention, but Cruz will make the process as difficult as possible. And like nearly everything else Cruz does, that will be great for him and ruinous to the GOP.

http://www.salon.com/2015/11/09/ted_cruzs_pyrrhic_victory_hes_looking_better_and_b etter_but_that_means_disaster_for_the_gop/

[spurraider21]

this isnt twitter fun

[Blake]

This is tho:

663737599043858432

I hope the muslims and the luciferians got the memo

[rmt]

lol


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsxXty6vEBA

So funny. This is what I'm afraid of - low information voters.

[boutons_deux]

Cuban Peers Dispute Ted Cruz’s Father’s Storyof Fighting for Castro


http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/11/07/us/09CRUZDADweb1/09CRUZDADweb1-articleLarge.jpg

Since he was a boy, Senator Ted Cruz (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/03/23/us/politics/ted-cruz-path-to-presidency.html?inline=nyt-per) has said, all he wanted to do was “fight for liberty” — a yearning that he says was first kindled when he heard his father’s tales of fighting as a rebel leader in Cuba in the 1950s, throwing Molotov cocktails, running guns and surviving torture.

Those stories (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/us/politics/ted-cruz-recalls-how-father-tried-to-join-fidel-castros-army.html), retold by Mr. Cruz and by his father, Rafael, have hooked Republican audiences (http://www.gq.com/story/ted-cruz-republican-senator-october-2013) and given emotional power to the message that the Texas senator is pushing as an increasingly serious contender for the party’s presidential nomination. In their telling, the father’s experience in Cuba — when the country was swept up by the charismatic, young Fidel Castro (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/fidel_castro/index.html?inline=nyt-per), only to see him become a repressive Communist dictator — becomes a parable for the son’s nightmarish vision of government overreach under President Obama.

But the family narrative that has provided such inspirational fire and biographical heft to Mr. Cruz’s speeches, debate performances (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/23/us/politics/ted-cruz-honed-political-skills-in-princeton-debate-club.html) and a recently published memoir is, his father’s Cuban contemporaries say, an embroidered one.

The elder Cruz, 76, recalls a vivid moment at a watershed 1956 battle in Santiago de Cuba, when he was with a hero of the revolution, Frank País, just hours before he was killed in combat.


In fact, Mr. País was killed seven months later and in a different place and manner.

In interviews, Rafael Cruz’s former comrades and friends disputed his description of his role in the Cuban resistance. He was a teenager who wrote on walls and marched in the streets, they said — not a rebel leader running guns or blowing up buildings.

Leonor Arestuche, 79, a student leader in the ’50s whom the Castro government later hired to verify the supposed exploits of revolutionary veterans, said a term existed for people like Mr. Cruz — “ojalateros,” or wishful thinkers. “People wishing and praying that Batista would fall,” she said, “but not doing much to act on it.”

There is no question that Rafael Cruz, who is now a pastor and his son’s most effective and popular campaign surrogate (http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/2015/06/26/ted-cruzs-secret-weapon-win-right), was beaten in 1957 at the hands of agents for Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban dictator.


None of the Cuban historians, hometown comrades from Matanzas and Santiago battle veterans interviewed could corroborate Mr. Cruz's story.

An old neighbor still remembers soldiers bloodying the 18-year-old Mr. Cruz’s face and driving off with him that summer. Mr. Cruz gives a harrowing account of soldiers beating him repeatedly over three or four days, stomping on the back of his head and breaking his teeth. A mug shot in his son’s book shows him with a bruised nose, and a 1959 article in The Daily Texan, the student newspaper at the University of Texas at Austin, which he attended upon fleeing to the United States, reported he had lost “half of his upper denture (http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/the-political-education-of-rafael-cruz#.dedKdxVArM)” in the beatings.

The reason Mr. Cruz was arrested, however, is less clear, and he has offered different explanations. In an interview alongside his son in March, Mr. Cruz said he had sought to recruit to the revolutionary cause someone who turned out to be an informant working for Batista’s regime. The 1959 account, though, did not mention any informant; Rafael Cruz said then that the authorities were alerted to his involvement in the resistance by another man, who gave up only Mr. Cruz’s name after Batista’s forces beat it out of him and left him bleeding in the same cell as Mr. Cruz.

Mario Martínez, who Mr. Cruz confirmed was part of his small revolutionary cell, said he did not recall Mr. Cruz’s being apprehended for trying to recruit someone and said he believed that the cause of his old comrade’s detainment was possession of a revolver — one that Mr. Cruz had never used.
Mr. Martínez declined to be directly interviewed and relayed answers to questions posed by The New York Times about Mr. Cruz through Ms. Arestuche. According to Mr. Martínez’s account, he and Mr. Cruz had belonged to the youth brigade of Mr. Castro’s 26th of July Movement in their hometown, Matanzas, but had done little besides join in protest marches. They never turned to violence, he said.

The fog of almost 60 years can cloud even the clearest of memories, and it is possible that witnesses who can back up Mr. Cruz’s account might exist and come forward. But none of the Cuban historians, former comrades of Mr. Cruz in his hometown or veterans of the Santiago battle reached by The Times could corroborate his story.

Approached in Marietta, Ohio, on Oct. 13, between wooing campaign donors and headlining a Republican dinner, Mr. Cruz was unable to provide the name of any participant from the Santiago assault. “I mean, we were scattered,” he said, adding, “I was with one other guy at a little coffee place or something like that, and I don’t remember his name.”

Unlike some other American presidential candidates (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/06/us/politics/little-affinity-for-marco-rubio-in-cuba-despite-family-roots.html), Ted Cruz remains largely unknown in Cuba, and most of the people interviewed for this article had never heard of him.

But the Cruz campaign rejected those who disputed Rafael Cruz’s version of events as politically motivated.

“To repeat statements from Communist officials in Castro’s Cuba regarding events from nearly 60 years ago as truth is irresponsible reporting and simply has no basis in truth,” Catherine Frazier, a campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement. “For the Batista soldiers who tortured and imprisoned Pastor Rafael Cruz, there was no such confusion.”

A Misplaced Memory

Ted Cruz’s origin story begins in Matanzas, a quiet seaside town where his father grew up along a dirt road shaded with plantain trees, and fished with a line that carved notches into his fingers.

The son of a salesman and a teacher, Rafael Bienvenido Cruz y Díaz wore parted hair and round tortoiseshell glasses at the Arturo Echemendia primary school, an exclusive school in Matanzas with 15-foot wooden doors. At 12, he placed into the town’s private high school. He earned good grades, except in Cuban history, with which he struggled.

Instead, he says, he lived it.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/us/politics/cuban-peers-dispute-ted-cruzs-fathers-story-of-fighting-for-castro.html?_r=0

[boutons_deux]

Study: Average American Can Stand Four Seconds of Ted Cruz

MINNEAPOLIS — In a potential stumbling block for his Presidential ambitions, a new study indicates that the average American can stand only four seconds of exposure to Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican.

The study, conducted by University of Minnesota researchers during Tuesday night’s Republican debate, required subjects to be connected to electrodes to measure their tolerance for the senator.
Within four seconds of watching Cruz, the majority of participants begged to be released from the experiment, researchers reported.

In a more encouraging finding for the senator, when the same research subjects were exposed to Cruz with his voice muted, they could tolerate him for up to six seconds, the data showed.

According to the University of Minnesota’s Davis Logsdon, who supervised the study, the results portend “significant challenges ahead” for Cruz’s campaign. “It’s hard to get your message out if, four seconds in, people just start screaming uncontrollably, as many of our participants did last night,” he said.

A campaign spokesman for Cruz, however, was unfazed by the research. “A study conducted last summer showed that people could only stand Ted for three seconds, so we’re trending in the right direction,” the spokesman said.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/study-average-american-can-stand-four-seconds-of-ted-cruz?mbid=nl_111115%20Borowitz%20Newsletter%20(1)&CNDID=&spMailingID=8243437&spUserID=MjczNzc0Njk0NDAS1&spJobID=801105075&spReportId=ODAxMTA1MDc1S0

[DarrinS]

Why do you keep posting unfunny Horowitz?

[boutons_deux]

Why do you keep posting unfunny Horowitz?

why do you keep posting?

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz’s ‘crazy’ tax plan would cost US at least $16 trillion: analysts

http://www.rawstory.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/cruz_face-800x430.jpg


http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/ted-cruzs-crazy-tax-plan-would-cost-us-at-least-16-trillion-analysts/

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz’s Laughable Disguise

no candidate wears a mask as thick as Ted Cruz’s.

He had it on during last week’s debate, when he lashed out at any Republican who gave any ground on illegal immigration.

“The politics of it would be very, very different if a bunch of lawyers or bankers were crossing the Rio Grande,” he thundered, and there was no mistaking the contempt he meant to communicate for those elite, out-of-touch professionals.

But where does that contempt leave him?

He’s a lawyer, with a degree from Harvard, which was his steppingstone to a conventionally ambitious Supreme Court clerkship.

Where does that contempt leave his wife, Heidi?

She’s a banker, on leave from a job with Goldman Sachs in Houston, where she ran the wealth management unit, which focuses on clients with an average net worth of $40 million.

To hear Cruz talk — or, rather, grandstand — he’s the ultimate outsider, the consummate underdog, in perpetual conflict with the ruling class and in perfect harmony with common folk.

There’s rarely mention of Harvard. Or of Princeton, where he got his college diploma.

There’s rarely mention of his stint (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/30/the-absolutist-2) in the policy shop of George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign, a dynastic enterprise that was as pure an expression of the Republican establishment’s wishes as could be.

There’s rarely mention of his role in recruiting John Roberts, who would later get a seat on the Supreme Court, to the legal team doing battle for Bush during the 2000 Florida recount. No, that would undercut his rants now about Roberts’s insufficiently pure conservatism as the high court’s chief justice.

It would emphasize how well connected Cruz is. And it would contradict his pose for the presidential race, in which he’s the prairie populist, replete with Western iconography and attire.

Cruz outperforms either of them, a former college debate whiz who is practiced at instantaneously constructing an argument for an assigned viewpoint that may not be his own.

HIS greatest distinction as a lawmaker thus far has been his readiness to pursue lost causes that draw attention from a news media that he supposedly loathes, and to skirmish with party colleagues in a way that similarly puts him front and center on TV and prompts headlines about him.

His storytelling is selective. He talks voluminously about his father’s arrival in Texas from Cuba, presenting a harrowing, inspiring immigration narrative that’s probably not the full truth and glides over (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/us/politics/cuban-peers-dispute-ted-cruzs-fathers-story-of-fighting-for-castro.html) many oddities and unanswered questions.

He talks less voluminously about his mother and about Canada, which is where she gave birth to him. She’d grown up in Delaware — not exactly the prairie — and gone to college at Rice University, which is sometimes referred to as the Harvard of the South. Not only that, she majored in mathematics. That was hardly the norm for a woman in the 1950s, and it suggests a certain sophistication, even progressiveness.

He tends to skip over the part about his parents eventually divorcing nonetheless. It was his father’s second failed marriage. That detail doesn’t fit Cruz’s moralizing on the subject of holy matrimony. It doesn’t buttress his extravagant lamentations about the tradition-shattering, God-insulting unions of two men or two women.

But then his education and his station in life don’t exactly buttress the disdain he heaps on intellectuals and the affinity he claims with the hourly laborers of the world.

One of Cruz’s law-school roommates, Damon Watson, told Zengerle: “He said he didn’t want anybody from ‘minor Ivies’ like Penn or Brown.”

Good thing Heidi Cruz got her graduate degree in business administration from Harvard.

he was photographed being driven away in a B.M.W.

What a deluxe chariot for such a down-home guy, but how true to the disparities between his branding and his reality.

He has a pair of favorite cowboy boots, as anyone involved in a masquerade like his must. But they’re not the usual leather. They’re black ostrich skin.

That actually surprises me. I would have expected peacock feathers.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/opinion/sunday/ted-cruzs-laughable-disguise.html

Krazy Kruz is as much of a fraud and liar as addle-brained Carson. And fucking Texians? thanks!

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz Lands Major Endorsement — God

Ted Cruz scored a huge win in the Iowa race Monday, reeling in the endorsement of right-wing Congressman Steve King. But Cruz’s campaign snagged an even bigger supporter, as King specially revealed.

“For almost a year now, my regular prayer has been that God would raise up a leader, whom He would use to restore the soul of America.”

And King was only just getting started with this very special call to prayer for the Republican voters of Iowa.

“Feb. 1, do your duty for God and country — come to caucus, and support Ted Cruz for president of the United States.”

Well, who can argue with that?

http://www.nationalmemo.com/endorse-this-ted-cruz-lands-major-endorsement-god/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Endorse%20This%20-%202015-11-16&utm_term=Endorse_This_Sign_Up

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Why do you keep posting unfunny Horowitz?


why do you keep posting?

:lol

[boutons_deux]

a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing chaired by the presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). The hearing was titled (http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/the-war-on-police-how-the-federal-government-undermines-state-and-local-law-enforcement)

"The War on Police: How the Federal Government Undermines State and Local Law Enforcement."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ferguson-effect-ted-cruz_564a3fe9e4b06037734a52ad?cps=gravity_5020_-8126879300753577988

Krazy Kruz and his voters are fucking nuts.

[Spurminator]

667331189284335616

[DMX7]

Bring back Kay Bailey Hutchison. This man is a disgrace. lol religious test in a country that went out of its way to explicitly write in the constitution that no religious laws shall pass.

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz rallies the theocratic troops, forms a “national prayer team”

"A Time for Prayer” will hold weekly prayer conference calls for Cruz devotees and send out weekly prayer requests

That first Tuesday in December, Texas Tea Party senator and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz will also launch a lofty endeavor — a presidential campaign prayer team.

On Thursday, the presidential candidate announced (https://www.tedcruz.org/news/ted-cruz-announces-formation-of-national-prayer-team/) the formation of his campaign’s national prayer team, “A Time for Prayer.”

“Our nation is in desperate need of God’s favor – these are dangerous days for America,” Cruz wrote in a statement announcing his prayer team. Cruz said that he and his wife Heidi “experience the power of prayer every day” and want to harness that power for the good of his political ambitions:

We’re organizing “A Time for Prayer” to establish a direct line of communication between our campaign and the thousands of Americans who are lifting us up before the Lord. Our nation is in desperate need of God’s favor – these are dangerous days for America, but these are also days of great hope. United in prayer and in purpose, we are committed to reignite the promise of our nation.
[…]
Members will receive weekly emails containing prayer requests and a short devotional. Each Tuesday, members will be invited to a 20-minute prayer conference call.


http://www.salon.com/2015/11/20/ted_cruz_rallies_the_theocratic_troops_forms_a_nat ional_prayer_team/

goddam, Americans are stupid shits.

Krazy Kruz fooling the foolish with Christian Taliban/Christian Supremacy grifter crap. Stupid, ignorant, religion-addled Christians think if somebody talks the God/Christ line of bullshit, he or she is worth supporting and financding, no matter whatever crap he or she spouts.

[boutons_deux]

I Went to Church With Ted Cruz: He is Building an Army of Young Christian Voters in Iowa

I was sitting at a different coffee shop the other day, when one young woman I admire very much stopped to talk about the candidates. I don’t know how many brothers and sisters she has exactly, but I know of at least eight. All are home schooled, well-educated, and smart as smart can be. They are all thoughtful, polite, and I have no doubt all will succeed at life. That is what they have been raised to be. She’s a twenty-something in college.

“Who do you like for president?” I asked.

“Cruz,” she replied, sitting down at the table with me, putting her coffee down. “He’s the only true conservative, and a godly man. A true leader.”

“But he hasn’t done anything,” I said.

“Of course he has,” she replied. “Lots of proposed reforms the RINOs and Democrats wouldn’t accept, and he nearly brought the government down.”

“And almost bringing the government down is good?”

She looked puzzled. “Of course it is. And he’s the only one without a big ego.”

“Cruz? No ego?”

“No, it’s not about him,” she said. “He’s doing the Lord’s work.”

I remembered hearing much the same from another young Republican when when I shared that Cruz and others like him want to turn America into a Christian theocracy.

“What’s wrong with that?” he had replied. “America was founded as a Christian nation, after all.”

Ted Cruz’s exact words to the audience in Oskaloosa, and repeated to a nation of young Christian conservatives across the nation, during story time. It begins in preschool. In the womb maybe.

And if they can’t vote yet, there is always next election, and the following. An army of Christian soldiers. And they are young, and their number is growing.

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/i-went-church-ted-cruz-he-building-army-young-christian-voters-iowa

Christian Taliban cultivated by Krazy Kruz, Christian Sharia implemented if he's elected.

[DMX7]

Ok, Iowa is not the rest of the country. That shit works there, it won't work everywhere.

[boutons_deux]

“Ted Cruz’s anus is where his belly button should be”: Trevor Noah just trolled his Planned Parenthood garbage with TedCruzTrueFacts.com

"Daily Show" also notes most white guys are peaceful bros who just want to lead peaceful lives -- in the suburbs

http://media.salon.com/2015/12/noah-Planned-Parenthood1-620x412.jpg


http://www.salon.com/2015/12/01/ted_cruzs_anus_is_where_his_belly_button_should_be _trevor_noah_just_trolled_his_planned_parenthood_g arbage_with_tedcruztruefacts_com/

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz: ‘There is no doubt’ Planned Parenthood was ‘selling baby parts’

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said there is "no doubt" Planned Parenthood was caught "selling baby parts" and that as president, he would direct the U.S. Department of Justice to open an investigation into the group on his first day in office.

"They were certainly caught on film, that there is no doubt that they were selling baby parts. That is unambiguous," Mr. Cruz told radio host Hugh Hewitt this week. "The videos show senior Planned Parenthood officials selling the parts of unborn children, and it is a federal criminal offense. It's a felony to sell the body parts of unborn children for profit."

"The media, just like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, are trying to politicize this tragic shooting," Mr. Cruz said. "This man was a deranged, homicidal killer, and you and I are both unapologetically pro-life, and that means defending every human life, including the unborn, but also including the police officer and the civilians who lost their lives. And this murder was fundamentally wrong. And the efforts of the media to transform it into their pro-abortion propaganda is as transparent as it is despicable."

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/ted-cruz-there-is-no-doubt-planned-parenthood-was-selling-baby-parts/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

mental health kills people, sane white men with guns don't

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz says there is no ‘war on women’ because we don’t have a condom shortage


Ted Cruz (http://www.texastribune.org/directory/ted-cruz/) on Monday offered a spirited defense of Republicans on women’s health issues, accusing Democrats of creating a phony “war on women” based on claims that his party wants to restrict access to birth control.

“The last I checked, we don’t have a rubber shortage in America,” the GOP presidential candidate said during a town hall here, responding to a question about the availability of contraception to women who want it.

“Look, when I was in college, we had a machine in the bathroom. You’d put 50 cents in and voila!” added Texas’ junior senator, who attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School. “So yes, anyone who wants contraceptives can access them, but it is an utterly made-up, nonsense issue.”

"Jiminy Cricket! :lol This is a made-up, nonsense example.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/ted-cruz-says-there-is-no-war-on-women-because-we-dont-have-a-condom-shortage/

[boutons_deux]

Anyone but Ted Cruz

You’re evaluating candidates for an open job in your company, and you come across one who makes a big impression.

He’s clearly brilliant — maybe smarter than any of the others. He’s a whirlwind of energy. And man oh man can he give a presentation. On any subject, he’s informed, inflamed, precise.

But then you talk with people who’ve worked with him at various stages of his career. They dislike him.

No, scratch that.

They loathe him.

They grant him all of the virtues that you’ve observed, but tell you that he’s the antithesis of a team player. His thirst for the spotlight is unquenchable. His arrogance is unalloyed. He actually takes pride in being abrasive, as if a person’s tally of detractors measures his fearlessness, not his obnoxiousness.

Do you hire this applicant?

No way.

And that’s why voters should be wary — very wary — of Ted Cruz.

He’s surging. I warned you (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/21/opinion/the-scary-specter-of-ted-cruz.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Ffrank-bruni) about this. In a poll of Republicans in Iowa last week, he was in a statistical tie with Donald Trump for the lead.

More and more Republican insiders talk about a battle between Cruz and Marco Rubio for the nomination, or about a three-way, if you will, among Cruz, Rubio and Trump.

And in the voices of these insiders I hear horror, because Trump and Cruz are nasty pieces of work.

Cruz will work overtime in the months ahead to persuade you otherwise. The religious right already adores him, but to go the distance, he needs more support from other, less conservative Republicans, and he knows it. Expect orchestrated glimpses of a high-minded Cruz, less skunk than statesman, his sneer ceding territory to a smile.

You saw this in recent debates. He chided moderators for meanspirited questions. He bemoaned the pitting of one Republican against another. The audacity of those complaints was awe-inspiring: Cruz rose to national prominence with gratuitous, overwrought tirades against fellow party members and with a complete lack of deference to elders in the Senate, which he entered in January 2013, at age 42.
He likened Senate Republicans who recognized the impossibility of defunding Obamacare to Nazi appeasers. They took note.

“As Cruz gains, GOP senators rally for Rubio” said the headline of a story (http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/ted-cruz-marco-rubio-gop-senators-support-2016-216195) this week in Politico, which explained: “The idea of Cruz as the nominee is enough to send shudders down the spines of most Senate Republicans.” Support for Rubio is the flower of anyone-but-Cruz dread.

Anyone but Cruz: That’s the leitmotif of his life, stretching back to college at Princeton. His freshman roommate, Craig Mazin, told (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/19/ted-cruz-at-princeton-creepy-sometimes-well-liked-and-exactly-the-same.html) Patricia Murphy of The Daily Beast: “I would rather have anybody else be the president of the United States. Anyone. I would rather pick somebody from the phone book.” :lol

It’s not easy to come across on-the-record quotes like that, and Mazin’s words suggest a disdain that transcends ideology. They bear heeding.

So does Cruz’s experience in the policy shop of George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign. After Bush took office, other full-time advisers got plum jobs in the White House. Cruz was sent packing to the Siberia of the Federal Trade Commission.

The political strategist Matthew Dowd, who worked for Bush back then, tweeted that “if truth serum was given to the staff of the 2000 Bush campaign,” an enormous percentage of them “would vote for Trump over Cruz.”

Another Bush 2000 alumnus said to me: “Why do people take such an instant dislike to Ted Cruz? It just saves time.”

His three signature moments in the Senate have been a florid smearing of Chuck Hagel with no achievable purpose other than attention for Ted Cruz, a flamboyant rebellion against Obamacare with no achievable purpose other than attention for Ted Cruz, and a fiery protest of federal funding for Planned Parenthood with no achievable purpose other than attention for Ted Cruz. Notice any pattern?

Asked about Cruz at a fund-raiser last spring, John Boehner responded (http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/05/15/john-boehner-ted-cruz-and-a-one-finger-salute/) by raising a lone finger — the middle one.

More recently, Senate Republicans denied Cruz a procedural courtesy that’s typically pro forma.

“That is different than anything I’ve ever seen in my years here,” Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, told The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-lot-of-people-just-dont-like-ted-cruz-how-come-thats-okay-with-him/2015/11/08/b55a0782-7758-11e5-bc80-9091021aeb69_story.html).

Many politicians rankle peers. Many have detractors. Cruz generates antipathy of an entirely different magnitude. It’s so pronounced and so pervasive that he’s been forced to acknowledge it, and he spins it as the price invariably paid by an outsider who challenges the status quo, clings to principle and never backs down.

No, it’s the fruit of a combative style and consuming solipsism that would make him an insufferable, unendurable president. And if there’s any sense left in this election and mercy in this world, it will undo him soon enough.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/opinion/anyone-but-ted-cruz.html

[boutons_deux]

The Utter Recklessness Of Ted Cruz’s Terrorism Bill

The first section of Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) Expatriate Terrorist Act (S. 247) (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s247/text) is about forcibly stripping American citizenship from suspected terrorists. The merits — or lack thereof — of this proposal are largely beside the point because the Supreme Court has been clear that Congress has no power to do so. In a 1967 decision in Afroyim v. Rusk (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s247/text), the Supreme Court held:

In our country the people are sovereign and the Government cannot sever its relationship to the people by taking away their citizenship. Our Constitution governs us and we must never forget that our Constitution limits the Government to those powers specifically granted or those that are necessary and proper to carry out the specifically granted ones. The Constitution, of course, grants Congress no express power to strip people of their citizenship, whether in the implied power to regulate foreign affairs or in the exercise of any specifically granted power (emphasis added).


Cruz often says that “the purpose of the Constitution, as Thomas Jefferson put it, is to serve as chains to bind the mischief of government. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/30/ted-cruzs-curious-choice-of-thomas-jeffersons-words/)” As the Supreme Court has held, citizenship stripping is the very kind of mischief that Senator Cruz professes to abhor.

This part of the proposal is thus either unconstitutional or, if read to conform with Supreme Court precedent, will do nothing to change existing law regarding the government’s ability to strip citizenship from Americans suspected of joining ISIS or other terrorist groups.

It’s actually the second provision of the bill, which has mostly gone unnoticed so far, that would affirmatively harm national security.

It would require the Secretary of State to revoke or deny passports to Americans who are members or attempting to become members of designated foreign terrorist organizations.

But the secretary already possesses this power and has the discretion to decide when and how to exercise it to best protect national security.

By eliminating that discretion, this bill would require action even when it would jeopardize ongoing counterterrorism operations. Mandatory revocation or denial would mean that terrorists would learn that the U.S. government has identified them as suspects — tipping off targets to the existence of ongoing investigations and potentially exposing intelligence sources.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/12/02/3727018/senator-cruz-offers-bad-bill/

[Blake]

671823376227237888

Smhlol

[Blake]

HP2kBSKglN8

[Blake]

cYI3GGDsLqU

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz Holds Second Amendment Rally Days After Deadly Shooting

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cruz-holds-second-amendment-rally?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

Nothing is too low for this scumbag conman, such as stooping down to the very low level of gun fellators.

[boutons_deux]

Krazy Kruz telling Jan how to run the Fed (which he hates)

Ted Cruz Explains the Great Recession

Cruz began a round of questioning by stating that, in the summer of 2008, “the Federal Reserve told markets that it was shifting to a tighter monetary policy. This, in turn, set off a scramble for cash, which caused the dollar to soar, asset prices to collapse and [the consumer price index] to fall below zero, which set the stage for the financial crisis.”

http://www.motherjones.com/files/blog_fed_funds_target_recession_2.jpg

the problem with Cruz's theory is that it just doesn't make sense.

Take a look at the chart on the right, which shows the Fed Funds target rate during the period in question.

In April 2008, the Fed lowered its target rate to 2 percent. Then it waited until October to lower it again.

So the idea here is that if the Fed had acted, say, three months earlier, that would have saved the world. This ascribes super powers to Fed open market policy

Cruz would like to blame the Fed, but they bear only a modest responsibility.

Better culprits include

underregulation of shadow banking;

a housing bubble fueled partly by fraud and partly by Wall Street irresponsibility;

excess systemic leverage; and

Republican unwillingness to fight the recession with fiscal policy.

Unfortunately, none of those fit Cruz's agenda. So the Fed it is.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/12/ted-cruz-explains-great-recession

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz’s Weirdly Insurrectionist Take On The Second Amendment

http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/05125100/Ted-Cruz-gun-1024x690.jpg

A Washington Post profile of Republican presidential candidates’ aggressive rhetoric on guns (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gun-rights-try-gun-pride-gop-candidates-display-firearms-machismo/2015/12/04/1f24fa12-9ab5-11e5-94f0-9eeaff906ef3_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_gopguns824pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory)contains one of the most remarkable paragraphs written about the 2016 election to date:


[Sen. Ted] Cruz spoke briefly about the San Bernardino shooting, saying it was the product of “the evil of radical Islamic terrorism.” He warned of the dangers of “disarming the citizenry.” The Second Amendment, he said, not only grants people the right to keep and bear arms to protect their families, homes and lives but also is a “fundamental check on government.”


Cruz’s statement that a right to bear arms is a “fundamental check on government” echoes views offered by some especially radical elements of the gun rights movement.

At a speech to the National Rifle Association’s Leadership Forum in 2014, for example, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke told the audience that “you have to be willing to resist any attempt by government to disarm law-abiding people by fighting with the ferociousness of a junkyard dog. For it says in the Declaration of Independence that it is our right, it is our duty, to throw off such government (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/08/07/3689152/scott-walker-black-lives-matter-adviser/) and to provide new guards for our future security."

all five conservative Supreme Court justices joined an opinion recognizing that many “weapons that are most useful in military service” may be banned in the United States.

Yet it is difficult to see how the Second Amendment could serve as an effective “check” on a government that arms its military with tanks, fighter jets and nuclear missiles if the people who are supposed to do the checking could only fight back with semi-automatic firearms.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/12/05/3728705/ted-cruzs-weirdly-insurrectionist-take-on-the-second-amendment/

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz vows to 'carpet bomb' ISIS until he finds out 'if sand can glow in the dark' (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/12/8/1457863/-Ted-Cruz-vows-to-carpet-bomb-ISIS-until-he-finds-out-if-sand-can-glow-in-the-dark)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/12/08/1457863/-Ted-Cruz-vows-to-carpet-bomb-ISIS-until-he-finds-out-if-sand-can-glow-in-the-dark?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

[Blake]

674362439329144834

[boutons_deux]

This NPR talk with Ted Cruz illustrates perfectly why he’s dumber than your kindergartner on climate change

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz told NPR (http://www.npr.org/2015/12/09/459026242/scientific-evidence-doesn-t-support-global-warming-sen-ted-cruz-says) this week that there was no science that said the planet was getting warmer, even though the Associated Press recently determined (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/3e946f29fa534a0b9c1d064b16e06b61/ap-fact-check-most-gop-candidates-flunk-climate-science) that he knew less about science than the average kindergartner.

“I believe that public policy should follow the science and follow the data,” Cruz replied. “I am the son of two mathematicians and computer programmers and scientists. In the debate over global warming, far too often politicians in Washington — and for that matter a number of scientists receiving large government grants — disregard the science and data and instead push political ideology.”

Cruz said that the liberal politicians and scientists “switched their theory to global warming” because global cooling never panned out.

“This is liberal politicians who want government power,” he insisted. “Let me ask you a question, Steve. Is there global warming, yes or no?”

“Absolutely, sure,” Inskeep replied.

“Okay, you are incorrect,” Cruz shot back. “Actually, the scientific evidence doesn’t support global warming. For the last 18 years, the satellite data — we have satellites that monitor the atmosphere — the satellites that actually measure the temperature showed no significant warming whatsoever.”

“I’ll just note that NASA analyzes that same data differently,” Inskeep said politely.

When pressed about evolution, Cruz argued that “any good scientist questions all science. If you show me someone who stops questioning science, I’ll show you someone who isn’t a scientist.”

“Denier is the language of religion,” he quipped. “It’s treated as a theology but it’s about power and money.”

Cruz objected, accusing Inskeep of “an ad hominem.”

“I’m trying to keep power with the single mom waiting tables,” Cruz said.

Last month, The Associated Press (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/3e946f29fa534a0b9c1d064b16e06b61/ap-fact-check-most-gop-candidates-flunk-climate-science) asked a group of climate and biological scientists to score each of the presidential candidates on their scientific knowledge. On a scale of 0 to 100, Cruz scored six, the lowest of any candidate.

“This individual understands less about science (and climate change) than the average kindergartner,” Pennsylvania State University meteorology professor Michael Mann told the AP. “That sort of ignorance would be dangerous in a doorman, let alone a president.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/this-npr-talk-with-ted-cruz-illustrates-perfectly-why-hes-dumber-than-your-kindergartner-on-climate-change/

"single mom waiting tables" :lol

Sen. Cruz: Minimum Wage Hike Would Cost Jobs for Young People, Hispanics, African Americans

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/sen-cruz-minimum-wage-hike-would-cost-jobs-young-people-hispanics-african-americans

:lol

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz's three-hour hearing on climate change a pathetic waste of time except for denier shills (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/12/9/1458508/-Ted-Cruz-s-three-hour-hearing-on-climate-change-a-pathetic-waste-of-time-except-for-denier-shills)

Sen. Ted Cruz chaired a tendentious Senate subcommittee hearing Tuesday on climate change while negotiators in Paris work long hours to put together a worldwide agreement on controlling carbon dioxide emissions that are warming the planet. Anybody who has even cursorily followed the claims of climate-change charlatans wouldn’t have a learned a single thing from the three-hour hearing, titled “Data or Dogma.”

"The only thing that requires a thorough scientific investigation is why Sen. Cruz is having a hearing on climate science,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said during a press conference before the hearing.

“This is no longer debate across the entire planet. They’re all there. The last group of deniers are the Republican Congress. The last sub-cult of deniers are the Republicans on the Senate Commerce Committee.”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/12/09/1458508/-Ted-Cruz-s-three-hour-hearing-on-climate-change-a-pathetic-waste-of-time-except-for-denier-shills?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz Is A ‘Toned Down’ Donald Trump, Say The Senator’s Backers

To hear Ted Cruz’s backers tell it, the firebrand U.S. senator from Texas is Donald Trump with a pinch of reason and electability.

The Cruz presidential campaign has the most to gain from Trump’s roundly-condemned pitch to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the U.S., several Cruz Iowa backers said in separate phone interviews Tuesday. Their reasoning: By contrast, Cruz’s positions come off as more politically mainstream.

“This makes Senator Cruz seem much more sane,” Iowa state Sen. Dennis Guth told Bloomberg.

“Cruz is like Trump, but at a toned down level,” echoed state Sen. Jake Chapman. “He’s not going to say something like that.”
Jeff King, another prominent Cruz backer and the son of Rep. Steve King, an Iowa powerbroker who has also endorsed the Texan, concurred. “It shows that you never know with Trump. Senator Cruz? He’s consistent,” King said.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/ted-cruz-is-a-toned-down-donald-trump-say-the-senators-backers/

"consistent"-ly lying

Krazy Kruz is much more of a Christian Taliban ready to impose Christian Sharia that Trump will ever be.

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz Challenged Science At His Climate Change Hearing. Science Won

“Facts matter, science matters, data matters. That’s what this hearing is about.”

That’s how Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the chairman of the Senate’s Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness, :lol

began a Monday hearing he called about the reality of human-caused climate change. Cruz — who is also running for president — does not believe that human-caused climate change is real, which he made clear at Monday’s hearing. He did not make it clear that 97 percent of climate scientists disagree with him, but such is life in the U.S. Senate, where 70 percent of Republicans (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/01/08/3608427/climate-denier-caucus-114th-congress/) largely side with Cruz.

The thing about Cruz, though, it’s that he’s a master of political debate (http://www.vice.com/read/ted-cruz-master-debater-say-it-fast-110). He spoke forcefully and eloquently at Monday’s hearing about what he said were falsehoods surrounding the scientific consensus on climate change. He even injected some real data into his harsh rhetoric, which made him sound even smarter.

Much of the information Cruz cited, however, was presented in perplexing ways. He confused completely different geographic locations, took data out of context, and made at least one unintentionally hilarious historical comparison.

So, with his assertion that “science and data matter” in mind, here is a debunking of some unscientific things Cruz said during his climate change hearing.

What Ted Cruz Said: A bunch of scientists got stuck in Antarctic ice last year, so John Kerry was wrong about Arctic ice melt.


“The summer of 2013 has come and gone, and John Kerry was not just a little bit — he was wildly, extraordinarily, entirely wrong. Had the [2014] Antarctic expedition in the picture next to it not believed the global warming alarmists, had they actually looked to the science and the evidence … they wouldn’t have been looked down and been surprised when they got stuck in ice.”

What Science Says: The Antarctic is not the same as the Arctic.

Climate science deniers across the internet love the story of the Antarctic ice scientists (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/03/antarctica-ice-trapped-academik-shokalskiy-climate-change).

Last year, on their way to study climate change’s impact on Antarctic, the scientists’ ship became frozen in ice, unable to move. They eventually had to be airlifted from the vessel. For Ted Cruz, this seemed like a perfect way to open his hearing: John Kerry said Arctic ice would be gone in 2013. But here are a bunch of scientists, in 2014, frozen in Antarctic ice.

This is a laughably false comparison. The Arctic and the Antarctic are literally polar opposites, and each is impacted by global warming in fundamentally different ways (http://www.livescience.com/40125-climate-change-affecting-arctic-antarctic-differently.html). From LiveScience (http://www.livescience.com/40125-climate-change-affecting-arctic-antarctic-differently.html): “Strong circumpolar winds may be compacting and thickening the Antarctic ice. But the Arctic ice is much more vulnerable to ocean warming, and summer storms only speedup the thaw.”

Cruz was, however, right about one thing — Kerry was wrong in 2009. Arctic ice is not gone. But Kerry’s statement didn’t represent the mainstream opinion of climate scientists at the time. The mainstream opinion of climate scientists was, and still is, that summers in the Arctic could be ice-free by 2050 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_sea_ice_decline#Ice-free_summer) if global warming remains at its current level or worsens. That prediction is playing out now (http://www.climatecentral.org/news/arctic-ice-melting-faster-18967) — This year’s maximum Arctic sea ice extent was the lowest on record (http://grist.org/science/arctic-ice-melt-sets-yet-another-record/), and the total extent of Arctic sea ice has gradually and dramatically decreased (http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/) over the last several decades.

What Ted Cruz Said: CO2 isn’t bad, because we’ve had more CO2 in our atmosphere then we have right now.

“I would note that the history with markedly more CO2 pre-dated the industrial revolution, so it didn’t come from automobiles or the burning of carbon fuels. … I would note those facts are directly contrary to what the global warming alarmists tell us day in and day out, and what the media who echoes those concerns tell us day in and day out.”

What Science Says: The last time CO2 was this high, humans didn’t exist, and the planet was a terrifying place.

According to Ted Cruz, the carbon dioxide humans emit can’t be harming the planet, because the planet had more carbon dioxide in its atmosphere before the industrial revolution.

This is a pretty easy one to debunk. Yes, the earth had more carbon dioxide before the industrial revolution — but that was literally millions of years ago, before humans existed. During that time (http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-last-time-co2-was-this-high-humans-didnt-exist-15938), “Megatoothed sharks prowled the oceans, the world’s seas were up to 100 feet higher than they are today, and the global average surface temperature was up to 11°F warmer than it is now.” Right now, the amount of carbon in our atmosphere is matched only by that terrifying time in the history of the planet, and before.

What Ted Cruz Said: Arctic and Antarctic ice are both increasing.


“Here are the inconvenient facts about the polar ice caps. The Arctic is not ice free. This year’s minimum sea ice extent was well above the record low observed in 2011. In the Antarctic, a recent study… indicates that the ice is not only not decreasing, but is in fact increasing in mass, directly contrary to what the global warming alarmists had told us would be happening.”

What Science Says: Sea ice in the Arctic and land ice in the Antarctic have been dramatically decreasing for decades.

Let’s just state this for the record: Climate change doesn’t mean that you’ll see higher temperatures and less ice year after year. It means that on average, over many decades, you’ll see higher temperatures and less ice.
http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/10094840/Figure31-300x224.jpg

Cruz said that minimum sea ice extent in the Arctic “was well above the record low observed in 2011.” First, Cruz just directly admitted the lowest-ever-recorded minimum sea ice extent in the Arctic was just four years ago. Second, Cruz doesn’t mention that Arctic ice as a whole has been decreasing for decades. As you’ll see in the graph to the right, 2013’s Arctic sea ice minimum was much higher than 2011 — but it was still lower than the historical average. .

As for Antarctic ice, Cruz is right when he says sea ice is growing. But Antarctic land ice — glaciers, ice sheets, and ice masses that have accumulated over thousands of years — is decreasing at dramatic rates (http://www.wunderground.com/climate/facts/antarctica_is_losing_ice_sheet.asp). And that’s arguably much more important than sea ice, considering Antarctica’s sea ice completely melts every year (one of the many differences from the Arctic, where sea ice is never supposed to melt completely).

What Ted Cruz Said: It doesn’t matter than 97 percent of scientists agree about climate change, because 97 percent of scientists said the sun rotated around the earth in the 1600s. :lol :lol

What Science Says: Scientists did not use the modern scientific method in 1600s.

This is ostensibly why Cruz disagrees with the fact that multiple (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009EO030002/epdf) peer-reviewed (http://www.pnas.org/content/107/27/12107.full) studies (http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024;jsessionid=35E3428A0C2705D616D34A5E6C5B042B .c1) show 97 percent of climate scientists agreeing that humans cause global warming: because in 1615, scientists thought the sun rotated around the Earth.

Today, scientists use the scientific method (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method). This is really great, because the scientific method requires people to back up their evidence using empirical data — they can’t apply their own personal biases to it. To have success using the scientific method, a person with a completely different worldview will be able to replicate what you have found. The scientific method means looking outside yourself to find empirical truth.

In 1615, by contrast, scientists didn’t use the scientific method. Scientists were philosophers and ideologues, smart white men who sat in armchairs thinking about what made sense to them. After they thought about it for awhile, they’d say things, and then people would believe them or they wouldn’t.

So in other words, Ted Cruz is essentially saying that the scientific method is no more reliable than a bunch of white dudes sitting in armchairs yelling about how they believe the world works.

What Ted Cruz Said: Satellite data shows no warming for the last 18 years.


“According to the satellite data, there has been no significant global warming for the past 18 years. Those are the data. The global warming alarmists don’t like these data, they are inconvenient to their narrative. But facts and evidence matters.”

What Science Says: Satellite data (http://www.carbonbrief.org/satellite-measurements-of-the-troposphere-confirm-warming-trend-data-shows), ground-based weather station data (http://www.noaa.gov/features/02_monitoring/weather_stations.html), and sea-based buoy data (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/marineocean-data/mlost) all show a steady warming trend over the long term.

Ted Cruz loves satellite data. He talks about it all the time (https://www.google.com/search?q=Ted+Cruz+%22satellite+data%22&oq=Ted+Cruz+%22satellite+data%22&aqs=chrome..69i57.3626j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8).

But like most of Cruz’s statements regarding climate science, his focus on this particular type of data in this particular small time-frame contains an element of truth and ignores larger context. And climate change is all about larger context.

As a reminder: Climate change doesn’t mean that you’ll see higher temperatures every year. It means that on average, over many decades, you’ll see higher temperatures.

When Cruz says there’s been “no warming” in 18 years, that’s because 1998 was an abnormally warm year. But if you start, say, in 1950, the long-term, gradual trend in temperatures has gone distinctly upward. And despite 1998 being a very warm year (because of an El Nino), 13 of the 15 warmest years ever recorded (http://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/graphics/10-warmest-years-globally) all happened since the year 2000. 2015 is set to be the hottest year on record (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/10/13/3711603/deja-vu-hottest-year/). And according the the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf#page=3), “each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850.”

It’s also worth noting that the data Cruz relies on comes from a scientist who has publicly decried Cruz (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/03/24/ted-cruz-says-satellite-data-show-the-globe-isnt-warming-this-satellite-scientist-feels-otherwise/) for using his data to make claims that global warming isn’t real. For that scientist, the way people interpret his data matters — it’s unclear, however, if it matters to Cruz.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/12/10/3729732/ted-cruz-and-science-have-a-rocky-relationship/

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz’s junk science: GOP candidate denies climate change while citing debunked data and touting his inherited math skills

Texas senator calls climate change a "theology" and a pseudo-scientific scheme to give liberals more power

“Well, I believe that public policy should follow the science and follow the data.

I am the son of two mathematicians and computer programmers and scientists. :lol

In the debate over global warming, far too often politicians in Washington – and for that matter, a number of scientists receiving large government grants – disregard the science and data and instead push political ideology…The scientific evidence doesn’t support global warming. For the last 18 years, the satellite data – we have satellites that monitor the atmosphere.

The satellites that actually measure the temperature showed no significant warming whatsoever :lol

…Climate change is the perfect pseudoscientific theory for a big government politician who wants more power. Why? Because it is a theory that can never be disproven.”

ted_cruzs_junk_science_gop_candidate_denies_climat e_change_while_citing_debunked_data_and_touting_hi s_inherited_math_skills

Thanks, secessionist, Bible humpin, gun fellatin Texians!

[boutons_deux]

Top New Hampshire Newspaper Shreds Ted Cruz’s 'Texas Tough Guy Act': 'Tough Talk Is All He Has to Offer'

chastised (http://www.unionleader.com/Cruz-bombs-Tough-talk-to-cover-up-weak-record?template=mobileart) Cruz on Tuesday for what it described as “a shift” in his foreign policy proposals on the campaign trail to a more “Texas Tough Guy act.”

The freshman Texas senator recently told (http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/12/05/cruz-carpet-bomb-isis-into-oblivion/76796154/?from=global&sessionKey=&autologin=) a crowd in Iowa that he “will carpet bomb [ISIL] into oblivion,” if elected president. In his latest campaign ad (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4vLDAApN9w), Cruz faces the camera directly to send a message to terrorists: “If you wage jihad against us, you’re signing your death warrant.”

Cruz “spent the past year positioning himself as a fallback option for supporters of Sen. Rand Paul,” the Union Leader editors noted, before blasting Cruz for his “newfound zeal for the fight in Syria.”

As recently as last week, the Wall Street Journal (http://www.wsj.com/articles/ted-cruzs-syria-dog-1449102321) editorial board similarly slammed Cruz’s apparent reversal on foreign policy in Syria, noting that Cruz had just told Bloomberg that, “In my view, we have no dog in the fight of the Syrian civil war.”

“This is disingenuous even by Mr. Cruz’s standards,” the Journal wrote, calling for more U.S. intervention in the region.

But when Cruz delivered the more hawkish tone the neocons at the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal demanded this week, the conservative Union Leader cried phony. The paper blasted Cruz for “ratcheting up his already overheated rhetoric,” comparing the Tea Party superstar to liberals for using terms like carpet bombing “with no apparent knowledge of what it actually means.”

“It’s because tough talk is all he has to offer,” The Union Leader concluded about Cruz’s hawkish turn:

Cruz has been transparently pandering to Donald Trump, hoping to win his supporters if and when the Trump bubble finally bursts.
[…]
Cruz, who never lacks the courage to tell people exactly what they want to hear, tends to confuse volume with strength.
[…]


So now Cruz is beating the drums of war. Will he be as quick to change tactics should the political winds shift again?

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/top-new-hampshire-newspaper-shreds-ted-cruzs-texas-tough-guy-act-tough-talk-all-he (http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/top-new-hampshire-newspaper-shreds-ted-cruzs-texas-tough-guy-act-tough-talk-all-he)

And you rightwingnuts call Hillary a pandering LIAR? :lol

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz using firm that harvested data on millions of unwitting Facebook users

Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign is using psychological data based on research spanning tens of millions of Facebook users, harvested largely without their permission, to boost his surging White House run and gain an edge over Donald Trump and other Republican rivals, the Guardian can reveal.A little-known data company, now embedded within Cruz’s campaign and indirectly financed by his primary billionaire benefactor, paid researchers at Cambridge University to gather detailed psychological profiles about the US electorate using a massive pool of mainly unwitting US Facebook users built with an online survey.

As part of an aggressive new voter-targeting operation, Cambridge Analytica – financially supported by reclusive hedge fund magnate and leading Republican donor Robert Mercer – is now using so-called “psychographic profiles” of US citizens in order to help win Cruz votes, despite earlier concerns and red flags from potential survey-takers.

Documents seen by the Guardian have uncovered longstanding ethical and privacy issues about the way academics hoovered up personal data by accessing a vast set of US Facebook profiles, in order to build sophisticated models of users’ personalities without their knowledge.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/ted-cruz-using-firm-that-harvested-data-on-millions-of-unwitting-facebook-users/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

If you expose your life on Facebook to the public, you're fair game.

[boutons_deux]

Ted ‘Carpet-Bomb’ Cruz


http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/12/12/opinion/12sat2/12sat2-articleLarge.jpg

Mr. Cruz is a lawyer and a foreign-policy neophyte. Anyone with any understanding of military strategy knows that “carpet-bombing” is a term used by amateurs trying to sound tough. Indiscriminate bombing has never been a military strategy, and it would be senseless in an age of “smart” weaponry and precise targeting.

In Syria and Iraq, mass bombing would kill hundreds of innocent civilians and fuel radicalization. That’s why military leaders utter the term “carpet-bomb” only while laughing at Mr. Cruz.

“That’s just another one of those phrases that people with no military experience throw around,” chuckled retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, a military historian and former commandant of the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.

On NPR (http://www.npr.org/2015/12/09/458973053/cruz-wont-criticize-trump-but-offers-his-own-plan-to-bar-refugees) on Tuesday, Mr. Cruz further betrayed his ignorance by saying he could carpet-bomb ISIS without targeting civilians. “I want to carpet-bomb ISIS. Now when you say ‘carpet-bomb cities,’ look, no — no reasonable military endeavor targets civilians. Now, inevitably in war, there are inadvertent collateral casualties. That — it is impossible to wage a war without their being inadvertent collateral casualties.”
Steve Inskeep, the host, interjected: “But don’t you then end up with the air campaign they already have, where they’re being exceedingly careful not to hit civilians, but they hit a target when they can find a target?”

Mr. Cruz vehemently disagreed. “Let’s go to some facts. :lol

In the first Persian Gulf war, we launched roughly 1,100 air attacks a day. We carpet-bombed them into oblivion for 37 days.”

Actually, no, say military leaders. That was highly targeted bombing, which was why the war took so little time.

At the hearing on United States military strategy against ISIS (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/dem-goes-after-cruz-for-missing-islamic-state-hearing/article/2577949) that Mr. Cruz missed on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Paul Selva, assessed Mr. Cruz’s prescription.

The wanton bombing Mr. Cruz repeatedly refers to, General Selva said, is categorically “not the way that we apply force in combat. It isn’t now, nor will it ever be.”

Ted Cruz, a man who thinks he’s qualified to be commander in chief, decries terrorists’ taking of innocent lives while agitating for bombing that would kill thousands of noncombatants and radicalize thousands more.

What he’s saying shows an utter lack of fitness to command America’s armed forces.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/12/opinion/ted-carpet-bomb-cruz.html?_r=0

:lol

Thanks, Bible-humpin, gun fellatin, secessionist Texians

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio attacks Ted Cruz for voting against bill that Rubio didn't bother to show up for (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/12/16/1460795/-Marco-Rubio-attacks-Ted-Cruz-for-voting-against-bill-that-Rubio-didn-t-bother-to-show-up-for)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/12/16/1460795/-Marco-Rubio-attacks-Ted-Cruz-for-voting-against-bill-that-Rubio-didn-t-bother-to-show-up-for?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz’s New Data Strategy: Here Comes Santa Claus (http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/17/ted-cruzs-new-data-strategy-here-comes-santa-claus/)

ST. PAUL — The Cruz campaign is making a list.

As attendees packed a reception hall in Minnesota on the first night of Senator Ted Cruz’s seven-day, 12-city tour, they were greeted by an uncommon supporter: a costumed Santa Claus, posing with children and more than a few adults beside a fireplace.

But the campaign’s aim was not exclusively festive.

To retrieve photos taken with the Santa, visitors were handed cards directing them to Mr. Cruz’s website, where they were asked to provide their names, email addresses and ZIP codes.

“The Santa’s optically good anyway. It’s a Christmas tour, it makes total sense,” said Jeff Roe, Mr. Cruz’s campaign manager. “But you still have to run a campaign when these are over. You can’t just come out and do rallies and have nothing left when you leave except for a bunch of uneaten cookies. Now we’re going to have living data of people. They’ll have an experience they’ll remember forever.”

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/17/ted-cruzs-new-data-strategy-here-comes-santa-claus/

is there anything about this TX Christian supremacist asshole that ISN'T creepy?

[boutons_deux]

Religious Right Leaders Rally Behind…Ted Cruz

After years of angling to prevent that from happening in 2016, ‘several dozen’ Religious Right leaders met in secret in early December and voted to rally around Ted Cruz.”There are literally hundreds of these guys, so several dozen isn’t a quorum, but some of the bigger names are involved in this process, which involved another “secret meeting” (remember, the Establishment just had one of these too). This one was organized by hate group leader and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins.

The upshot of Cruz’s victory was immediate, said Alberta (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428515/conservative-leaders-ted-cruz-earns-allegiance-private-meeting):


Three prominent participants — direct-mail pioneer and longtime activist Richard Viguerie, the National Organization for Marriage’s Brian Brown, and The Family Leader’s Bob Vander Plaats – announced their support of Cruz within 72 hours of the meeting at the Sheraton.

But this barely scratches the surface. An avalanche of endorsements is forthcoming from conservative leaders, including James Dobson, founder and chairman emeritus of Focus on the Family, Ken Cuccinelli of Senate Conservatives Fund, and of course, from Perkins himself.


It is unclear just how effective the support from NOM will be, given their ongoing fundraising difficulties. After all, the whole reason for their existence is stopping Marriage Equality, and the Supreme Court drove a stake into the heart of that issue. Butthey see (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/nom-pads-its-r-sum) Cruz as their savior, someone who will “reverse the same-sex marriage ruling” (and he does promise (https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/ted-cruz-rails-against-gay-rights)to do that). Meanwhile, NOM is apparently determined to “stop the persecution of people who refuse to be involved in the lie of same-sex marriage.”

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/12/18/religious-leaders-rally-behind-ted-cruz.html?
utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politi cus+USA+%29 (http://www.politicususa.com/2015/12/18/religious-leaders-rally-behind-ted-cruz.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politi cus+USA+%29)

No surprise, the grifter shitbag Christian Taliban mullahs gonna pimp for a Christian supremacist shitbag.

[Dirk Oneanddoneski]

e3hB3iOQKjY not bad

[Spurminator]

e3hB3iOQKjY

I didn't know until the end if this was a Cruz ad, or if he was doing the whole "good sport"/self-deprecating thing by appearing in a sketch that's kind of making fun of him.

Spoiler alert, it's a Cruz ad, and it's supposed to be funny.

[Th'Pusher]

e3hB3iOQKjY not bad

Seriously? The resident racist laughingstock thinks that's "not bad"?

:lol shitbag

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz’s ambush strategy: Being more bigoted and sleazy than Donald Trump could win him the nomination

It’s increasingly looking like, barring some major surge forward by Marco Rubio, that Ted Cruz is the most likely to win the Republican nominee. A Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday (http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2311) shows that Cruz is only 4 points behind Donald Trump, who’s supported by 28 percent of likely primary voters.

Cruz’s strategy of drafting Trump, by basically agreeing with what he says, is working.

If he can get one final push during the early stages of the primary, he can use all that momentum to overtake the current frontrunner, who still runs a greater-than-even chance of self-immolating at some point.

But Cruz may not even need Trump to hit the self-destruct button in order to win this thing. While most of the media obsesses about Trump, Cruz has quietly set himself up to go in for the kill once the voting starts.

He is, in essence, Trump Plus: He’s got all the qualities that right-wing voters love in Trump, but believe it or not he has even more bigotries and right-wing fancies to offer than even Trump.
In a primary season where voters clearly want the sleaziest asshole they can running against Clinton, Cruz simply is a better choice over Trump. And the fact that he knows well enough to wait until the last minute to make that case, making it harder for Trump to come up with a rejoinder, shows exactly how crafty Cruz is.

Cruz simply has more to offer the right-wing voter that would rather burn this country to the ground than share it with racial minorities, feminists, immigrants, and LGBT people. There’s three major areas where he simply has a stronger case that he is what the conservative base wants.

1) Evangelical endorsements. White evangelicals constitute a full half of Republican voters (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/white-evangelicals-are-half-of-gop-primary-voters/) and another substantial bunch is white conservative Catholics who have the same political views and respond to the same Jesus-heavy messaging. Cruz has been quietly fortifying his support with this group by getting the evangelical leaders on his side.

Earlier this month, evangelical leaders had a secret meeting (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cruz-consolidates-support-from-key-christian-conservatives/2015/12/20/d7951a76-a5b6-11e5-b53d-972e2751f433_story.html), where, according to The Washington Post, “top national activists agreed to roll out a stream of endorsements, many timed for maximum impact between now and Super Tuesday on March 1, when a dozen states will hold primary of or caucuses.” Cruz wedged out other evangelical favorites, like Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson, for these endorsements. Since then, a couple of key endorsements, from James Dobson (http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/263634-cruz-picks-up-top-evangelical-endorsement) of Focus on the Family and Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage, have been released. Clearly, more are coming.

While Trump is hollering about Mexicans and Muslims, Cruz didn’t forget that a huge portion of the Republican constituency is just as, if not more, obsessed with beating down gay people and independent women. While Trump says all the right things about banning abortion and gay marriage, you can tell his heart just isn’t in it the way it is for Cruz.

It’s also important to remember that the Supreme Court will be hearing arguments about abortion, in a case that might be the death knell for Roe vs. Wade, during this time, probably in March or April. That means that there will be an uptick in rallies, op-eds, and news coverage of this issue in the next few months. This will only drive more voters into Cruz’s arms.

Ben Carson is still holding down 10 percent of the votes, according to Quinnipiac. Those are almost surely evangelicals by and large, and Cruz will probably pick most of those up when Carson drops out.

2) Anti-government mania. As I reported last week, the conservative media is in full revolt (http://www.salon.com/2015/12/18/rush_limbaugh_and_conservatives_revolt_their_hatre d_for_house_budget_deal_could_hand_donald_trump_no mination/), furious at House Republicans for agreeing to a budget deal instead of shutting down the government in an effort to blackmail the White House into agreeing to defund Planned Parenthood and keep Syrian refugees out of the country. But really, the particular demands that conservatives have are secondary to the rage. At this point, shutting down the government — or threatening to — is its own reward. Conservatives have spent decades demonizing the government, and so a shutdown is just emotionally rewarding, regardless of what the circumstances are.

Right now, this shutdown fever is helping Trump, whose shortsightedness and posturing on this issue appeals to equally shortsighted voters. But unlike Trump, Cruz can make a legitimate case that he’s actually tried to shut down the government. Cruz’s enthusiasm for shutting down the government is unparalleled (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/senators-have-had-it-with-ted-cruzs-shutdown.html#). His constant clamoring to come up with an excuse, any excuse, to shut down the government is one of the major reasons that so many other Republicans hate him. But, as my colleague Sean Illing points out (http://www.salon.com/2015/12/22/now_ted_cruz_is_the_enemy_rupert_murdoch_and_wsj_o pen_fire_in_new_gop_civil_war/), all these establishment Republican attacks on Cruz just shore up his claim that he’s an outsider like Trump.
Except he’s been tested. Trump says that he will stand up for half-baked right wing “values” like shutting down the government for kicks, but Cruz? Cruz can legitimately say he’s done it.

3) Electability. It may not seem like it now, but electability is a major concern for Republican primary voters. Public Policy Polling shows that over half of voters (http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2015/PPP_Release_National_121715.pdf) consider a candidate’s ability to beat the Democrat in the race to be more important than ideological purity. The only reason this hasn’t quite hurt Trump in the polls, yet anyway, is that Republican voters are under the bizarre impression (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ap-gfk-poll-republicans-view-donald-trump-as-most-electable_562d32a2e4b0443bb56446f7)that Trump has the best chance of beating Clinton in a general election.

But that impression might start to buckle soon. The Quinnipiac poll shows that Trump is the only Republican candidate (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-donald-trump-trails-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-in-matchup/) who fares badly in a Clinton match-up. Cruz breaks even. More to the point, everyone who isn’t in the bag for Trump hates the man at this point. Half of Americans say they would be embarrassed if Trump won the presidency. Cruz, who hasn’t gotten nearly as much media attention, hasn’t established himself as a villain in voter eyes nearly as much.

Cruz gives Republican voters exactly what they want: He’s more electable than Trump, without sacrificing an iota of ideological purity. In fact, Cruz is far more of the complete package when it comes to ideological purity, far more than Trump, whose views are all over the map (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/12/16/donald-trump-is-a-textbook-example-of-an-ideological-moderate/). If Cruz can get across to the voters that he’s the complete package—and there’s every reason to believe that will be exactly his argument—he will start leeching more votes off Trump.

http://www.salon.com/2015/12/22/ted_cruzs_ambush_strategy_being_more_bigoted_and_s leazy_than_donald_trump_could_win_him_the_nominati on/

[boutons_deux]

Religious Right Leaders Head To Farris Wilks Ranch To Plot How To Make Ted Cruz President

As we have been reporting for several months, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has been consolidating support (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-winning-christian-nation-primary) from Religious Right leaders (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/everything-you-need-know-about-tony-perkins-man-who-brought-religious-right-ted-cruz) by enthusiastically embracing their anti-gay, anti-choice views. The momentum shifted into high gear after a secret meeting (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-right-leaders-rally-around-ted-cruz-secret-endorsement-meeting) on December 7 at which dozens of Religious Right leaders voted to back Cruz – and a flood of endorsements (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/12/17/cruz-gets-another-big-evangelical-endorsement/) has followed.

Now, the Washington Post’s Tom Hamburger reports (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cruz-consolidates-support-from-key-christian-conservatives/2015/12/20/d7951a76-a5b6-11e5-b53d-972e2751f433_story.html) that the group will gather again a few days after Christmas “at a remote ranch in central Texas, where Cruz, his wife and several key financial backers will visit with some of the country’s most prominent evangelical leaders for private conversations and a public rally.”

The ranch is owned by

Farris Wilks (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/farris-wilks), who with his brother made billions in the fracking business and has since become a major funder of far-right, anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-church-state separation organizations (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/fracking-sugar-daddy-religious-right).

The Wilks brothers have already given at least $15 million to the effort to elect Ted Cruz (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-right-billionaire-wilks-bros-give-millions-ted-cruz-super-pac). Farris Wilks is also a pastor (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/fracking-sugar-daddy-religious-right) who portrays gays as child predators and mocks environmentalism.

He preached after Barack Obama’s re-election, “I do believe that our country died that Tuesday night, to all that’s honorable, all that’s good, that’s ambitious, and that has justice.”

The Wilks brothers have also been big funders of Christian-nation zealot David Lane (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/david-lane), a political operative (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/why-do-republican-officials-keep-partnering-christian-nation-extremist-david-lane) who has been working hard to get conservative pastors to run for office (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-right-powerbroker-david-lane-we-are-mobilizing-army) and to convince Christian conservatives to rally behind a single Republican candidate. Lane is driven by the desire to get the reins of government in the hands of people who share his belief (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/meet-david-lane-anti-gay-christian-nation-extremist-rnc) that America was founded by and for Christians and has a national mission to advance the Christian faith (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/republican-presidential-hopefuls-favorite-christian-nation-extremist).

Lane and other Religious Right leaders are now publicly trashing Marco Rubio (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/strategic-or-overconfident-rubio-plays-hard-to-get-with-voters/2015/12/20/60b8a3e8-a5a0-11e5-9c4e-be37f66848bb_story.html) for not working hard enough to get conservative evangelical support.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-right-leaders-head-farris-wilks-ranch-plot-how-make-ted-cruz-president

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz campaign rally morphs into creepy ‘prayer revival’ so everyone can pray for him to be president


http://www.rawstory.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/cruz_rally_151222a-2-800x430.jpg

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz turned one of his campaign events into a “prayer revival” on Tuesday, giving members of the audience an opportunity to ask God to make him the next president.

Cruz opened his Nashville rally by vowing

to make the Department of Justice investigate Planned Parenthood :lol and

promising an end to what he called “religious persecution.” :lol

“I’m telling you the providence of God will work in your life,” Wiley insisted. “You never know. The seed that you sow ("give lots of seed $$$") will come to fruit.”

“And I don’t want occasions like this to end without realizing that God is in control and Ted Cruz is committed to not only conservative philosophy but with conservative theology as well,” he continued. “He’s going to make us a great president to make our nation a great nation again.”

Asking the audience to stretch their hands toward the stage, Wiley placed his hand on the candidate’s head. :lol

“We’re going to lay hands on Ted Cruz,” he said.

“Father, in the name of Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit, I come to anoint my brother in the Lord. :lol

That son, Lord, that’s raised up to follow you, and I pray, Lord Jesus, that he will not let those who gave their lives in World War II like my brother Preston did go in vein, like the thousands of others that are in this crowd that lost loved ones in the wars since.” :lol

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/ted-cruz-campaign-rally-morphs-into-creepy-prayer-revival-so-everyone-can-pray-for-him-to-be-president/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

Cruz is a Christian Taliban grifter, bullshitting the ignorant, self-congratulating, gullible Christians

[boutons_deux]

What Ted Cruz said behind closed doors

In June, Ted Cruz promised on NPR that opposition to gay marriage would be “front and center” in his 2016 campaign.

In July, he said the Supreme Court’s decision allowing same-sex marriage was the “very definition of tyranny” and urged states to ignore the ruling.

But in December, behind closed doors at a big-dollar Manhattan fundraiser, the quickly ascending presidential candidate assured a Republican gay-rights supporter that a Cruz administration would not make fighting same-sex marriage a top priority.

In a recording provided to POLITICO, Cruz answers a flat “No” when asked whether fighting gay marriage is a “top-three priority,” an answer that pleased his socially moderate hosts but could surprise some of his evangelical backers.

While Cruz’s private comments to a more moderate GOP audience do not contradict what the Republican Texas senator has said elsewhere, they demonstrate

an adeptness at nuance in tone and emphasis that befits his Ivy League background. Indeed, the wording looks jarring when compared with the conservative, evangelical rhetoric he serves at his rallies, which have ballooned in size and excitement as he has moved to the front of the pack in Iowa.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/ted-cruz-gay-marriage-secret-audio-217090#ixzz3v9zTZR1Z

[boutons_deux]

http://www.redstate.com/uploads/2015/12/wapo-ted-cruz-cartoon.png

Cruz has his young children reciting scripts supporting his campaign.

[boutons_deux]

Cruz, on the other hand, is not likable. And thoroughly unlikeable people do not win the presidency.

As I've written, in part from personal experience, there does not seem to be any social milieu in which Cruz has spent any amount of time in in which virtually everyone didn't dislike him. College, Law School, high profile legal work, Senate, etc. He has the uncanny and almost ingenious ability to radiate both intensely grating insincerity with wildly convincing true-believer-ism.

His political appeal is geared to people who are alienated and angry enough that the mix of aggression, indifference, and exploitativeness he radiates is one that these people can identify with.

Second is simply ideology. Cruz is way too rightwing for a national campaign. This is almost mathematical. He's very right wing and unlike George W. Bush presents his hard right politics in a pure and unmediated form.

That is a recipe for a staggering defeat in a national election.

Just as importantly, I do not think Cruz is either temperamentally capable, interested or able to significant shift off those views in a general election. Part of it is character and part of it is simply that he's created to long a paper trail. There is no credible softer, gentler
Ted Cruz who cares about people like you.

He would certainly have impassioned and intense support from the base of his party and some of the more conservative elements of the financial services community - something that Trump might struggle with. But beyond that he would have great difficulty.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/some-christmas-eve-morsels?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

But fucking Texian Christian Taliban elect this mofo to the Senate.

[boutons_deux]

Cruz and his insane, sick Christian Sharia papa


http://www.msnbc.com/sites/msnbc/files/styles/ratio--3-2--830x553/public/cruz_0013_ap127767156126.jpg?itok=IJcVerB5

Ted Cruz’s father pushes radical religious vision


but most can agree that politicians’ family members should generally be off-limits unless they choose to enter the arena.

But Rafael Cruz, the Texas Republican’s father, is a different story. He’s served as a surrogate for his son’s campaign, which makes Rafael Cruz’s right-wing vision fair game.

The Washington Post the other day published an advance look (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/12/24/ted-cruzs-father-compares-america-to-a-sunken-italian-cruise-ship/) at the pastor’s new book, “A Time for Action: Empowering the Faithful to Reclaim America,” which is filled with the predictable screeds – President Obama is compared to Fidel Castro, for example – though one argument stood out for me.

Cruz writes that there is no such thing as separation of church and state and it is not enshrined in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. The Ten Commandments, he writes, are the foundations for these documents. […]

The pastor warns that there are five areas where the United States could change and “jeopardize our freedom,” including that “freedom of religion could become freedom of worship,” meaning that

people would be punished for worshiping outside of churches.

He said Obama has made appointments of people who think the government should discriminate against Christians.



Substantively, all of this is quite bizarre, even by 2015 standards. If the nation’s founding documents are based on the Ten Commandments, why don’t (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/bachmann-connects-ten-commandments-us-prosperity) the Constitution and Declaration of Independence mention the Decalogue or Christianity? Can Cruz identify anyone, anywhere in the United States, who’s even hinted at punishing Americans for worshiping out of houses of worship? Can anyone name an anti-Christian Obama appointee?

But even putting reality aside for a moment, the challenge for the Republican presidential hopeful is confronting questions about

whether he believes any of his father’s nonsense.

As we discussed (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/ted-cruz-prepared-give-his-father-the-spotlight) over the summer, if Rafael Cruz wants to travel the country saying inflammatory things – he blamed the Devil, for example, for Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling – that’s obviously his right, and the idea of holding Ted Cruz responsible for his father’s tirades doesn’t seem fair.

I have some relatives whose ideas I consider ridiculous, and I wouldn’t want anyone attributing their beliefs to me, just because of the family connection.

But the Cruz campaign has used Rafael Cruz as a surrogate (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/08/31/the-daily-202-ted-cruzs-dad-embraces-an-attack-dog-role/), dispatching him as a speaker who can represent his son when the senator is elsewhere – which generally makes it more difficult for Cruz Jr. to distance himself from what Cruz Sr. has to say.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/ted-cruzs-father-pushes-radical-religious-vision?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[rmt]

What Ted Cruz said behind closed doors

In June, Ted Cruz promised on NPR that opposition to gay marriage would be “front and center” in his 2016 campaign.

In July, he said the Supreme Court’s decision allowing same-sex marriage was the “very definition of tyranny” and urged states to ignore the ruling.

But in December, behind closed doors at a big-dollar Manhattan fundraiser, the quickly ascending presidential candidate assured a Republican gay-rights supporter that a Cruz administration would not make fighting same-sex marriage a top priority.

In a recording provided to POLITICO, Cruz answers a flat “No” when asked whether fighting gay marriage is a “top-three priority,” an answer that pleased his socially moderate hosts but could surprise some of his evangelical backers.

While Cruz’s private comments to a more moderate GOP audience do not contradict what the Republican Texas senator has said elsewhere, they demonstrate

an adeptness at nuance in tone and emphasis that befits his Ivy League background. Indeed, the wording looks jarring when compared with the conservative, evangelical rhetoric he serves at his rallies, which have ballooned in size and excitement as he has moved to the front of the pack in Iowa.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/ted-cruz-gay-marriage-secret-audio-217090#ixzz3v9zTZR1Z

Maybe ISIS has pushed opposition to gay marriage out of his top 3 since June.

[boutons_deux]

Christian Sharia bullshit from Christian mullah


Ted Cruz’s Fundie Dad Thinks God Did Bang-Up Job Writing U.S. Constitution

http://img.wonkette.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/McNaughton-One-Nation-Under-God-1-620x418.jpg


Rafael Cruzpere has published a book (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/we-read-rafael-cruzs-book-so-you-dont-have) of his very own sincerely held beliefs about God, America, and why God’s America has to be more Godly. Titled A Time for Action: Empowering the Faithful to Reclaim America, (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1944229000/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1944229000&linkCode=as2&tag=wonkette0f-20&linkId=HBANIWIS4I46S7PY) it sounds like a wonderfully insane bit of Dominionist propaganda about making the United States the theocracy its founders never intended,

For starters, it’s got an introduction by Glenn Beck, which ought to be good for huge sales already, in which Beck praises Rafael Cruz as “one of the greatest freedom fighters of his generation” and a man who “will do anything to protect and preserve freedom” (but he won’t do that).

the book sounds like pretty standard Culture Wars fare, with the usual claims that the Democratic party “promotes an ungodly socialist agenda that is destroying America” and a warning that far too many Republicans are willing to go along with all that America-destroying,

Cruz also treats us to a possibly fanciful account of his days as a resistance fighter against Fulgencio Batista in the ’50s, a personal history that the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/us/politics/cuban-peers-dispute-ted-cruzs-fathers-story-of-fighting-for-castro.html?_r=0) reports may be more tall tale than memoir, according to those who knew him back in Cuba.


There’s also a lot of America Is A Christian Nation stuff, like this insight that Cruz reached, apparently without consulting any actual histories of the Constitutional Convention:


I believe without a shadow of a doubt that the reason the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States have lasted over two centuries is that they were divinely inspired and then written by men who had spent time on their knees. These were men of God seeking revelation from God, and that’s what He gave them. Of course, these two documents aren’t equivalent to the Word of God, but God certainly directed the men who crafted them.


When it comes to the place of religion in public life, Cruz is in favor of total Christian control, since how can we have a Godly country if it’s not enforced?


In no way, shape, or form was Jefferson implying that the church should be restricted from exerting an influence upon society. On the contrary, the Bible tells us that we are the salt of the earth and light of the world…Doesn’t that suggest that our influence should touch every area of society – our families, the media, sports, arts and entertainment, education, business, and government?


a lot more in the book, like how every Democratic president ever reminds Rafael of Fidel Castro, as well as

an appendix that explains how net neutrality and progressive taxation come straight from the Communist Manifesto,

http://wonkette.com/597420/ted-cruzs-fundie-dad-thinks-god-did-bang-up-job-writing-u-s-constitution

One begins to see how, with a clinically insane father, Krazy Kruz would grow up to be such a damaged human being.

[boutons_deux]

a blatant sign of the continued, unstoppable decline of American democracy

The Billionaires Responsible For Inflicting Ted Cruz On Us (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/2/1465307/-The-Billionaires-Responsible-For-Inflicting-Ted-Cruz-On-Us)

http://images.dailykos.com/images/135439/story_image/RTR4RBW7-1.jpg?1446946926


“It just takes a random billionaire to change a race and maybe change the country...[T]hat’s what’s so radically different now.”


Paul Krugman wrote an Op-Ed in Friday’s New York Times titled “Privilege, Pathology and Power,” (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/01/opinion/privilege-pathology-and-power.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fpaul-krugman&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection&_r=0) in which he mordantly observes that “those empowered by money-driven politics include a disproportionate number of spoiled egomaniacs:”

Oligarchy, rule by the few, also tends to become rule by the monstrously self-centered. Narcisstocracy? Jerkigarchy? Anyway, it’s an ugly spectacle, and it’s probably going to get even uglier over the course of the year ahead.


The Billionaires backing Ted Cruz are no exception.

The creation known as Rafael “Ted” Cruz, currently the Republican Presidential frontrunner in Iowa, is owned by four SuperPACS, (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ted-cruzs-super-pacs-have-lots-of-money-but-who-do-they-support_55bbec01e4b0b23e3ce2e779) all calling themselves “ Keep The Promise.” There are four iterations of “Keep The Promise,” cleverly styled as Keep The Promise I, Keep The Promise II, Keep the Promise III and Keep The Promise PAC.

These are their primary (known) funders:

Keep the Promise I raised $11 million from New York hedge fund investor Robert Mercer.

Keep the Promise II received $10 million from Texas private equity investor Toby Neugebauer.

Keep the Promise III received $15 million from the billionaire Texas fracking family of Farris, Jo Ann, Daniel and Staci Wilks.

Finally, Keep the Promise PAC received funds from a more diverse audience, including $500,000 from Houston Texans owner Robert McNair and $250,000 from investor John W. Childs, but only raised $1.8 million total.


Who are these people responsible for inflicting Ted Cruz on the country? What makes them tick? We begin with Cruz’s undisputed top moneyman, Robert Mercer: (http://robert%20mercer%2C%2065%2C%20is%20co-ceo%20of%20renaissance%20technologies%20llc%2C%20a %20%2415%20billion%20hedge%20fund.%20the%20ibm%20l anguage-recognition%20whiz-turned-financier%20brought%20home%20%24125%20million%20in %202011%2C%20making%20him%20the%2016th%20highest-earning%20hedge%20fund%20manager%2C%20according%20 to%20forbes./)

Robert Mercer, 65, is co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies LLC, a $15 billion hedge fund. The IBM language-recognition whiz-turned-financier brought home $125 million in 2011, making him the 16th highest-earning hedge fund manager, according to Forbes.


When he's not bobbing about on his 203-foot Superyacht, the Sea Owl, Mercer might be found playing with his $2 million dollar train set (http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/04/ted-cruz-super-pac-donor-robert-mercer), ensconced in one of his mansions (he sued its builders, claiming he was overcharged). But his real passion is, as you might suspect, making as much money for himself as possible notwithstanding the collateral damage he inflicts on the rest of us:

Mercer is a longtime Republican donor who shares Cruz's disdain for financial regulation. He has plowed millions into campaigns against lawmakers who have pushed to rein in Wall Street. Rep. Pete DeFazio (D–Ore.), who started an effort to tax high-frequency financial transactions, was the target of a Mercer (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/robert-mercer-timothy-bishop-hamptons) campaign of more than half-a-million dollars. So was former Rep. Timothy Bishop (D–N.Y.), an ex-SEC prosecutor. In 2012, Mercer shoveled more than $900,000 (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/robert-mercer-timothy-bishop-hamptons) into an effort to unseat Bishop. While Bishop held onto his seat, Mercer targeted him again (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/hedge-fund-taxes-superpacs-election-renaissance) in 2014—this time, with success. Also in 2012, Mercer pumped millions into two super PACs, headed by Karl Rove, that flooded the airwaves with ads for Mitt Romney and Republican candidates for Congress. Club For Growth, a free-market focused super PAC, has notched more than a half million (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/robert-mercer-timothy-bishop-hamptons) from Mercer, too.


(All links are from the original.)

Mercer, like many of the Billionaires who seek to interpose their “guidance” on our country, is known as an “intensely private person” (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/11/us/politics/hedge-fund-magnaterobert-mercer-emerges-as-a-generous-backer-of-ted-cruz.html?_r=1)who rarely (http://www.cnbc.com/2014/11/07/robert-mercer-the-most-important-political-money-man-youve-never-heard-of.html)permits himself to be photographed. He is described by the financial cheerleader network CNBC as “little known by design.” His family foundation, technically run by his daughter, Rebekah (http://littlesis.org/person/128123/Rebekah_Mercer), has donated heavily to right-wing think tanks that spread and foster “denial” of climate change. Personally, he seems to be something of a vindictive Scrooge:

In 2013, a group of former workers at his house sued him for not paying overtime. They also accused him of deducting money from their semi-annual bonuses as a form of punishment for, among other things, failing to replace shampoos, close doors and change razor blades.


Mercer’s highly successful Hedge Fund, Renaissance, has been under investigation by the I.R.S. for approximately six years:

Last year the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations accused Renaissance of using complex financial structures that allowed it to underestimate how much it owed the Internal Revenue Service by $6 billion.

Taxpayers “had to shoulder the tax burden these hedge funds shrugged off with the aid of the banks,” Senator Carl Levin of Michigan said at a hearing last summer.


Not coincidentally, Rafael “Ted” Cruz has run a virulently anti-IRS, pro-Wall Street and pro-finance campaign, urging the repeal of the Dodd-Frank Bill (http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Ted_Cruz_Principles_+_Values.htm)designed and passed by a Democratic Senate in 2010 to rein in, and hopefully prevent, the same reckless Wall Street practices that caused the 2007-8 Financial Collapse and the ensuing Great Recession. He has also proposed completely abolishing the IRS. As long as Mercer’s money continues flowing in, Cruz can be expected to tailor his policy proposals accordingly, even if deregulating Wall Street and sanctioning the practices of people like Mercer proves disastrous for ordinary Americans who have to deal with the real-world consequences to their lives, futures, and hopes for retirement.

Toby Neugebauer (http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/31/the-man-behind-the-10-million-donation-to-a-ted-cruz-super-pac/) is next. If his name seems familiar, it should:

Mr. Neugebauer, the son of Representative Randy Neugebauer, Republican of Texas, is the co-founder of Quantum Energy Partners and has been an active investor in the oil and gas sectors, overseeing billions of dollars of assets.


Neugebauer previously tied his star to Rick Perry, whom he would take for happy rides on his private jet to discuss ways he could maximize his profits from shale drilling in North Texas. Since Perry proved to be an embarrassment as a Presidential candidate, Neugebauer has set his sights on Cruz. Like many Billionaires these days, however, Neugebauer’s personal fealty to the country he seeks to control has taken a back seat to personal tax avoidance, and he recently relocated to Dorado Beach, Puerto Rico: (http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/carol-morgan/2014-07-08/welcome-puerto-rico-mr-neugebauer#.VobfVFKAk7F)

Because of laws enacted in 2012, a move to the island guarantees thatpersonal investment income (i.e. capital gains, dividends) will be completely tax-free.
Because Puerto Rico has a unique legal status, American can escape most U.S. taxes without renouncing U.S. citizenship to do so. The only requirement is to be a physical resident for 183 days out of the year.

With a dismal economy and 14% unemployment, Puerto Rico’s Department of Economic Development and Commerce has been recruiting America’s billionaires to come aboard. The list of new immigrants includes names like John Paulson, Peter Schiff and Rob Rill. It probably meant nothing to South Plains residents until Bloomberg reported on Puerto Rico’s newest resident two weeks ago (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-26/paulson-s-puerto-rico-paradise-lures-rich-fleeing-taxes.html): Toby Neugebauer, the son of District 19 Congressman Randy Neugebauer.


Neugebauer told Bloomberg News that he moved to Puerto Rico because he wanted his children to “learn Spanish” and attend a “top school.” Apparently this couldn’t be accomplished in Texas. In his leisure time, Neugebauer enjoys killing lions and other trophy animals for fun. (http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/10-million-contributor-to-ted-cruz-super-pac-enjoys-killing-lions-and-other-trophy-animals-for-fun/)

The problem with tax “avoiders” like Neugebauer goes well beyond their lack of any patriotic sense. The money Billionaires avoid paying in taxes by skedaddling to places like Puerto Rico is money that would have gone to our schools, to our roadways, to our community infrastructure, and to our armed forces. It’s money that people like Neugebauer blithely take out of Americans’ pockets even as they enjoy all the immense privileges of profiting off our free enterprise system.

Finally, the Wilks Brothers, (http://prospect.org/article/meet-billionaire-brothers-you-never-heard-who-fund-religious-right) who round out this small list of Cruz’s financial SuperPAC backers, made their money by getting in on the “ground floor” of the fracking business, selling the heavy equipment that has so despoiled much of our so-called “public lands. But as some of the world’s richest people, they have more pressing interests to impress upon us through their political puppets like Mr. Cruz:

While both Farris and Dan have given to conservative groups and candidates, it is older brother Farris whose foundation has become a source of massive donations to Religious Right groups and to the Koch brothers’ political network. Farris also funds a network of “pregnancy centers” that refuse, on principle, to talk to single women about contraception. (Married women need to check with their husband and pastor.)


Cruz very vocal embrace of Apocalyptic Christian theology, which motivates his base support in Iowa, dovetails in beautiful symmetry with the Wilks brothers personal beliefs:

Farris [Wilks]thinks conservative economics are grounded in the Bible. Like Mitt Romney, he says people shouldn’t vote for politicians who promise “free this, free that.” Like any number of Religious Right leaders, he saw Barack Obama’s re-election as a harbinger of the End Times and he believes God will punish America for embracing homosexuality. Unlike all of them, he’s on the list of the world’s richest people.


Wilks has a fixation about gays, equating homosexuality with bestiality, and regularly invokes what he sees as a betrayal of God by modern American mores, including women exercising their reproductive rights:

Think of all the murder that has happened in this country….all the babies that have been murdered…think of all the perversions in the realm of sexual perversion of all kinds…all the breaking of Yahweh’s covenant….and so you recognize that at some point Yahweh’s going to say it’s time to wrap up… it’s time to move on to a kingdom of people that want to serve me, that want to be redeemed, that want salvation…we have to draw some lines in the sand for ourselves….


Conveniently, Wilks’ “God” is Himself a big proponent of fracking and “free enterprise:”

Earlier this year, Farris preached on “Government That We Can Believe In.”…. Yahweh, he preached, is “someone who respects private ownership” and the Torah is “set up on the free enterprise system.”


Cruz himself told his supporters on Thursday to strap on their “Armor of God,” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/12/31/cruz-tells-volunteers-strap-on-the-full-armor-of-god/) claiming the Republican race will be over by March. His campaign hauled in $20 Million last quarter to begin their final push in Iowa. If the profit-hungry Hedge Funders, tax-avoiding Billionaire expatriates, and bigoted Billionaire religious nutcases have there way, that is only the beginning.

What these grotesque people all have in common is a fervent desire to shape public policy to help themselves in a very big way, even while it makes life for the rest of us worse.

Ted Cruz is perfectly happy to be their stooge.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/2/1465307/-The-Billionaires-Responsible-For-Inflicting-Ted-Cruz-On-Us

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz really, really loves the death penalty


Five of his nine Supreme Court appearances related to the same issue: the death penalty (http://www.vox.com/cards/death-penalty-capital-punishment/supreme-court-lethal-injections). In each case, Cruz represented the state of Texas and defended capital punishment in cases where even many advocates would normally be squeamish.

He defended executing rapists who had killed no one; executing the mentally ill; and executing a man with an IQ of 78. He lost those three cases, all by narrow 5-4 votes.

But his two other appearances related to the same case, in which Cruz was opposed by the Bush administration, the Mexican government, and the International Court of Justice. Cruz won, and the defendant was executed five months later.

...

Cruz's contentions were that:



Merely ratifying the Vienna Convention, and its "Optional Protocol" allowing for ICJ jurisdiction over related issues, did not make the ICJ's decisions binding US law. In other words: US courts have no obligation to obey ICJ rulings.
Bush's memorandum to courts instructing them to obey the ICJ ruling had no binding authority.


In a 2010 article for the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy boisterously titled, "Defending US Sovereignty, Separation of Powers, and Federalism in Medellín v. Texas," (http://www.harvard-jlpp.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/cruz.pdf) he characterizes the issues raised by the case this way:

"Are the American people governed by judges, courts, and laws of nations other than our own, or are they governed by the United States Constitution, by the U.S. Congress, the United States government, and ultimately by 'We the People'? It is difficult to imagine a more fundamental question."

At points, the grandiose constitutionalist rhetoric reads less like scholarship and more like campaign literature.

http://www.vox.com/2016/1/2/10690022/ted-cruz-death-penalty

So in Krazy Taliban Kruz's world, USA's signing international conventions can be ignored. USA's written commitments are worthless.

[boutons_deux]

I Saw Why Ted Cruz Is Leading in Iowa -- Reporting from a Rally of Whooped-Up White Evangelicals

Now I understand why Cruz is winning Iowa. You would too if you saw this band sing "I Wish Kids Prayed in School."

Cruz swapped out his usual stump for an exchange that blended scripted sermonizing with red-meat fighting words against Democrats he said are fixated on abolishing religious liberty.

“If we allow non-believers to elect our leaders, we shouldn’t be surprised when our government doesn’t reflect our values,”

Cruz asked that attendees pray for him by asking for peace for his campaign, for the wisdom granted to the Biblical Solomon and for the well-being of his daughters, Caroline and Catherine.

“That they know at every moment that they’re loved by their mom and dad and they are loved by their father in heaven, and that they maintain a spirit of joy and peace, as well,”

A family band garbed in red, white and blue kicked off the heavily produced affair, performing original Christian songs with lyrics such as “I wish kids prayed in school before classes” and “kids need a mom and a dad.”

“From the schoolhouse to the courthouse, they’re silencing His word. And now it’s time for all believers to make our voices heard,”

Standing alongside conservative-values author and commentator James Dobson, Cruz swapped out his usual stump for an exchange that blended scripted sermonizing with red-meat fighting words against Democrats he said are fixated on abolishing religious liberty.

“If we allow non-believers to elect our leaders, we shouldn’t be surprised when our government doesn’t reflect our values,” Cruz said to widespread applause.

Cruz called for increased voter turnout among evangelical caucus-goers, using the type of overtly religious rhetoric that has galvanized support from social conservatives and propelled family-values candidates such as Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum to first-place Iowa finishes in 2008 and 2012.

Cruz asked that attendees pray for him by asking for peace for his campaign, for the wisdom granted to the Biblical Solomon and for the well-being of his daughters, Caroline and Catherine.

“That they know at every moment that they’re loved by their mom and dad and they are loved by their father in heaven, and that they maintain a spirit of joy and peace, as well,” Cruz said.

Cruz currently leads all other Republicans in Iowa and has cracked the 30 point level in most poll averages – more than three points ahead than second-place finisher Donald Trump.

A family band garbed in red, white and blue kicked off the heavily produced affair, performing original Christian songs with lyrics such as “I wish kids prayed in school before classes” and “kids need a mom and a dad.”

“From the schoolhouse to the courthouse, they’re silencing His word. And now it’s time for all believers to make our voices heard,” they sang at one point.

A baby boy in the third row sitting near one of the massive speaker systems put his hands over his ears.

Cruz’s remarks came after introductions from Rep. Steve King and CEO of The Family Leader Bob Vander Plaats – both Iowans who have garnered past controversy for their stances on social issues.

Cruz promised

to repeal all of President Obama’s executive actions,

to abolish the Iran nuclear deal spearheaded by Secretary of State John Kerry,

to reaffirm the United States’ commitment to Israel and

to open a federal investigation into the controversial Planned Parenthood videos that surfaced in July.

He also reiterated earlier claims that the GOP would know its nominee by the end of March.

His back-and-forth with Dobson, while obviously rehearsed, was received warmly by the roughly 400-person crowd.

But some Iowans remain worried that Cruz may have an authenticity problem. :lol "may?" :lol

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/i-saw-why-ted-cruz-leading-iowa-reporting-rally-whooped-white-evangelicals?akid=13856.187590.sih7lw&rd=1&src=newsletter1048531&t=6

No amount of pastor-ization will disinfect this lying bag of shit

[boutons_deux]

Why McCain’s shot across Cruz’s bow matters

The recent history adds a degree of irony to McCain’s comments (http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/john-mccain-i-dont-know-if-cruz-is-eligible-for-presidency-w) about Ted Cruz yesterday.

Arizona Sen. John McCain said he doesn’t know if the Canadian-born Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is eligible to be president, saying the Supreme Court might have to decide if Cruz is eligible to be president.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” said McCain on the Chris Merrill Show on KFYI550 on Wednesday of Cruz’s eligibility.


As the BuzzFeed report (http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/john-mccain-i-dont-know-if-cruz-is-eligible-for-presidency-w) added, McCain went on to say, in reference to Cruz, “I think it’s worth looking into.” McCain added he thinks Cruz should try to get ahead of these eligibility issues, though without access to a time machine, how he’d go about doing this is a bit of a mystery.

It’s a genuine shame that Donald Trump has pushed this issue (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/new-kind-birtherism-the-2016-campaign) into the spotlight, because as best as I can tell, this entire line of attack is misguided. For all intents and purposes, natural-born citizens are those who were citizens at the time of their birth. This applies to Cruz. End of story.

I can think of about a thousand reasons to be concerned about a Cruz presidency, but his eligibility isn’t one of them.

What I find more interesting, however, is Cruz’s sudden need for friends in high places.

With the developments surrounding McCain in 2008 still in mind, the New York Times asked (http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/07/ted-cruz-and-john-mccain-share-history-of-facing-natural-born-questions/?ref=politics&_r=0) this morning, “Now the question is, will the Senate again weigh in to clarify the constitutional status of another one of its members and declare Mr. Cruz eligible to be president?”

The answer is, almost certainly not. Among senators from both parties, Ted Cruz is extremely unpopular. He’s gone out of his way to alienate his colleagues, pick fights with his own party leadership, and generally make as few friends in the chamber as possible during his tenure.

Right about now, Cruz would probably love to see the same level of Senate support McCain received eight years ago, but he shouldn’t hold his breath. As the Times added, for most senators in both parties, “assisting Mr. Cruz would amount to a foreign concept.”

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/why-mccains-shot-across-cruzs-bow-matters?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[DMX7]

So many people who know Ted seem to dislike him. John McCain is now saying Cruz's natural born citizen status is a legitimate concern even John was born on a military base outside the U.S. :lol

[boutons_deux]

Krazy Kruz' biggest sucker lie: "I'm an outsider"

Ted Cruz's Outsider Claims Belie His Political Insider Past

A Princeton graduate and Harvard-trained attorney, Cruz clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist at the Supreme Court — the very court he now accuses of "judicial tyranny." While working as a Washington lawyer in 1998, Cruzrepresented one of his future Capitol Hill nemeses, John Boehner.

He helped get George W. Bush elected president in 2000 — before the Bush White House enraged conservative activists by running up federal deficits.

His first political appointment back home came in 2003. Texas' then-Attorney General Greg Abbott saw in Cruz a hungry young attorney who would enforce his own vision for conservative legal governance, luring him back from Washington to be state solicitor general.

"The first time I ever heard his name was from a longtime party establishment person," says Dale Huls, a suburban Houston tea party activist, referring to an area Republican precinct chair.

Now Huls is preparing to campaign for Cruz in Iowa. Like many supporters, he says he doesn't hold Cruz's non-outsider past against him because "he has not disappointed us one single time" since being elected. '

"You take your experience from the times you were living," Huls says. "At that time, Bush was the guy. I voted for Bush twice." :lol

Cruz's unforeseen 2012 Senate victory got a $5.5 million bump from the Club for Growth, a small-government activist group based not in his home state, but Washington.

Despite his insider resume, he got the backing of conservative grass-roots activists who helped him tap into the emerging tea party wave.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/cruz-political-insider-past?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

the articled failed to mention Krazy's wife works for predatory band of thieves Goldman-Sacks.

Like everything about the cosplay patriots, tea baggers, secessionists, astroturfers, Krazy Kruz and his supporters are 100% lying frauds.

[boutons_deux]

Cruz rails against 'crony capitalism,' praises wife's Goldman Sachs career

http://static2.politico.com/dims4/default/45d8631/2147483647/resize/1160x%3E/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fs3-origin-images.politico.com%2F2015%2F03%2F25%2F150325_heid i_ted_cruz_ap_629.jpg

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/ted-cruz-wall-street-heidi-cruz-goldman-sachs-116381

Krazy Kruz is an "outsider" :lol

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz Flushes His Campaign Down the Toilet For the Religious Right

Ted Cruz has bigger problems than his place of birth, the Canadian citizenship of his parents, and Donald Trump. Ted Cruz has positioned himself as the champion of theocracy in the United States, and as its other would-be champions fall to the wayside, he has been left standing alone as the dominionist messiah (http://www.politicususa.com/2013/10/30/left-accept-ted-cruz-dominionist-messiah.html).

Cruz has outdone them all by announcing (https://www.tedcruz.org/news/cruz-for-president-announces-bob-vander-plaats-as-national-co-chair/)that Bob Vander Plaats as National Co-Chair for his campaign. Vander Plaats is CEO of The FAMiLY LEADER, a group you might remember thanks to their bizarre Marriage Vow Pledge (http://archives.politicususa.com/2011/07/09/decode-marriage-vow.html), which asserted that “African Americans were better off as slaves.”Yes, he wants that guy as his national co-chair:

“With Bob’s leadership we will succeed in uniting conservatives around this country. Bob is an inspiring leader in the conservative movement with the values and tested ability to help us fight to restore the principles that made this country exceptional. I’m grateful to have such a tireless advocate for liberty on our team. If we as conservatives come together, we will win.”

What Cruz doesn’t seem to get is that the only thing worse than a theocrat is a racist theocrat.

Deace, writing at BarbWire (http://barbwire.com/2016/01/08/deace-how-to-identify-a-political-slappy/), says that if you don’t vote for Cruz you are “stupid,” “slappy” and “child-like,” and he explains, “rest assured I mean paste-eating, booger-picking child-like.”

Ted Cruz just boxed himself in with the minority of Christians who think the Constitution doesn’t mean what it says and that the Founding Fathers intended all along that we should be a theocracy.

Only the specter of his wacky “Ted is the messiah” and “I’m the self-appointed educator for the American Negro” (http://www.politicususa.com/2014/09/03/daddy-cruz-self-appointed-educator-in-chief-american-negro.html) dad, offers irrefutable evidence that Cruz is serious.

http://www.politicususa.com/2016/01/09/ted-cruz-flushes-campaign-toilet-religious.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politi cus+USA+%29

[boutons_deux]

Is Ted Cruz a 'natural born Citizen'? Not if you're a constitutional originalist.

There are three leading theories of how to interpret the Constitution today.

One is textualism: the Constitution means what its words say. The historical context of the words is important when a modern plain meaning is not self-evident.

A second theory, adopted by many liberals, relies on a

“living Constitution”: the Constitution means what is most consistent with fundamental constitutional values as applied to present circumstances. The third theory, championed by many leading conservatives, is originalism: The Constitution means what ordinary people would have understood it to mean at the time it was ratified, which is 1788.

Under either a textualist or a “living Constitution” theory, Cruz is a “natural born Citizen,” eligible to be president; under an originalist view, however, he isn't. It's the conservative theory that would exclude the conservative Cruz from presidential eligibility.

To an originalist, a “natural born Citizen” is a person who is a citizen of the United States under “natural” principles of law in 1788. Two such principles were then in play in the U.S.

Jus soli — the law of soil — was the principle that a child was subject or citizen of the sovereign who ruled the land or seas on which the child was born. Jus soli was viewed as a part of the common law of England, which was adopted by the American states.

Jus sanguinis — the law of blood — held that a child's citizenship flowed from the parents' allegiance, regardless of place of birth. This principle was prevalent in continental Europe, and in England it was the basis for an exception to jus soli for children born there to foreign ambassadors.

But the Supreme Court has never directly decided the meaning of “natural born Citizen.”

It's a neat irony: The most conservative constitutional interpreters must find Cruz ineligible to be president; liberals must grin and bear him.

Cruz himself purports to embrace originalism as the correct view of the Constitution. To be faithful to his understanding of what the Constitution means, the senator may have to disqualify himself.

Thomas Lee is a professor of constitutional law and international law at Fordham Law School.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-lee-is-ted-cruz-eligible-to-be-president-20160110-story.html

[boutons_deux]

Repugs are misogynists, per the Bible

Ted Cruz: Voters should spank Hillary Clinton like I spank my five-year old daughter (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/9/1467693/-Ted-Cruz-Voters-should-spank-Hillary-Clinton-like-I-spank-my-five-year-old-daughter)


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/01/09/1467693/-Ted-Cruz-Voters-should-spank-Hillary-Clinton-like-I-spank-my-five-year-old-daughter?detail=email

[spurraider21]

Repugs are misogynists, per the Bible

Ted Cruz: Voters should spank Hillary Clinton like I spank my five-year old daughter (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/9/1467693/-Ted-Cruz-Voters-should-spank-Hillary-Clinton-like-I-spank-my-five-year-old-daughter)


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/01/09/1467693/-Ted-Cruz-Voters-should-spank-Hillary-Clinton-like-I-spank-my-five-year-old-daughter?detail=email
im not a ted cruz fan, but lol what a misleading article title

[boutons_deux]

im not a ted cruz fan, but lol what a misleading article title

cruz said:

"You know I'll tell you, in my house, if my daughter Cather, the five-year-old, says something she knows to be false, she gets a spanking," he said. "Well, in America, the voters have a way of administering a spanking."

[spurraider21]

indeed. he is not actually suggesting spanking clinton like the article title implies

[boutons_deux]

indeed. he is not actually suggesting spanking clinton like the article title implies

Cruz using the image of anybody spanking a grown women is insulting, misogynist, just like his fucking weird evangelical Christian Taliban base

[boutons_deux]

The Wages of Assholery

There is a price for making everyone you come into contact with (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/me-ted) think you're an asshole and a jerk.

Claire McCaskill says today that she won't be doing (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mccaskill-cruz-mccain-birther) any similar favors for purported American Ted Cruz. But it's not just a Democrat.

The silence of Senate Republicans is positively deafening.

Mitch McConnell alsosays he's not getting involved (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mitch-mcconnell-senate-cruz-birther-issue).

Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney have both tried to put the kibosh on the growing Cruz-birther movement.

But in the Senate, where people know Ted Cruz, virtually no one is coming to his aid.

McCain himself is suggesting he's at least Cruz-birther-curious (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/john-mccain-ted-cruz-citizen-president) if not coming out as a full-blown Cruz birther.

Cruz is perhaps more disliked than any of the other 99 individuals currently serving in the Senate. Think about that. That's something! And it matters.

In the non-impossible scenario that Cruz becomes the nominee, yes, everyone will endorse him. Most will campaign for him. But that level of antipathy is quite difficult to overcome. And it will matter: at best sand in the gears of his campaign and possibly the source of much greater disruption.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-wages-of-assholery?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

[boutons_deux]

Law Prof: Cruz Is Not A Natural Born Citizen And Thus Can't Be President

The Washington Post published an op-ed Tuesday (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ted-cruz-is-not-eligible-to-be-president/2016/01/12/1484a7d0-b7af-11e5-99f3-184bc379b12d_story.html) by a constitutional law professor who asserts that due to his Canadian birth, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is not a natural born American citizen and thus is ineligible under the Constitution to be president.

"Let me be clear: I am not a so-called birther. I am a legal historian," Mary Brigid McManamon -- a constitutional law professor at Widener University’s Delaware Law School -- wrote.

She joins Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/11/laurence-tribe-ted-cruz-donald-trump-citizen-president) in raising concerns that Cruz may not meet the "natural born citizen" requirement for presidency under the Constitution. She previously wrote a paper about the topic in 2014. (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2444766)

In the Washington Post op-ed, McManamon argued that if one turns to the "common law" definition of "natural born citizen," he or she will find that 18th century English jurist William Blackstone defined the term as a "born within the dominions of the crown of England" and that U.S. founding father James Madison called birth place "the most certain criterion" of allegiance

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/wapo-op-ed-cruz-citizenship

Trump became politically famous for birthering about Obama, now he's trashing the wonderfully trashable Krazy Kruz with birthering.

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz plot thickens as mother appears on Canadian voter roll (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/8/1467703/-Ted-Cruz-plot-thickens-as-mother-appears-on-Canadian-voter-roll)

The problems continue to mount for Ted Cruz. It turns out that both his mother and father appeared on Canadian voter rolls. This story was actually known to Talking Points Memo (TPM) back in 2013.They shared the information with Cruz's office then. Cruz's office then said that appearance on the roll was not an indication of citizenship. TPM said they sat on the story because at the time Ted Cruz was not a candidate.

Talking Points Memo decided to to publish the story (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/ted-cruz-mother-canadian-voter-list) because Donald Trump made it an issue and Breitbart.com published an article (http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/08/ted-cruz-parents-canada-voters-list/) about the same document TPM had shared with Cruz's office in 2013. While Cruz's office dismissed his mother's appearance on the list as inconsequential, as the article points out these are certified rolls in which each person appearing on the roll was interviewed and asked to validate their citizenship. Did Cruz's mother simply tell the electoral official she was a citizen of Canada even thou supposedly she was not naturalized?

The words of President Obama's Press Secretary Josh Earnest (http://egbertowillies.com/2016/01/08/president-obamas-press-secretary-josh-earnest-gloats-at-ted-cruzs-birther-misfortune-video/) are rather telling.

“It would be quite ironic,” Josh Earnest said. “If after seven or eight years of drama over the President’s birth certificate, if Republican voters were to choose Senator Cruz as their nominee, somebody who actually wasn’t born in the United States and only eighteen months ago renounced his Canadian citizenship.”

While the birther story never had real legs for President Obama's eligibility for President, ironically they do for the bastion of the Right Wing, Ted Cruz.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/1/8/1467703/-Ted-Cruz-plot-thickens-as-mother-appears-on-Canadian-voter-roll

[boutons_deux]

In 1997, Michael Wayne Haley was arrested after stealing a calculator from Walmart. This was a crime that merited a maximum two-year prison term. But prosecutors incorrectly applied a habitual offender law. Neither the judge nor the defense lawyer caught the error and Haley was sentenced to 16 years.

Eventually, the mistake came to light and Haley tried to fix it. Ted Cruz was solicitor general of Texas at the time. Instead of just letting Haley go for time served, Cruz took the case to the Supreme Court (http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/06/11/lazarus.dretke/) to keep Haley in prison for the full 16 years.

The case reveals something interesting about Cruz’s character. Ted Cruz is now running strongly among evangelical voters, especially in Iowa. But in his career and public presentation Cruz is a stranger to most of what would generally be considered the Christian virtues: humility, mercy, compassion and grace. Cruz’s behavior in the Haley case is almost the dictionary definition of pharisaism: an overzealous application of the letter of the law in a way that violates the spirit of the law, as well as fairness and mercy.

During the Supreme Court hearing, Justice Anthony Kennedy—left incredulous by Cruz’s position—asked (http://www.texastribune.org/2012/07/23/cruz-supreme-court-work-heart-campaign/) him: “Is there some rule that you can't confess error in your state?”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/1/12/1468737/-Every-voter-needs-to-know-this-about-Ted-Cruz?detail=email

Egomaniac Krazy Kruz fabricated a situation that got him to plead before SCOTUS

[RandomGuy]

Ted Cruz didn't disclose bank loan.


Whoops.


Ted Cruz helped pay for his 2012 Senate race with $1 million in loans from Goldman Sachs and Citibank. He didn’t disclose this at the time, saying instead that he was financing his long-shot (and ultimately victorious) electoral effort with virtually all his family’s “personal funds.”
Senator Cruz, a Republican now running for president, revealed the loans later in Senate ethics reports, according to The New York Times, which plays this story high on its front page Thursday. But by then he was safely in office, having run as “a populist firebrand who criticized Wall Street bailouts and the influence of big banks in Washington,” writes the Times’s Mike McIntire

I would love to be able to walk into GS and get a $1M loan.

http://news.yahoo.com/ted-cruz-didnt-disclose-bank-loan-does-matter-170538607.html

[Spurminator]

687403639921598464

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz’s college roommate recalls his creepy habits

Apparently some people feel so strongly about Ted Cruz that they are emailing his one-time college roommate faulting him for not killing Cruz when he could.

Screenwriter Craig Mazin and the future Republican presidential candidate were paired together as freshmen at Princeton in 1988. And Mazin has never forgotten it.

Nor does he make any secret of loathing Cruz. He delights in tweeting embarrassing details about his roommie’s hygiene, his problems with women and his general creepiness.

Mazin, who penned the scripts for “The Hangover Part 2” and its sequel, told The Daily Beast: “I would rather have anybody else be the president of the United States. Anyone. I would rather pick somebody from the phone book. (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/opinion/anyone-but-ted-cruz.html)”

In freshman-year recollection (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ted-cruz-college-roommate-jokes-killing-article-1.2497971) to the Daily Beast, Mazin said Cruz “had a habit of hanging out near girls’ rooms in a paisley robe. He said dorm residents often asked him to keep Cruz out of the hallway.

The following tweets give a clue to just how deeply Cruz damaged Mazin’s psyche during that year at Princeton.

Mazin’s views toward Cruz only hardened after the right-wing conservative announced his candidacy:

lotsa tweets ....

http://blog.sfgate.com/hottopics/2016/01/15/ted-cruzs-college-roommate-recalls-his-creepy-habits/

:lol

white trash Donny T or Krazy Kreepy Kruz, one of these assholes will be the Repug candidate, and you rightwingnuts, gun fellators, bubbas, rednecks, spurstalkers, creationists, Bible humpers will sheeple-ly support him. :lol

[Winehole23]

Cruz is perhaps more disliked than any of the other 99 individuals currently serving in the Senate. Think about that.to his credit in this election cycle. the institutional prestige of Congress and the US government is at an all time low. voters love that insiders hate him, despite the fact that this loan and the trend of contributions to his campaign show him up as a consummate insider.

[Winehole23]

Ted Cruz didn't disclose bank loan.


Whoops.


I would love to be able to walk into GS and get a $1M loan.

http://news.yahoo.com/ted-cruz-didnt-disclose-bank-loan-does-matter-170538607.htmlinadvertent omission.

do GOP voters trust the FEC more than Ted Cruz?

I doubt it. dinging Ted Cruz on hypertechnical legalities like campaign disclosure feeds into the narrative of aggrieved Christianity subject to evil secular power..

[boutons_deux]

what a hypocritical bag of shit

Ted Cruz Cozies Up To “Big Ethanol” In Iowa


Cruz has gone on record opposing the Renewable Fuel Standard (http://www.epa.gov/renewable-fuels-standards-program).

Cruz says he favors a “free and fair energy marketplace.” That means “We should embrace all of the energy resources with which God has blessed America: oil and gas, nuclear, wind, solar, and biofuels and ethanol. But Washington shouldn’t be picking winners and losers.”

“The ethanol lobby is bird-dogging Cruz everywhere he goes. Upset by his pledge to phase out the Renewable Fuel Standard, employees of an industry funded group — which is run by the son of the popular Republican governor — follow Cruz everywhere he goes in a camper. They hand out flyers attacking him to people at his event. They have a field operation, run attack ads, and plaster voters who might be amenable to Cruz with mailers.”

Cruz is no dope. As a result of the pressure, he has now changed his tune, at least in Iowa. He published an op-ed piece in the Des Moines Register on January 6 entitled “I’m Fighting For Farmers Against Washington. (http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/caucus/2016/01/06/cruz-m-fighting-farmers-against-washington/78364704/)“

In it, he not only supports the Renewable Fuel Standard, he calls for eliminating the “blend wall” in the current policy which limits the amount of ethanol to no more than 15%. “If allowed full market access, mid-level ethanol products like E25 or E30 could prove quite popular with American consumers, who are increasingly concerned with fuel economy,”

http://gas2.org/2016/01/16/ted-cruz-cozies-up-to-big-ethanol-in-iowa/

he would screw his own pastor father nutcase if it meant getting votes.

[Reck]

Damn, not even Trump has managed to derailed his campaign as hard as this faggot.

[Nbadan]

Cruz commander...


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

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz: John F. Kennedy Would Be A Cruz Republican Today

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/01/18/3740392/ted-cruz-you-are-no-jack-kennedy/

[hitmanyr2k]

If Stephen King's movie Dead Zone were made today Martin Sheen's batshit crazy politician character would be based on Ted Cruz. I watched that movie last week and saw a preview of Cruz's presidency :lol

[DMX7]

Trump's latest attack on Cruz is that nobody who actually knows him likes him. That's cold.

[Spurminator]

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

I believe everyone should have the right to vote. That belief is shaken by the idea that there are people who will be compelled to vote for someone because of an ad like this.

[boutons_deux]

Trump's latest attack on Cruz is that nobody who actually knows him likes him. That's cold.

none of the Repug Senators spoken in favor of his claim to citizenship, that's cold.

[CosmicCowboy]

Cruz commander...


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


That ads great! Cruz Commander!!!!!

[Sportcamper]

Was never seriously considering Ted Cruz but that ad has made me re think my position…Cruz will put a duck in a pot & make us Gumbo…What more do you want? Plus Cruz is one of us! :toast

[DMX7]

What an embarrassment that he is a senator from our state...

[pgardn]

Cruz commander...


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

Im gonna go out on a limb and say he won't roll this add out if he makes the general election.

[rmt]

Cruz rails against 'crony capitalism,' praises wife's Goldman Sachs career

http://static2.politico.com/dims4/default/45d8631/2147483647/resize/1160x%3E/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fs3-origin-images.politico.com%2F2015%2F03%2F25%2F150325_heid i_ted_cruz_ap_629.jpg


http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/ted-cruz-wall-street-heidi-cruz-goldman-sachs-116381

Krazy Kruz is an "outsider" :lol




Their noses look alike.

[boutons_deux]

It’s not just Reagan: Republicans flunk JFK history, too


The more Republican presidential candidates cite Ronald Reagan’s policy towards Iran as an example to follow, the more obvious it is they don’t really know (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/iran-reagan-the-wrong-example-follow) what happened in the 1980s. But as it turns out, the iconic GOP leader isn’t the only president about whom these candidates are confused.

ThinkProgress noted yesterday (http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/01/18/3740392/ted-cruz-you-are-no-jack-kennedy/) that at least one of these candidates is equally lost about an iconic Democratic leader, too.


Just days after attacking the values of New Yorkers, GOP presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) traveled to New England on Sunday and attempted to claim that he was heir to the mantle of one of the nation’s most beloved presidents, Democrat John F. Kennedy.

“JFK campaigned on tax cuts, limiting government and standing up and defeating Soviet communists,” he told a New Hampshire audience. “JFK would be a Republican today. He stood for religious liberty, and he would be tarred and feathered by the modern Democratic Party.”


This is bonkers, and it’s worth revisiting some of our previous coverage (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/ted-cruz-believes-jfk-would-be-republican-today) to explain why.

Let’s quickly dispense with some of the easy points. It’s true that Kennedy championed religious liberty, but he did so by becoming one of the strongest advocates for the separation of church and state in modern history. That doesn’t put him at odds with contemporary Democrats; it puts him at odds with contemporary Republicans. Indeed, at least one of Cruz’s GOP rivals has condemned Kennedy’s approach (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/what-makes-santorum-nauseous) to religious liberty as being hostile towards people of faith.

And while it’s also true that Kennedy was one of many presidents who maintained the Cold War, Soviet communists are no longer a threat, and they have no Democratic allies.

And then there’s JFK’s tax cuts. This comes up (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_09/the_rights_misplaced_love_of_j032417.php) from time to time, so let’s set the record straight.

In the years following World War II, both Truman and Eisenhower kept high tax rates in place in order to help pay off war-era debts and help in post-war reconstruction. By the time Kennedy took office, the nation could afford to reduce rates, so he lowered the top marginal tax from 91% to 65%. (For comparison, note that a 65% top bracket is still far higher than today’s 39.6%.)

In an amusing twist, many congressional Republicans opposed JFK’s plan – Republicans had not yet made the transition in earnest from an anti-deficit party to an anti-tax party, and many GOP lawmakers from the era questioned whether the nation could afford Kennedy’s tax breaks.

But Democrats, recognizing that the nation had a small debt and almost no deficit, followed JFK’s lead and approved the “peace dividends.”


Does that suggest JFK was some knee-jerk supply-sider, who’d be comfortable with contemporary Republican policies? Um, no. Not only was Kennedy’s plan rooted in Keynesian economics (http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2011/01/26/the-myth-of-jfk-as-supply-side-tax-cutter), it was also designed to spread the wealth around – the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation determined (http://www.cbpp.org/archives/4-19-01tax.htm)that the bottom 85% of the population received 59% of the benefits of JFK’s tax cut. The top 2.4% received 17.4% of the tax cut, and the top 0.4% received just 6% of it.

By 2015 standards, Republicans would look at such an approach as a misguided mess, failing to appreciate the importance of “job creators” in a free-enterprise system.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/its-not-just-reagan-republicans-flunk-jfk-history-too?cid=sm_fb_maddow

There's NO LIE that Krazy Kruz wouldn't spew.

In fact, Repugs, Fox, right-wing hate media spew nothing but LIES, myths, propaganda

[DMX7]

This is just a devastating take down of Cruz's eligibility to run.

http://www.salon.com/2016/01/20/ted_cruz_is_not_eligible_to_run_for_president_a_ha rvard_law_professor_close_reads_the_constitution/

[boutons_deux]

Two Sides of Ted Cruz: Tort Reformer and Personal Injury Lawyer

Ted Cruz says his uncompromising purity as a conservative crusader helped propel him to the top of the Republican presidential field. But his history suggests that when the cameras are off, a different Mr. Cruz emerges.

Last week, voters learned that Mr. Cruz’s 2012 Senate campaign, in which he railed against Wall Street bailouts, was financed more by loans from Goldman Sachs (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/us/politics/ted-cruz-wall-street-loan-senate-bid-2012.html) andCitibank (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/16/us/politics/ted-cruz-failed-to-report-a-second-campaign-loan-in-2012.html) than by the family piggy bank, as he touchingly claimed on the stump.

To that, here’s another tale of two Teds: Mr. Cruz, the Senate candidate, running as a conservative champion of tort reform in Texas while Mr. Cruz, the lawyer, quietly reaped more than $3 million while defending record-setting personal injury awards.

...

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/opinion/two-sides-of-ted-cruz-tort-reformer-and-personal-injury-lawyer.html

And you rightwingnuts parrot the Repug/FOX/right-wing-hate-media that Hillary is a liar? :lol

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz Says He's No Longer Covered By Health Insurance

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Thursday told an audience at a campaign stop in Manchester, New Hampshire that he no longer is covered by health insurance, Politico reported. (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/ted-cruz-no-health-insurance-218070#ixzz3xumxXRfh)

He said his coverage lapsed because Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas dropped its individual policies and he had not found a new plan by December 31, when those policies ceased.

Not surprisingly, Cruz used the revelation to bash Obamacare.

"I’ll tell you, you know who one of those millions of Americans is who’s lost their health care because of Obamacare? That would be me," Cruz said, according to Politico.

"I don’t have health care right now."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ted-cruz-no-health-insurance?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

The multi-millionaire is a LIAR and a FRAUD.

[boutons_deux]

Republican Senator Says He’ll Support Bernie Sanders If Ted Cruz Wins The GOP Nomination

“Cruz has become such a pariah that one of his colleagues, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, told supporters at a campaign fundraiser for his own re-election that he would vote for liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders for president before Cruz, according to one person who attended the event.

Burr did not appear to be joking, said the person, who demanded anonymity to discuss the private gathering.”

You can file Burr’s remarks under the category of Republicans really can’t stand Ted Cruz. Sanders is liked by his Senate colleagues, but he has little in common with a conservative like Richard Burr.

It speaks volumes about just how strong the anybody but Cruz feeling is among the people who know the junior senator from Texas the best.

http://www.politicususa.com/2016/01/21/republican-senator-support-bernie-sanders-ted-cruz-wins-gop-nomination.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politi cus+USA+%29

[boutons_deux]

:lol

Donald Trump or Ted Cruz? Republicans Argue Over Who Is Greater Threat

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/22/us/politics/donald-trump-ted-cruz-republican-establishment.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Repugs are SO fucked! :lol

[Spurminator]

690544061854433281

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz flubs his family's health insurance and (naturally) blames Obamacare

"I’ll tell you, you know who one of those millions of Americans is who’s lost their healthcare because of Obamacare? That would be me," he told an audience in Manchester, N.H., according to Politico. "I don’t have healthcare right now."

Cruz’s quandary is entirely his own fault. His, and his Republican colleagues in the Senate.

Essentially, Cruz’s coverage lapsed because his 2015 carrier, BlueCross BlueShield of Texas, ended its individual PPO plans for 2016, including the family plan that covered the Cruz family. The carrier decided to move entirely to HMO plans for the individual market. And Cruz didn’t manage to sign up for a new 2016 plan by Dec. 31. That happened even though the insurer announced its decision to close PPO plans way back on July 23 (http://www.bcbstx.com/company-info/alerts-announcements/alerts-announcements?lid=icadpkzd). Five months is normally enough for an educated adult to arrange health insurance.

Cruz still has until Jan. 31 to sign up for coverage beginning March 1, and he said he’d be doing that.

Cruz’s problem has nothing to do with Obamacare and everything to do with his own sloth — unless the explanation is more sinister, as insurance expert Richard Mayhew (https://www.balloon-juice.com/2016/01/21/cruzing-for-coverage/) of balloon-juice.com speculates: "The Cruz family is currently uninsured to guarantee their father a cheap laugh line."


He claims that the new plans he has examined carry premium increases of 50% — "That’s happening all over the country," he said. "That’s happening in New Hampshire."
Well, no. Cruz wasn’t especially forthcoming with details about his old plan or the new ones he’s examining, but average rate increases in the individual market in Texas aren’t anywhere near 50%. No single carrier is getting a rate increase that high (https://www.healthinsurance.org/texas-state-health-insurance-exchange/); the largest is 34%, for a very tiny carrier. At some companies, including BlueCross BlueShield, some rates actually decreased.

In New Hampshire, the biggest plans hadincreases in the single digits (https://www.healthinsurance.org/new_hampshire-state-health-insurance-exchange/). At Anthem, the largest individual insurer, some rates decreased.

Normally, Cruz would be eligible for the standard government health insurance plan enjoyed by all government employees.

But thanks to a deliberate monkey wrench forged by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) (http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-a-us-court-quashes-the-dopiest-obamacare-lawsuit-of-all-20150415-column.html) during the drafting of the Affordable Care Act, members of Congress and their staffs are required to get their insurance through the exchanges — a biting-your-nose-off-to-spite-your-face stunt that increased the complexity of health coverage for them all, since the ACA wasn't designed to substitute for employer insurance.

Cruz is still eligible for the government’s employer subsidy of up to 75% of his health insurance premium. He has said he wouldn’t accept the employer share, which makes his complaint about his cost of insurance just a teeny bit more dishonest because he’s the one driving up his own premium.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-ted-cruz-blames-naturally-obamacare-20160121-column.html

How many Ms of you dumbfuck rightwingnuts slurp down Krazy Kruz' lies as the Bible truth? Would a man of the Bible be non-stop fraud and liar?

[SnakeBoy]

He claims that the new plans he has examined carry premium increases of 50% — "That’s happening all over the country," he said. "That’s happening in New Hampshire."
Well, no. Cruz wasn’t especially forthcoming with details about his old plan or the new ones he’s examining, but average rate increases in the individual market in Texas aren’t anywhere near 50%. No single carrier is getting a rate increase that high; the largest is 34%, for a very tiny carrier. At some companies, including BlueCross BlueShield, some rates actually decreased.

That's complete BS. My BCBS plan was $315/month before Obamacare and is now $474. My grandfathered plan is one of the few BCBS did not cancel last year but the most comparable new individual plan from BCBS is their Blue Advantage Silver plan which would cost us $966/month.

[boutons_deux]

That's complete BS. My BCBS plan was $315/month before Obamacare and is now $474. My grandfathered plan is one of the few BCBS did not cancel last year but the most comparable new individual plan from BCBS is their Blue Advantage Silver plan which would cost us $966/month.

again, anecdotes are useless

again, the insurance companies set rates, not ACA.

The for-profit rates have been increasing many times inflation for decades, looting Americans for $100Ks over their lifetime. Not ACA's fault.

But You Rightwingnut People are dead set against a no-profit govt health insurance, public option, single-payer, regulated drug/device prices.

[SnakeBoy]

again, anecdotes are useless


The entire article you posted was about Ted Cruz's personal anecdote. I just gave you numbers showing he's not lying.


The for-profit rates have been increasing many times inflation for decades, looting Americans for $100Ks over their lifetime. Not ACA's fault.


For the 15 years that we had the plan prior to Obamacare our rates had only gone down because our rate was based on our personal health and history with the plan. The ACA eliminated that and changed the way that insurance companies are able to calculate rates...that's the ACA's fault.

[boutons_deux]

Krazy Kruz's anecdote is s fabricated anecdote, a fuckin lie, just like every one of his political talking points.

It's totally irrelevant to "true" anecdotes. When ACA is handing 10Ms of people, the anecdotes are useless in evaluating the effects on the population.

There will be losers, due to the opacity, complexity, and looting by the insurance companies. Some of these "losers" could be fixed, but Repugs not only block all adjustments, they vote 60+ times for full repeal.

"our personal health and history with the plan. The ACA eliminated that and changed the way that insurance companies are able to calculate rates"

link?

so you're saying now a healthy family with no claims pays less (bonus) than family with many claims and/or chronic disease (malus)?

[SnakeBoy]

There will be losers, due to the opacity, complexity, and looting by the insurance companies. Some of these "losers" could be fixed, but Repugs not only block all adjustments, they vote 60+ times for full repeal.

"our personal health and history with the plan. The ACA eliminated that and changed the way that insurance companies are able to calculate rates"

link?

so you're saying now a healthy family with no claims pays less (bonus) than family with many claims and/or chronic disease (malus)?


lol for all the years you've spent talking up the ACA you still don't know wtf it did. Fucking moron.

[boutons_deux]

lol for all the years you've spent talking up the ACA you still don't know wtf it did. Fucking moron.

I haven't read the 2000 pages, have you?

ACA's primary goal was to get people insured into medical care. It did that by the many Ms.

Support your claim that a family's healthy history (no/few claims) was removed from reduced rate calculations.

[boutons_deux]

Krazy Kristian Talibutt Kruz is now campaigning on, touting endorsement by Pastor Bickle

Bickle says God sent Hitler to chase the Jews back to Israel, which is exactly what Hagee said and which caused McLiar to reject Hagee's endorsement.

Bickle says the harbinger of the anti-Christ is Oprah W.

Holy FUCKING shit, you Christians are so full of shit

Kruz is one scary mofo, and his crazy supporters have no problem with a total grifting asshole like Bickle.

[clambake]

the ACA was just a tool they built to force everyone to get used to paying for healthcare/or fined for not.

its like house breaking a dog.







we gotta teach these savages.

[boutons_deux]

the ACA was just a tool they built to force everyone to get used to paying for healthcare/or fined for not.

its like house breaking a dog.

we gotta teach these savages.

bullshit

when those poor people got sick in years past, their medical care was picked up by everybody else.

[clambake]

bullshit

when those poor people got sick in years past, their medical care was picked up by everybody else.

do you realize what you said?

[Nbadan]

$5000 max out of pocket and no loopholes for preconditions makes the ACA worth it.....plus the average yearly increase in health care costs for large plans has decreased under the ACA...

[Nbadan]

do you realize what you said?

Problem is the bill wasn't picked up by everyone equally.....emergency care in most cities is paid for with property taxes.....so people who irresponsibly had no health insurance where stiffing local Texas homeowners with the emergency room bill.....the ACA shifts responsibility back on the dumb-ass who has no insurance....

[boutons_deux]

do you realize what you said?

of course

[Dirk Oneanddoneski]

Hey boutons have you made a Cruz big backer/campaign contributor post yet?

[boutons_deux]

This is the religious right’s radical new plan: The very real efforts to create an American theocracy in plain sight

The religious right can't win at the polls. But that will not stop them from pursuing this dangerous, scary path

UCC’s general minister and president, the Rev. John C. Dorhauer, wrote the preface to a major new report, shedding new light on the right’s decades-long campaign to redefine religious freedom into a tool for their own theocratic domination. “Removing someone’s civil rights by empowering the government to protect and preserve my religious homophobia is not my idea of religious liberty,” Dorhauer writes. But that’s exactly how the religious right has tried to stand the idea of religious freedom on its head. “What they want to call religious freedom is in fact the kind of oppressive religious tyranny that my ancestors left their homeland to escape,”

“When Exemption is the Rule: The Religious Freedom Strategy of the Christian Right,” (http://www.politicalresearch.org/2016/01/12/when-exemption-is-the-rule-the-religious-freedom-strategy-of-the-christian-right/)published by Political Research Associates on Jan. 12, was written by Frederick Clarkson, PRA’s Senior Fellow for Religious Liberty, author of “Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy” and co-founder of the blog Talk to Action. The title highlights a key aspect of the religious right’s long-term strategy, taking the time-honored principle of religious exemption, intended to protect theindividual right of conscience, and expanding it recklessly to apply to whole institutions, even for-profit businesses—as seen in the Supreme Court’s 2014 Hobby Lobby decision, in a process designed to fragment the common public sphere and carve out vast segments of American life where civil rights, labor law and other core protections simply do not apply.

“When Christian Right leaders talk about religious liberty, they often really mean theocratic supremacism of their own religious beliefs inscribed in government,”

how their Orwellian agenda is unfolding, combining up-to-the-minute analysis of recent developments with an historical account dating back to the 1970s and the birth of the modern-day religious right, defending Bob Jones University’s “right to discriminate,” based on religion.


As recently as the 1980s, Christian Right activists defended racial segregation by claiming that restrictions on their ability to discriminate violated their First Amendment right to religious freedom….

Instead of African Americans being discriminated against by Bob Jones, the university argued it was the party being discriminated against in being prevented from executing its First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court disagreed….


Two things are worth noting here: first, the primacy of discrimination as a political motivation, and second, the “envious reversal” of victim and victimizer that lies at the heart of the conservative victimhood shtick.

even before the issues of abortion and homosexuality became the policy priorities of a newly politicized Christian Right, its leaders fought the perceived threat of racial equality at conservative Christian academies by claiming their religious freedom to discriminate. This legacy should remind us that the Right’s religious liberty campaigns mobilize old arguments around new targets, and that their agenda extends beyond questions of contraception coverage, or marriage and nondiscrimination in the LGBTQ context.

the cause they are actually advancing is neither religion nor freedom, but the antithesis of both: theocratic political control. No church, minister or priest anywhere in America has ever been forced to perform a gay marriage against their will—the kind of scenario that so-called “religious freedom” advocates supposedly fear. Yet, for almost two years, UCC ministers in North Carolina faced criminal charges if they dared to perform a same-sex marriage ceremony. UCC’s case made it stunningly clear which side was really interested in religious liberty, and which side was deceptively hijacking the concept to force its own narrow-minded religious views onto the rest of society—the exact opposite of what most Americans instinctively know religious freedom to be.

“The evangelical Protestant Christian Right and U.S. Roman Catholic bishops are intensifying their campaign to carve out arenas of public life where religious institutions, individuals, and even businesses may evade civil rights and labor laws in the name of religious liberty,” Clarkson writes in the executive summary. “By creating zones of legal exemption, the Christian Right seeks to shrink the public sphere and the arenas within which the government has legitimacy to defend people’s rights, including reproductive, labor, and LGBTQ rights.”

These efforts have powerful outside allies as well, Clarkson notes. “In this, it is often aligned with the anti-government strategy of free market libertarians and some business interests, who for a variety of reasons also seek to restrict arenas where government can legally act.”

This conservative Christian alliance is challenging a century or more of social advances and many of the premises of the Enlightenment underlying the very definition of religious liberty in the United States. Its long-range goal is to impose a conservative Christian social order inspired by religious law, in part by eroding pillars of undergirding religious pluralism that are integral to our constitutional democracy.

Their goal is to impose a conservative Christian social order inspired by religious law. To achieve this goal, they seek to remove religious freedom as an integral part of religious pluralism and constitutional democracy, and redefine it in Orwellian fashion to justify discrimination by an ever wider array of “religified” institutions and businesses.


“For example, a church receptionist is not exactly a secular job,” Clarkson said. “But it is usually a stretch to call it a ministry by any reasonable standard.”
Along these same lines, in the report, he wrote:


The Southern Baptist manual suggests assigning “… employees duties that involve ministerial, teaching, or other spiritual qualifications—duties that directly further the religious mission. For example, if a church receptionist answers the phone, the job description might detail how the receptionist is required to answer basic questions about the church’s faith, provide religious resources, or pray with callers.”

While the courts may not buy the idea that a receptionist can be reasonably construed as a minister in the legal sense, this is the kind of thinking that is permeating the conservative Christian world in the wake of Hosanna-Tabor.

...

http://www.salon.com/2016/01/16/this_is_the_religious_rights_radical_new_plan_the_ very_real_efforts_to_create_an_american_theocracy_ in_plain_sight/

Krazy Christian Taliban Kruz is running to be Pope and Patriarch of Christian-only America, imposing Christians' intolerance, authoritarianism, HATE, discriminaiton, racism, and Biblical fairy tales on non-Christians.

Along with the VRWC having exactly the same strategy, the more the Christian Taliban can override, weaken, defund govt, the more power for the Christian Taliban and VRWC.

America is fucked and unfuckable, and the silence from You People about how to unfuck it is implicit agreement.

[boutons_deux]

Krazy Christian Taliban Kruz loves this Bickle pervert freakshow

Mike Bickle, Who Believes Oprah Is A Forerunner To The Antichrist

New Apostolic Reformation, a collection of self-proclaimed modern day apostles and prophets who believe that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, they are capable of performing greater miracles than even Jesus himself.

One of the key leaders in the NAR movement is Mike Bickle (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/longform/inside-the-international-house-of-prayer--2), who also played a central role in organizing Perry's (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/perry-prayer-politics-and-presidency)prayer rally (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/response-bickle-rails-against-redefining-love-and-false-religions). Bickle is the founder of the International House of Prayer (http://www.ihopkc.org/about/), a controversial missionary organization in Kansas City, Missouri, that some critics (http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/06/the-seven-signs-youre-in-a-cult/361400/) have labeled a cult (https://carm.org/ihop) and which is best known for engaging (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ihop-classes-canceled-due-holy-spirit) in nonstop 24-hour-a-day prayer in preparation for the End Times (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ihop-preparing-thousands-students-end-world) and for its anti-gay activism in Uganda (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/new-york-times-investigates-relationship-between-american-dominionists-and-uganda).

Bickle, unsurprisingly is a demon-fighting (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mike-bickle-exercising-dominion-casting-out-demons) radical who believes that gay marriage is "rooted in the depths of hell (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rick-perry-ally-bickle-says-marriage-equality-rooted-depths-hell)," that homosexuality "opens the door to the demonic realm (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mike-bickle-warns-homosexuality-opens-door-demonic-realm)" and that Oprah Winfrey is a forerunner of the Antichrist (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rick-perry-partners-pastor-who-thinks-oprah-precursor-antichrist):

Back in 2004, Bickle declared that as the End Times approach, all Jews will be given a chance to accept Jesus, warning that if they do not accept "the grace" of Christ, God will then "raise up a hunter" who will kill two-thirds of them "and the most famous hunter in recent history is a man named Adolf Hitler":

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-welcomes-endorsement-mike-bickle-who-believes-oprah-forerunner-antichrist

Hate- and fear-mongering from Bickle, exactly matching the emotional appeals of the Repugs.

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz: 'I'm a Christian first, American second.' Imagine if a Muslim or Jewish politician said that (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/22/1473694/-Ted-Cruz-I-m-a-Christian-first-American-second-Imagine-if-Muslim-or-Jewish-politician-said-that)


http://images.dailykos.com/images/135439/story_image/RTR4RBW7-1.jpg?1446946926

“I’m a Christian first,

American second,

conservative third and

Republican fourth...

I’ll tell ya, there are a whole lot of people in this country that feel exactly the same way.”

The politics of this aside, I want to highlight here something we might call Christian Privilege.

Could you imagine, for example, a Jewish candidate for president saying that he or she was a Jew first and an American second?

Now imagine the sheer outrage if a Muslim American of any prominence whatsoever declared that he or she was Muslim first and American second. People’s heads would explode.

On a related note, imagine a presidential candidate saying he or she was black, white, or Latino (or any other ethnic group) first, and American second.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/1/22/1473694/-Ted-Cruz-I-m-a-Christian-first-American-second-Imagine-if-Muslim-or-Jewish-politician-said-that

[boutons_deux]

update

[ More on the Cruz campaign's backtracking:

A campaign spokesman tol the Wall Street Journal that the Cruz family had been automatically enrolled by BlueCross BlueShield in one of its HMOs, or health maintenance organizations, as of Jan. 1, when their former PPO plan expired.

The insurance carrier did this for all 2015 PPO enrollees who took no action before Dec. 31.

Cruz presumably should have known this, if he was paying attention, as the insurance carrier informed all affected customers of the change.

The campaign says Cruz has now arranged to switch to a PPO plan offered in Texas by Humana, effective March 1.]

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-ted-cruz-blames-naturally-obamacare-20160121-column.html

So either Krazy Fucking Kruz didn't know he was insured automatically, or he was lying about losing his insurance due to Obamacare to rouse his supporting rabble.

I give him no benefit of the doubt, he was lying

[boutons_deux]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt-vG_TdOT4

[Winehole23]

I give him no benefit of the doubt, he was lyingat this point of the game there's no downside -- and might be a very tangible upside (pace, Donald J. Trump) -- to making shit up.

[DMX7]

Real Talk: I honestly don't think Cruz is eligible to run. If you're a naturally born citizen of Canada, you can't be a naturally born citizen of the U.S. You can be born a U.S. citizen through technical statutes, but you can actually be naturally born with competing loyalties at birth.

[boutons_deux]

http://www.msnbc.com/sites/msnbc/files/styles/ratio--3-2--1_5x-1245x830/public/articles/gettyimages-487405560.jpg?itok=N4ElCHKy

Conservative media personality Glenn Beck officially endorsed Ted Cruz’s presidential bid on Saturday while campaigning with the Texas senator in Iowa.

“I am here to announce that I am officially endorsing Ted Cruz,” Beck said as he introduced the GOP hopeful in Ankeny.



Right on cue, Trump referred to Beck as a “sad sack” and “a serious loser.”

But of particular interest was how Beck endorsed the Texas senator. “I have prayed for the next George Washington,” Beck told supporters (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/23/glenn-beck-endorses-ted-cruz/). “I believe I have found him.”

The obvious problem with the praise is that Ted Cruz has nothing at all in common with the nation’s first president, but the less obvious problem is that Beck keeps finding the next George Washington.

Salon’s Simon Maloy explained (http://www.salon.com/2016/01/25/glenn_beck_gets_stuck_on_repeat_while_backing_cruz _he_adds_yet_another_next_george_washington_to_his _collection/) this morning, “Who wouldn’t want to be the next George Washington? But, unfortunately for Cruz, he’s not the only person Beck has pegged as the potential second coming of America’s first president. In fact, Cruz is something like the fourth or fifth ‘next George Washington’ that Beck has identified over the past few years.”


Apparently Beck’s test for George Washingtons produces an unhelpful number of false positives. In November 2011, for example, not long before the Iowa caucuses, Beck told his audience “[I]f there is one guy out there that is the next George Washington, the only guy that I can think of is Rick Santorum.”

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/glenn-becks-search-the-next-george-washington?cid=sm_fb_maddow

:lol BecKKK is a total fraud, and very wealthy fraud, as fraudulent as a Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Popoff, Hagee, etc.

[Sportcamper]

boutons_deux Does Hagee really belong in that group? Hagee is not a "Word of Faith" "Jesus wants you healthy & wealthy" guy...

[DMX7]

http://www.msnbc.com/sites/msnbc/files/styles/ratio--3-2--1_5x-1245x830/public/articles/gettyimages-487405560.jpg?itok=N4ElCHKy

Conservative media personality Glenn Beck officially endorsed Ted Cruz’s presidential bid on Saturday while campaigning with the Texas senator in Iowa.

“I am here to announce that I am officially endorsing Ted Cruz,” Beck said as he introduced the GOP hopeful in Ankeny.



Right on cue, Trump referred to Beck as a “sad sack” and “a serious loser.”

But of particular interest was how Beck endorsed the Texas senator. “I have prayed for the next George Washington,” Beck told supporters (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/23/glenn-beck-endorses-ted-cruz/). “I believe I have found him.”

The obvious problem with the praise is that Ted Cruz has nothing at all in common with the nation’s first president, but the less obvious problem is that Beck keeps finding the next George Washington.

Salon’s Simon Maloy explained (http://www.salon.com/2016/01/25/glenn_beck_gets_stuck_on_repeat_while_backing_cruz _he_adds_yet_another_next_george_washington_to_his _collection/) this morning, “Who wouldn’t want to be the next George Washington? But, unfortunately for Cruz, he’s not the only person Beck has pegged as the potential second coming of America’s first president. In fact, Cruz is something like the fourth or fifth ‘next George Washington’ that Beck has identified over the past few years.”


Apparently Beck’s test for George Washingtons produces an unhelpful number of false positives. In November 2011, for example, not long before the Iowa caucuses, Beck told his audience “[I]f there is one guy out there that is the next George Washington, the only guy that I can think of is Rick Santorum.”

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/glenn-becks-search-the-next-george-washington?cid=sm_fb_maddow

:lol BecKKK is a total fraud, and very wealthy fraud, as fraudulent as a Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Popoff, Hagee, etc.




But he looks so thoughtful and sincere in that picture...

[boutons_deux]

But he looks so thoughtful and sincere in that picture...

Sure, a showbiz grifter

[DMX7]

Sure, a showbiz grifter

You don't have to resort to personal attacks to make your point, beux.

[boutons_deux]

You don't have to resort to personal attacks to make your point, beux.

GFY

[boutons_deux]

CBS Host Laughs In Ted Cruz's Face For Repeatedly Denying He Shut Down Government (http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/cbs-host-laughs-ted-cruzs-face-repeatedly)

CBS host Bob Schieffer's was driven nearly to a fit of giggles on Sunday after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) repeatedly refused to take responsibility for last year's government shutdown.

The veteran newsman led off his Sunday interview by simply asking if Cruz would be willing to once again hold the government hostage to try to get concessions from President Barack Obama.

"Well, Bob, with all due respect, I don't agree with the premise of your question," Cruz replied. "Throughout the government shutdown, I opposed a government shutdown. I said we shouldn't shut the government down. I think it was a mistake that President Obama and the Democrats shut the government down this fall."

"The question I asked you was, would you ever conceive of trying to shut down the government again?" Schieffer pressed, clearly not buying in to the alternate reality.

"As I said, I didn't threaten to shut down the government the last time," Cruz insisted. "I don't think we should ever shut down the government. And I repeatedly voted..."

"Well," Schieffer interrupted, laughing out of frustration. "If you didn't threaten to shut down the government, who was it that did?"

"President Obama," Cruz said.

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/cbs-host-laughs-ted-cruzs-face-repeatedly

[Aztecfan03]

CBS Host Laughs In Ted Cruz's Face For Repeatedly Denying He Shut Down Government (http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/cbs-host-laughs-ted-cruzs-face-repeatedly)

CBS host Bob Schieffer's was driven nearly to a fit of giggles on Sunday after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) repeatedly refused to take responsibility for last year's government shutdown.

The veteran newsman led off his Sunday interview by simply asking if Cruz would be willing to once again hold the government hostage to try to get concessions from President Barack Obama.

"Well, Bob, with all due respect, I don't agree with the premise of your question," Cruz replied. "Throughout the government shutdown, I opposed a government shutdown. I said we shouldn't shut the government down. I think it was a mistake that President Obama and the Democrats shut the government down this fall."

"The question I asked you was, would you ever conceive of trying to shut down the government again?" Schieffer pressed, clearly not buying in to the alternate reality.

"As I said, I didn't threaten to shut down the government the last time," Cruz insisted. "I don't think we should ever shut down the government. And I repeatedly voted..."

"Well," Schieffer interrupted, laughing out of frustration. "If you didn't threaten to shut down the government, who was it that did?"

"President Obama," Cruz said.

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/cbs-host-laughs-ted-cruzs-face-repeatedly




Shutting down the government was the fault of both sides. So he did shut down the government, but so did the democrats.

[boutons_deux]

Shutting down the government was the fault of both sides. So he did shut down the government, but so did the democrats.

To quote Bob Schieffer: :lol

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz’s health care deception: Asked how he’d protect the uninsured, he dodges and lies

there was one portion of Cruz’s performance Thursday night that was especially bad: His answer on healthcare reform. He was asked by moderator Bret Baier what he would do with the millions of people who would lose their coverage if Ted Cruz got his wish and the Affordable Care Act were repealed. This is a critical question that gets right to the heart of the Obamacare repeal “debate” – Republicans like Cruz want to eliminate the law, but they don’t really explain how they’ll help all the people who would be hurt by repeal. And so Baier asked him flat out: “What is your specific plan for covering the uninsured?”

Cruz’s answer was lies and nonsense from start to finish.

He began with a rote recitation of anti-Obamcare talking points, calling it “the biggest job-killer in this country,” which is thoroughly and completely wrong (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/01/cruz-claims-%E2%80%9Cmillions%E2%80%9D-have-lost-their-jobs-because-obamacare).

He said “millions of Americans have lost their jobs, have been forced into part-time work,” which is false (http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/22/news/economy/employers-obamacare-jobs/).

And he said that millions lost coverage and saw their premiums “skyrocket” – two claims that are, at best, wildly (http://www.factcheck.org/2014/04/millions-lost-insurance/) misleading (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obamacare-premiums-open-enrollment_us_562e8c3fe4b0c66bae59088d).

Having run through all of that, he promised to repeal “every word” of the Affordable Care Act.

The practical effect of eliminating the law would be to throw millions of people off their newfound health coverage as they lose their federal subsidies and money for expanded Medicaid suddenly evaporates.

As for what he would put in Obamacare’s place, Cruz offered three proposals that, if you’ve paid just cursory attention to the Republican healthcare policy debate, you’ve almost certainly heard before:

selling insurance across state lines,

health savings accounts, and

decoupling health insurance from employment.

“I think that’s a much more attractive vision for healthcare than the Washington-driven, top-down Obamacare that is causing so many millions of people to hurt,” Cruz said.

That may be ideologically appealing, but it didn’t answer Baier’s question, which was how he would cover the people who would lose their coverage after Obamacare gets nuked.

He promised a return to the pre-Obamacare days of coverage denials based on pre-existing conditions and junk insurance policies that don’t do much good, but he papered over that grim truth with a banal suggestion that the free market will somehow fix everything.

http://www.salon.com/2016/01/29/ted_cruzs_health_care_deception_asked_how_hed_prot ect_the_uninsured_he_dodges_and_lies/

And he probably delivered with great conviction, elocution, slickness, and the ignorant, wanna-be-duped sheeple fell for it.

[Nbadan]

Cruz campaign is in trouble...


You are receiving this election notice because of low expected voter turnout in your area. Your individual voting history as well as your neighbors’ are public record. Their scores are published below, and many of them will see your score as well. CAUCUS ON MONDAY TO IMPROVE YOUR SCORE and please encourage your neighbors to caucus as well. A follow-up notice may be issued following Monday’s caucuses”.


Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler confirmed to IJ Review that the mailer was theirs in a phone call Friday evening, saying that the targeting had been “very narrow, but the caucuses are important and we want people who haven’t voted before to vote.”


[link:http://journal.ijreview.com/2016/01/252498-said-undecided-iowan-received-controversial-mailer-ted-cruz/|

[boutons_deux]

Fox News Caught Ted Cruz Lying Again

The network’s anchors nailed him again in the GOP debate.

By pressing Cruz about discrepancies between what he said then and what he says now, Kelly forced him to show the public, on live television, how he thinks about honesty. It wasn’t pretty.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/01/fox_news_is_getting_really_good_at_spotting_ted_cr uz_s_lies.html

For Christ-loving Christian Taliban, Krazy Kruz loves to lie, and it appears to be pathological. Or maybe he's just a lawyer.

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz Sends out ‘Public Shaming’ Mailer to Iowa Voters

Ted Cruz sent out an unauthorized “election notice” to some Iowa voters prior to the caucus.

The Texas senator’s mailer was marked “voting violation.”

“You are receiving this election notice because of low expected voter turnout in your area. Your individual voting history as well as your neighbors’ are public record,” it said.
“Their scores are published below, and many of them will see your score as well. Caucus on Monday to improve your score and please encourage your neighbors to caucus as well.”

Tom Hinkeldey shared a picture of the notice on Twitter, and noted that it had helped him make a decision on who to vote for.

“Hey Ted Cruz your brilliant public shaming campaign has inspired me to caucus on Monday…For Marco Rubio,” he said.

http://img.theepochtimes.com/n3/eet-content/uploads/2016/01/31/cruz-mailer-collage-674x404.jpg


“These kind of mailers are fraught with risk,” said Republican media strategist Rick Wilson, who has done some work for a Rubio Super PAC. “They do work, but the social pressure stuff has got to be subtle. This, on the other hand, is like a sledgehammer.”

Rival Donald Trump didn’t hesitate to get in on the action, saying via Twitter: “The Cruz campaign issued a dishonest and deceptive get out the vote ad calling voters ‘in violation.’ They are now under investigation. Bad!”

Republican Secretary of State Paul Pate of Iowa also condemned the mailers, saying the words “official public record” printed in red at the top, “misrepresents the role of my office, and worse, misrepresents Iowa election law.”

“There is no such thing as an election violation related to frequency of voting,” said Paul, who was elected statewide as a Republican in 2014,reported Politico (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/ted-cruz-mailer-iowa-official-slams-218459). “Any insinuation or statement to the contrary is wrong and I believe it is not in keeping in the spirit of the Iowa Caucuses.”

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1954644-ted-cruz-sends-out-public-shaming-mailer-to-iowa-voters/

[spurraider21]

On a related note, imagine a presidential candidate saying he or she was black, white, or Latino (or any other ethnic group) first, and American second.
thats a horrible equivocation though :lol... religious beliefs reach to a higher power that supersedes life. race is nothing of the sort

[Spurminator]

693882335771676673

[DMX7]

693882335771676673

That was creepy as shit. Nobody likes this guy.

[Aztecfan03]

That was creepy as shit. Nobody likes this guy.
:rolleyes Like kids always like their parents.

[DMX7]

:rolleyes Like kids always like their parents.

No, not that. The fact that he wouldn't take no for an answer. Kids do that all the time but parents don't usually force themself on the kid like that in such a creepy manner.

[hater]

693882335771676673

:lmao this tool can't even raise a kid right :lmao

I'd smack the shit outta that lil shit :lol

[boutons_deux]

Even Ted Cruz’s family thinks he’s creepy — and here are four ways we know that


Nody likes Ted Cruz.

Since the day he sashayed into the Senate as the new President from Texas, he has endeared himself to exactly no one except for a few House members he convinced to shut down the government (http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/ted-cruz-blasted-by-angry-gop-colleagues-government-shutdown-097753). For freedom.

A simple Google search of ‘Hate+Ted+Cruz’ turns up this kind of media coverage:

Why Everyone (in Congress) Hates Ted Cruz (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/12/why-everyone-in-congress-hates-ted-cruz.html) — NY Magazine

Why D.C. Hates Ted Cruz (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/why-dc-hates-ted-cruz/426915/) — The Atlantic

Why even people who agree with him hate Ted Cruz (http://theweek.com/articles/592719/why-even-people-who-agree-hate-ted-cruz)— The Week

A lot of people just don’t like Ted Cruz. How come that’s okay with him? (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-lot-of-people-just-dont-like-ted-cruz-how-come-thats-okay-with-him/2015/11/08/b55a0782-7758-11e5-bc80-9091021aeb69_story.html) — The Washington Post

The Ted Cruz pile on: GOP senators warn of revolt should he win nomination (http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/21/politics/ted-cruz-senate-revolt/) — CNN

How Unpopular Is Ted Cruz Right Now? (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/09/how-unpopular-is-ted-cruz-right-now/279903/) — The Atlantic (again)

Why Senate Republicans Hate Ted Cruz (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/09/ted_cruz_is_despised_by_senate_republicans_a_list_ of_the_reasons_gop_senators.html) — Slate

Five Reasons Congress Hates Ted Cruz (http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/09/30/Five-Reasons-Congress-Hates-Ted-Cruz) — The Fiscal Times

Trump ups the ante: ‘Everybody hates Ted’ Cruz (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jan/18/trump-ups-ante-everybody-hates-ted-cruz/) — The Washington Times

Ted Cruz So ‘Hated’ by Republicans That He’ll ‘Need a Food Taster’ at Senate Lunches: ABC News Reporter (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/02/16/ted-cruz-so-hated-by-republicans-that-hell-need-a-food-taster-at-senate-lunches-abc-news-reporter/) — The Blaze

The GOP Establishment Has Found The One Thing That Can Make Donald Trump Palatable: Ted Cruz (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gop-establishment-donald-trump-ted-cruz_us_56a058e0e4b0404eb8f04d0a) — The Huffington Post

You get the idea. The GOP would rather have braying tacky “short-fingered vulgarian (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/10/graydon-carter-donald-trump)” Donald Trump as their standard bearer rather than a guy who was actually elected to office as a Republican.

Even screechy babbling Bumpit-headed Sarah Palin, whose endorsement (http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/226661-sarah-palin-endorses-ted-cruz-in-texas) helped Cruz win in Texas, prefers Trump (http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/tina-fey-absolutely-nails-it-on-snl-as-crazy-sarah-palin-endorsing-donald-trump/).

Back in December, Cruz released a commercial starring his family wherein he attempted to convey human feelings and interactions with his wife, kids , parents, and assorted stunt people with little regard for themselves.

The outtakes from the video show a man trying so hard…and failing so badly.

His father gives him a distasteful look while Cruz blah blah blahs about himself. His mother hunches her shoulders when Cruz is instructed to give her a second hug — this time with feeling.

Following the GOP debate last Thursday, Cruz attempted to give his wife, Heidi, a celebratory smooch. She, in turn, did everything she possibly could to shift her mouth, skin, muscles, cartilage and tissue below the surface to one side of her face — away from hubby Ted’s creepy thin-lips.

http://2d0yaz2jiom3c6vy7e7e5svk.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/cruz_kiss_miss.jpg (http://2d0yaz2jiom3c6vy7e7e5svk.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/cruz_kiss_miss.jpg)

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/even-ted-cruzs-family-thinks-hes-creepy-and-here-are-four-ways-we-know-that/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[DMX7]

Even Ted Cruz’s family thinks he’s creepy — and here are four ways we know that


Nody likes Ted Cruz.

Since the day he sashayed into the Senate as the new President from Texas, he has endeared himself to exactly no one except for a few House members he convinced to shut down the government (http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/ted-cruz-blasted-by-angry-gop-colleagues-government-shutdown-097753). For freedom.

A simple Google search of ‘Hate+Ted+Cruz’ turns up this kind of media coverage:

Why Everyone (in Congress) Hates Ted Cruz (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/12/why-everyone-in-congress-hates-ted-cruz.html) — NY Magazine

Why D.C. Hates Ted Cruz (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/why-dc-hates-ted-cruz/426915/) — The Atlantic

Why even people who agree with him hate Ted Cruz (http://theweek.com/articles/592719/why-even-people-who-agree-hate-ted-cruz)— The Week

A lot of people just don’t like Ted Cruz. How come that’s okay with him? (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-lot-of-people-just-dont-like-ted-cruz-how-come-thats-okay-with-him/2015/11/08/b55a0782-7758-11e5-bc80-9091021aeb69_story.html) — The Washington Post

The Ted Cruz pile on: GOP senators warn of revolt should he win nomination (http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/21/politics/ted-cruz-senate-revolt/) — CNN

How Unpopular Is Ted Cruz Right Now? (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/09/how-unpopular-is-ted-cruz-right-now/279903/) — The Atlantic (again)

Why Senate Republicans Hate Ted Cruz (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/09/ted_cruz_is_despised_by_senate_republicans_a_list_ of_the_reasons_gop_senators.html) — Slate

Five Reasons Congress Hates Ted Cruz (http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/09/30/Five-Reasons-Congress-Hates-Ted-Cruz) — The Fiscal Times

Trump ups the ante: ‘Everybody hates Ted’ Cruz (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jan/18/trump-ups-ante-everybody-hates-ted-cruz/) — The Washington Times

Ted Cruz So ‘Hated’ by Republicans That He’ll ‘Need a Food Taster’ at Senate Lunches: ABC News Reporter (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/02/16/ted-cruz-so-hated-by-republicans-that-hell-need-a-food-taster-at-senate-lunches-abc-news-reporter/) — The Blaze

The GOP Establishment Has Found The One Thing That Can Make Donald Trump Palatable: Ted Cruz (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gop-establishment-donald-trump-ted-cruz_us_56a058e0e4b0404eb8f04d0a) — The Huffington Post

You get the idea. The GOP would rather have braying tacky “short-fingered vulgarian (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/10/graydon-carter-donald-trump)” Donald Trump as their standard bearer rather than a guy who was actually elected to office as a Republican.

Even screechy babbling Bumpit-headed Sarah Palin, whose endorsement (http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/226661-sarah-palin-endorses-ted-cruz-in-texas) helped Cruz win in Texas, prefers Trump (http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/tina-fey-absolutely-nails-it-on-snl-as-crazy-sarah-palin-endorsing-donald-trump/).

Back in December, Cruz released a commercial starring his family wherein he attempted to convey human feelings and interactions with his wife, kids , parents, and assorted stunt people with little regard for themselves.

The outtakes from the video show a man trying so hard…and failing so badly.

His father gives him a distasteful look while Cruz blah blah blahs about himself. His mother hunches her shoulders when Cruz is instructed to give her a second hug — this time with feeling.

Following the GOP debate last Thursday, Cruz attempted to give his wife, Heidi, a celebratory smooch. She, in turn, did everything she possibly could to shift her mouth, skin, muscles, cartilage and tissue below the surface to one side of her face — away from hubby Ted’s creepy thin-lips.

http://2d0yaz2jiom3c6vy7e7e5svk.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/cruz_kiss_miss.jpg (http://2d0yaz2jiom3c6vy7e7e5svk.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/cruz_kiss_miss.jpg)

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/even-ted-cruzs-family-thinks-hes-creepy-and-here-are-four-ways-we-know-that/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29




The irony is that the pic was taken at the Liberty University rally where the kids were forced to go and fined if they didn't.

[pgardn]

:lmao this tool can't even raise a kid right :lmao

I'd smack the shit outta that lil shit :lol

So you would attempt to kiss her and if rejected you would smack her...

That'll do it.

[pgardn]

That was creepy as shit. Nobody likes this guy.

It does appear that way.

Dragging a kid around on a bus for all this campaign crap is probably not where the kid should be. (Thus the reaction)
It seems to me a candidate would be better served by trying to keep his family life as normal as possible and letting this be known to the public. " The kids need to be in school and my wife has to work, pick the kids up, and then off to dance class. Sorry they are not here with me and I miss them"

[CosmicCowboy]

Apparently the faggot that wrote boukaki's article has never kissed a woman in public that didn't want to smear her lipstick.

I'm no Cruz fan but that is fucking ridiculous.

just more Bukkake splatter on Boukaki.

[DMX7]

Apparently the faggot that wrote boukaki's article has never kissed a woman in public that didn't want to smear her lipstick.

I'm no Cruz fan but that is fucking ridiculous.

just more Bukkake splatter on Boukaki.

During the Rick Perry years, it seemed like every conservative I met said they weren't Rick Perry fans yet they all voted for him. You probably voted for Cruz in the senate too. The system is broken. We need Trump and Sanders to win the primaries and give the people candidates they can be proud to say they support in the general election.

[RandomGuy]

Shutting down the government was the fault of both sides. So he did shut down the government, but so did the democrats.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2013/10/14/call-the-government-shutdown-the-ted-cruz-crisis/#4b25b922517a

The government was shut down because the tea party people pushed it as hard as they could.

This isn't a "both sides" fault.

[FromWayDowntown]

I've been particularly taken in the last few days with people haling Cruz for swaying voters by posting videos of Cruz refusing to answer the questions actually posed and, instead, offering spun "facts" meant to re-engage the fury of scared white Christians -- I've seen or read of examples of this with regard to both Cruz's stance on ethanol subsidies and a replacement for Obamacare.

It's startling how easily he placates so many by simply redirecting his rhetoric and completely avoiding meaningful questions.

[mrsmaalox]

Apparently the faggot that wrote boukaki's article has never kissed a woman in public that didn't want to smear her lipstick.

I'm no Cruz fan but that is fucking ridiculous.

just more Bukkake splatter on Boukaki.
If I can afford the non-smear kissable lipstick I'm sure Mrs Cruz can too. $11.99 at Walgreens. :lol

[boutons_deux]

Pressed on health care, Cruz comes up short

The questions haven’t gone away. The New York Times reported (http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/30/uncomfortable-question-for-ted-cruz-on-obamacare-silences-the-room/) over the weekend on a campaign event in Hubbard, Iowa, where a voter also wanted to know about the senator’s ACA replacement plan was.

[A]t a middle school cafeteria here, a man, Mike Valde, presented him with a tragic tale. His brother-in-law Mark was a barber – “a small-business man,” he said. He had never had a paid vacation day. He received health insurance at last because of the Affordable Care Act. He began to feel sick and went to a doctor.

“He had never been to a doctor for years,” Mr. Valde, 63, of Coralville, Iowa, said. “Multiple tumors behind his heart, his liver, his pancreas. And they said, ‘We’re sorry, sir, there’s nothing we can do for you.’ ” […] “Mark never had health care until Obama care,” Mr. Valde continued. “What are you going to replace it with?”


The room, according to the Times’ account, “was silent.” Cruz went through his usual talking points about how much he hates the reform law, but like his congressional Republican brethren, the Texas senator never got around to presenting his replacement plan.

As the Huffington Post’s Jonathan Cohn noted (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ted-cruz-obamacare-iowa_us_56ad66a1e4b077d4fe8e6396?d6hnz5mi), Cruz was forced to “confront the human toll of repealing Obamacare,” which offered a timely reminder that Republicans “have nothing to offer the millions who would lose insurance.”

Making matters slightly worse for Cruz, Fox News’ Chris Wallace pressed the GOP candidate further on the issue on the air yesterday. These quotes come by way of the Nexis transcript of the interview:

WALLACE: Senator, the fact checkers say you’re wrong. Since [the Affordable Care Act] went into effect, the unemployment rate fell from 9.9 percent to 5 percent, as 13 million new jobs were created and 16.3 million people who were previously uninsured now have coverage. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of problems with Obamacare. But more people have jobs and health insurance than they did before Obamacare.

CRUZ: Chris, the media fact checkers are not fair and impartial. They are liberal, editorial journalists. And they have made it their mission to defend Obamacare.

WALLACE: There’s certainly no question that more people have jobs and more people have health insurance coverage.

CRUZ: Yes, there is question.


This is a classic example of a Republican who finds reality ideologically inconvenient, so he chooses to deny reality’s existence. Cruz simply can’t explain why job growth improved to a 15-year high after “Obamacare” was implemented, just as he’s at a loss to acknowledge the ACA’s success in lowering the uninsured rate to levels unseen in modern American history.




http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/pressed-health-care-cruz-comes-short?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[boutons_deux]

exit polls, how Cruz won

62% identified as evangelical and/or born-again

less religious people supported Trump

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz teams up with Duggar-loving singing troupe to kill public education


http://2d0yaz2jiom3c6vy7e7e5svk.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Duggars-and-Bontragers-Tumblr-800x430.png

A prodigious family of evangelical Christian entertainers are working to elect Sen. Ted Cruz president.Marlin Bontrager is one of three national chairmen of the Republican senator’s“Homeschoolers for Cruz” (http://www.charismanews.com/politics/primaries/54232-ted-cruz-is-targeting-this-group) coalition, and he traveled in recent weeks (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/one-homeschooled-christian-family-bands-mission-to-elect-ted-cruz/) with his wife and 10 children across the home state of Iowa promoting their candidate.

Cruz has pledged to eliminate the Department of Education, which Bontrager and other conservative homeschooling advocates believe would free them from some federal requirements that conflict with their religious views.

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/ted-cruz-teams-up-with-duggar-loving-singing-troupe-to-kill-public-education/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

Fuck all the Christian Taliban.

[DMX7]

Religion could end up being our country's downfall.

[spurraider21]

It's hard to interpret that as "killing public education"... Clickbait titles tho

[boutons_deux]

It's hard to interpret that as "killing public education"... Clickbait titles tho

home schooling seems to be mostly Christian Taliban mothers (who should accept second class status to white males) running in-house madrasa, producing more indoctrinated, Bible-humping, brain-damaged little Taliban.

[spurraider21]

:lol Christian taliban!
:lol gun fellators!
:lol benghazi!

[rmt]

home schooling seems to be mostly Christian Taliban mothers (who should accept second class status to white males) running in-house madrasa, producing more indoctrinated, Bible-humping, brain-damaged little Taliban.

boutons, not all of us are as you paint. Some of us turn out responsible, well-mannered, contributing members of society who aren't bad academically (homeschooling and the internet offers a lot of freedom.) I won't go into the indoctrination and constraints of public school education.

[boutons_deux]

boutons, not all of us are as you paint. Some of us turn out responsible, well-mannered, contributing members of society who aren't bad academically (homeschooling and the internet offers a lot of freedom.) I won't go into the indoctrination and constraints of public school education.

sure you are, just like all Muslims are terrorists.

America got where it is today one the back of 100+ years of public K-12, and state financed colleges. The strategy to kill public schools is to transfer taxpayers dollars to the VRWC/1%. Religious freaks are just as guilty, being "too good" for a public education, and work in tandem with VRWC/1%.

[spurraider21]

sure you are, just like all Muslims are terrorists.
:rolleyes these comments benefit nobody, dumb down the conversation, and just further your image of a complete tool


America got where it is today one the back of 100+ years of public K-12, and state financed colleges. The strategy to kill public schools is to transfer taxpayers dollars to the VRWC/1%. Religious freaks are just as guilty, being "too good" for a public education, and work in tandem with VRWC/1%.
"America got where it is today" coming from the guy who constantly bashes where America is today

[rmt]

sure you are, just like all Muslims are terrorists.

America got where it is today one the back of 100+ years of public K-12, and state financed colleges. The strategy to kill public schools is to transfer taxpayers dollars to the VRWC/1%. Religious freaks are just as guilty, being "too good" for a public education, and work in tandem with VRWC/1%.

You have no idea why I chose to homeschool, whether I thought my kids were "too good" for a public education or not, or whether I'm conspiring with whatever VRWC/1%. I like to have the freedom to choose - how my kids are schooled, what my money is spent on, etc.

[spurraider21]

But just because you choose homeschooling shouldn't make you exempt from paying into public schools. Free education benefits society as a whole.

[rmt]

But just because you choose homeschooling shouldn't make you exempt from paying into public schools. Free education benefits society as a whole.

What makes you think that I think I should be exempt from paying into public schools? As far as I know, my property taxes and rental property taxes have been fully paid for decades now.

[rmt]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/02/carson-accuses-cruz-camp-spreading-false-rumors-on-campaign-suspension.html

Cruz with some dirty tricks - didn't like his voter mailings either.

[Spurminator]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/02/carson-accuses-cruz-camp-spreading-false-rumors-on-campaign-suspension.html

Cruz with some dirty tricks - didn't like his voter mailings either.

Yeah, Team Cruz was as likely to ever send a "correction" as he is to correct false statements about Planned Parenthood.

[DMX7]

These guys are complete dirt bags. Cruz is one of the worst I've EVER seen.

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz’s Radical Supporters: He Won Iowa on the Back of the Scariest Bible-Thumpers in the Business

Cruz came on top in the Iowa caucus by presenting himself as a messiah and winning over the radical religious right

for the religious right, especially the most skin-crawlingly creepy folks in the religious right, Cruz’s edging Donald Trump out at the polls represents a huge victory.

Because Monday night meant that while their influence might seem to be on the decline, the religious right proved, once again, that they are still a powerful force on the right.

Unfortunately, the Republican Party will still have to pay tribute to the nasty crews that use Jesus as a cover to push their lifelong obsession with controlling other people’s sex lives, especially if those people are female or queer.

A lot of attention has been paid to Trump’s oversized ego, but Cruz’s may be even worse. While Trump likes to portray himself as a “winner,” Cruz clawed his way to victory in Iowa by implying — well, more than implying — that he’s a religious messiah, a prophet who is the next best thing to the second coming of Jesus.

While denouncing Barack Obama (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-god-helping-me-bring-america-back-abyss) for his supposed “messiah complex,” Cruz has been suggesting that he is the real deal, and that he will win because “the body of Christ” will “rise up to pull us back from the abyss.”

Cruz has been portraying his campaign, in fact, as a religious war in which the true believers will assert themselves as the rightful rulers of this nation. “Strap on the full armor of God, get ready for the attacks that are coming,” he told supporters (http://www.charismanews.com/politics/54202-ted-cruz-tells-volunteers-to-strap-on-full-armor-of-god), who are treated more like believers, at a campaign stop in Iowa.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/ted-cruzs-radical-supporters-he-won-iowa-back-scariest-bible-thumpers-business?akid=13941.187590.Nc-GBL&rd=1&src=newsletter1050050&t=6

Religion makes you stupid, so stupid one can be duped by the deeply evil Krazy Kruz.

[spurraider21]

"the Scariest Bible-Thumpers in the Business"

lol "journalism"

[boutons_deux]

"the Scariest Bible-Thumpers in the Business"

lol "journalism"



spurraider, non-poster :lol

[spurraider21]

i just laugh at the shit you read as "news" and "journalism"

[boutons_deux]

i just laugh at the shit you read as "news" and "journalism"

iow, nothing to say.

[spurraider21]

:cry krazy kruz
:cry i'm klever
:cry daily KKKOS

[boutons_deux]

:cry krazy kruz
:cry i'm klever
:cry daily KKKOS

so eloquent

[boutons_deux]

what a piece of shit

Cruz injects bogus partisanship into Flint crisis


“You know, there’s an interesting parallel between Flint and New Orleans. Both cities have been governed with one-party government control of far-left Democrats for decades.”


Oh, I see. Flint is an absolute outrage if it can be worked into a partisan frame that Ted Cruz can use to advance his presidential campaign.

Look, there’s simply no reason to turn a catastrophe like Flint into the latest partisan food fight. It’s a human crisis and a public-health disaster, not an election-year stunt. That said, if Cruz really is eager to go down this road, he may want to consider an important detail: Flint’s Democratic officials weren’t responsible for the water crisis.

On the contrary, Michigan’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, working with powers given to him by Michigan’s Republican-led state legislature, stripped local Flint officials of their power and decision-making authority. Snyder put an “emergency manager” in place – someone who answered to the governor, not the people of Flint – who shifted the city’s water supply.

“Far-left Democrats” had no say in the matter.

Maybe someone ought to let the Texas Republican know.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cruz-injects-bogus-partisanship-flint-crisis?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[boutons_deux]

For all those decades of "Democratic mgmt", Flint and New Orleans didn't get destroyed, poisoned, fucked up until Repugs took over, until Repugs fucked up/mismanaged FEMA.

[Splits]

KqpHTFJO4mE

[boutons_deux]

Cruz Camp Left Iowa Voters Voice Mails Repeating Carson 'Suspending' Rumors

Two voice mails apparently left by Ted Cruz campaign reps told Iowa precinct chairs to use reports that Ben Carson was "suspending campaigning" to encourage caucusgoers to chose Cruz over Carson, Breitbart reported. (http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/04/ted-cruz-voicemails-ben-carson-exclusive-audio/)

Breitbart posted the audio of two of the voice mails, both left on the phone of Nancy Bliesman, a precinct captain for Cruz in Crawford County, Iowa. They were left at 7:07 p.m. and 7:29 p.m CST (caucusing began at 7), notably after the Carson campaign clarified a CNN (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/cruz-carson-dirty-tricks-iowa-caucuses-timeline) report that he was taking a brief respite from the campaign trail after Iowa.

A Carson spokesperson tweeted a little before 7 pm CST that the neurosurgeon was making a quick jaunt to his home in Florida to refresh his wardrobe before returning to the campaign trail.

In the first, the caller identified herself as being from the Cruz campaign looking to get in touch with a precinct captain.

"It has just been announced that Ben Carson is taking a leave of absence from the campaign trail," she said. "So it is very important that you tell any Ben Carson voters that for tonight, uh, that they not waste a vote on Ben Carson, and vote for Ted Cruz. He is taking a leave of absence from his campaign."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cruz-carson-voice-mails?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

[rmt]

Cruz Camp Left Iowa Voters Voice Mails Repeating Carson 'Suspending' Rumors

Two voice mails apparently left by Ted Cruz campaign reps told Iowa precinct chairs to use reports that Ben Carson was "suspending campaigning" to encourage caucusgoers to chose Cruz over Carson, Breitbart reported. (http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/04/ted-cruz-voicemails-ben-carson-exclusive-audio/)

Breitbart posted the audio of two of the voice mails, both left on the phone of Nancy Bliesman, a precinct captain for Cruz in Crawford County, Iowa. They were left at 7:07 p.m. and 7:29 p.m CST (caucusing began at 7), notably after the Carson campaign clarified a CNN (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/cruz-carson-dirty-tricks-iowa-caucuses-timeline) report that he was taking a brief respite from the campaign trail after Iowa.

A Carson spokesperson tweeted a little before 7 pm CST that the neurosurgeon was making a quick jaunt to his home in Florida to refresh his wardrobe before returning to the campaign trail.

In the first, the caller identified herself as being from the Cruz campaign looking to get in touch with a precinct captain.

"It has just been announced that Ben Carson is taking a leave of absence from the campaign trail," she said. "So it is very important that you tell any Ben Carson voters that for tonight, uh, that they not waste a vote on Ben Carson, and vote for Ted Cruz. He is taking a leave of absence from his campaign."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cruz-carson-voice-mails?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29




The trail from that caller needs to be followed all the way up. Whoever authorized changing the message from Carson was taking a brief respite to tell any Ben Carson voters that they not waste a vote on Ben Carson and vote for Ted Cruz needs to be fired. That kind of dirty-handed change needs to be rooted out and Cruz, if he wants to be taken seriously as the evangelical candidate, must do it.

[ducks]

that guy should be fired

[boutons_deux]

Cruz sees border wall as solution to drug abuse

When Ted Cruz reflected this week on the crisis in Flint – which he inexplicably blamed (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cruz-injects-bogus-partisanship-flint-crisis) on local Democratic officials who had no decision-making authority – he wrapped up his thoughts by reflecting on the road ahead for struggling cities like Flint. The solution, Cruz added (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGEzYFlClTg), is to “go with the policies that work” – such as giving taxpayer money to private schools. :lol

It was a bit jarring. A discussion about poisonous water led the Republican presidential hopeful to think about privatizing education :lol – as if, on some unidentified level, the two unrelated topics were pieces of the same puzzle.

Yesterday, we saw something eerily similar happened at an event in New Hampshire. The Wall Street Journal reported (http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/02/04/ted-cruz-to-help-stop-drug-abuse-build-the-mexico-border-wall/):

Ted Cruz spent 18 minutes telling an emotional, gripping story of his family’s history of drug and alcohol abuse. His older half-sister and later his father, he told an addiction policy forum, got hooked and became addicted. His sister died, his father survived only after becoming religious, Mr. Cruz said in a Baptist church here.

So it was jarring to hear Mr. Cruz then pivot to his policy solution: building a wall along the nation’s southern border to stop illegal immigration and halt the flow of drugs from Mexico. :lol


“If we want to turn around the drug crisis we have got to finally and permanently secure the border,” Mr. Cruz said. “We need to solve this problem; we need to build this wall.”

At a certain level, my expectations have fallen to such a low point, I’m inclined to give Cruz at least some credit for acknowledging an actual, real-world problem. There’s a drug epidemic; it’s destroying lives and families; and policymakers at every level desperately need to take it seriously. While some Republicans have dismissed (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/clinton-paul-diverge-wildly-addiction-issues) the addiction crisis as meaningless, it seems like a small step in the right direction for Cruz to recognize, even briefly, that the problem exists.

If only his proposed solution were serious, we might be getting somewhere.


A Huffington Post report (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ted-cruz-addiction-heroin_us_56b3abb3e4b08069c7a67bbb?vq5b3xr) added:


After Cruz blamed the drug crisis on an insecure border, he blamed the insecure border on the Democrats, :lol and some “cynical” Republicans, who favor immigration reform. He accused them of having base political motives for not doing more on the issue.

“As a political matter, the Democratic Party does not want to solve this problem. And as a political matter, far too many Republicans don’t either,” he said. “Sadly, stopping the drug traffic gets de-emphasized, because their policy view instead is to open the borders to illegal immigration.”


None of this reflects reality in any way. Border security is up and illegal immigration is down. The facts are not in dispute.

But when given a choice between reality and absurd campaign rhetoric, Cruz finds it easy to ignore the former and celebrate the latter.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cruz-sees-border-wall-solution-drug-abuse?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[boutons_deux]

Bill Moyers: Ted Cruz is America’s ‘God Squad’ bully-boy goon


if you follow politics (as of course you do) you know the other Canadian-born guy in this story is Ted Cruz. He is another kind of enforcer who is always spoiling for a fight. Instead of brawling on the ice, he brawls in the courts, on the Senate floor, and on the campaign trail. In Iowa, if they had wanted an enforcer, you might think the call would have gone to Donald Trump. But Trump is merely a bully who bungles scripture. Cruz is a brute, the Crusader Warrior, armed with spike and shield and holy zeal, summoning true believers to war against the infidels. Deus vult! they cried out in those days. “God wills it!”

Unlike John Scott, who is said to be a nice guy, and humble, there’s malice in Ted Cruz’s swagger. When the Christian right in Iowa bested Trump and the GOP establishment on Monday, lofting him to victory, he shouted to the exultant worshippers, “To God be the Glory” — his self-referential pronouncement that a new Messiah had come to town.

Yet while Cruz may have won Iowa fighting the GOP elites, he’s no outsider, and he’s no down-to-earth “journeyman.” There is hardly an all-star team that he hasn’t made: Princeton, Harvard Law School, Supreme Court clerkship, boutique DC law firm. As a teenager he told people he intended to be president (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/03/ted-cruz-high-school-teenager-yearbook-constitutional-corroborators).

With a sharp mind and sharper elbows, he has always been determined to win MVP at all costs, never backing down from a fight, or an opportunity to climb higher.

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with ambition, but here is another striking difference between John Scott and Ted Cruz. Even as the fiercest of enforcers, Scott remains a team player. As he says, “I make my teammates feel safe to do what they do best.” (http://www.theplayerstribune.com/a-guy-like-me/)

Ted Cruz is no team player. He’s out for no one but himself. And he has a history of switching teams until they fulfill his ambitions.

Cruz was on George W. Bush’s team for the Florida recount in 2000, helping to stop the vote tallying there before Al Gore could be declared the winner — an ambitious 29-year-old gunning for a top post in the White House. When he didn’t get one, Cruz wrote in his 2015 autobiography that it was “a crushing blow.” (http://www.texastribune.org/2015/07/01/x-things-we-learned-ted-cruzs-new-book/) He landed a job at the Federal Trade Commission instead.

Cruz didn’t stop fighting, but when his colleagues still didn’t value him as he thought he deserved, he switched leagues and went local back in Texas. As the state’s solicitor general, he began climbing the political ladder again, eventually considering a run for Texas attorney general. And when he saw an opening on the tea party team in 2012, he used it to campaign for the US Senate, picking fights with the Washington establishment that he felt had rebuffed him, and scoring an upset victory.

Once in the Senate his goon-inspired behavior soon antagonized just about everyone, including his fellow Republicans. No one was beyond the reach of his brass knuckles, sharp elbows, and forked tongue. He fought against the Affordable Care Act (including a 21-hour rant on the Senate floor), immigration reform, Planned Parenthood — and against the Anti-Christ, Barack Obama.

Now, to win the White House, Cruz has switched to the God Squad. He is the new Chosen One. His ground game in Iowa relied on scores of fundamentalist clergy, hundreds of volunteers, and his own father, Rafael, a Texas pastor who told a Christian TV channel that his son’s race for the White House was divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit (http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/here-am-i-lord-use-me-ted-cruzs-dad-says-holy-ghost-authorized-white-house-run-video).

It is as calculated as any of his previous plays. Robert Draper, in The New York Times Magazine (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/magazine/ted-cruzs-evangelical-gamble.html), did the math: “Of the 22 states that will be casting their ballots for a Republican nominee between Feb. 1 and March 5, 11 of them feature a Republican electorate that is more than 50 percent evangelical. Even more significant, the first state to vote is Iowa, roughly 60 percent of whose Republican caucus-goers describe themselves as evangelical Christians.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/bill-moyers-ted-cruz-is-americas-god-squad-bully-boy-goon/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

iow, Krazy Kruz is one nasty, egocentric, hated sonofabitch political goon.

[boutons_deux]

Terrifying Ted and his Ultra-Conservative Vision for America

Perhaps nothing captures the imperialist arrogance of Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz more succinctly than his campaign’s statement declaring, “What is best for America is best for the world.”

In addition to the obvious issue that billions of people around the world might disagree with Cruz on this point is the fact that it is not at all clear that the Republican presidential candidate’s proposed policies are even best for most Americans. But given his victory this past week in the Iowa caucus, Cruz’s ultra-conservative views can no longer be ignored while mainstream and progressive pundits busy themselves dissecting the bombastic rhetoric of the far less scary Donald Trump.

In contrast to most candidates that run for president, Ted Cruz has a clear vision for the future of the country. The problem for many Americans is that it is a terrifying vision. It is a vision that is imperialist, racist, sexist, classist and homophobic.

For instance, Cruz proposes building a giant wall across the US-Mexico border in addition to using high-tech measures to keep out “illegal” immigrants while allowing corporate labor needs to dictate the flow of “legal” immigrants into the country.

In addition to strengthening the military to ensure US hegemony around the globe, he also vows to boost US military support for Israel and to withhold funding from the United Nations if it “continues its anti-Israel bias.”

On the domestic front, Cruz is calling for a flat tax that will benefit the rich and gut government social spending.

He has also vowed to curtail women’s rights by stating that he will order the attorney general to investigate Planned Parenthood on his first day as president.

And he opposes same-sex marriage, declaring that “marriage is a sacrament between one man and one woman.”

Finally, Cruz would not only fail to address climate change, which he views as a hoax, he would promote expanded oil and gas production.

Given that these policy proposals make Cruz one of the most conservative presidential contenders in decades, it would behoove us to take a closer at them.

The new Republican frontrunner has proposed a border wall be built along the US-Mexico border to keep out so-called illegal immigrants. To this end he also intends to triple the size of the Border Patrol and put in place a biometric entry-exit system.

Additionally, Cruz will scrap Obama’s amnesty and seek a five-year minimum prison sentence for those who illegally re-enter the United States.

As for legal immigration, foreigners will only be allowed to enter the United States when Corporate America is running short of workers, an approach that is a far cry from the compassionate and humanitarian refrain, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.”

Ultimately, such a repressive approach is not sustainable because it addresses the symptoms and not the cause of “illegal” immigration. One of the principal causes of immigration—and terrorism—is the global free market economic model, and the Republican candidate has vowed to address this cause by strengthening the US military in order to defend this model.

According to Cruz, he will have the right as president to dictate to the rest of the world how they should live because, as his campaign states, “The United States of America is the exceptional nation, the nation other countries aspire to be like. We should stand as a shining beacon of what free people enjoying a free market and system of government can achieve.”

And if the “free people” of other nations should decide that they don’t want to live in a free market under a US-style liberal democratic government then we will just have to force them to because they simply don’t know what’s best for them. In actuality, Cruz doesn’t really care about their freedom anyway. Upon assuming office he intends to “prioritize American national security interests in every instance” by strengthening the military to ensure the continuation of US imperialism throughout the globe.

He also advocates boosting US military ties with Israel, which already receives approximately a quarter of all US foreign aid. According to Cruz, “America’s security is significantly enhanced by a strong Israel.” It is unclear how a strong Israel enhances the security of the United States given that US support for Israel is one of the principal grievances of not only terrorist groups in the Middle East but of an overwhelming majority of the people in that part of the world. In addition to militarily supporting Israel, Cruz intends to back the Jewish state politically by withholding funding from the United Nations if it continues to condemn Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.

He has also pledged to cut federal funding to any US universities that join the global campaign to boycott the Jewish state because of its repeated violations of international law. It is likely his promise to increase military support for Israel is linked to his pledge to throw out Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran as soon as he reaches the Oval Office, which would leave him few options besides the military one for dealing with that country.

Meanwhile, domestically, Cruz aims to eliminate the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by implementing a flat 10 percent income tax. While the IRS is not a loved institution by any means, such a policy would not only eliminate it, but also many social programs. The primary beneficiaries of a flat tax would be wealthy Americans who’d see their income tax rate plummet from the current 40 percent to 10 percent. Meanwhile, the average American worker’s tax rate would only drop by five percent. Clearly, Cruz has not learned from the mistake made by Britain’s former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who was ousted from power after she tried to introduce a flat tax.

The resulting loss in government revenues from a flat tax would inevitably lead to cuts in government programs and, given that Cruz intends to increase funding for the military, it would mean that social programs that benefit lower-income Americans would have to be gutted.

The first social program that Cruz intends to eliminate is Obamacare. But unlike Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who wants to replace Obamacare with a more comprehensive universal healthcare plan, Cruz simply wants to scrap it and rely on a market-based system that has left fifty million Americans without affordable health coverage.

With regard to the economy, Cruz seeks to “unleash economic prosperity” in the United States through the “Great American Energy Renaissance.” This renaissance has nothing to do with shifting the country towards renewable energy sources; rather

it seeks to reinvigorate the fossil fuel industry by promoting oil and natural gas exploration and production.

To this end, Cruz vows to approve the Keystone Pipeline and “remove federal impediments to energy exploration.” Cruz isn’t concerned about the consequences of his energy policies for the environment because he doesn’t believe that human activity contributes to climate change. The conservative Southern Baptist claims that “global warming alarmists” act with a religious fervor that shows how “climate change is not science. It’s religion.”

And speaking of religion, it is a driving force of Cruz’s policy agenda. He uses his religious views to justify targeting both women and queers.

“Marriage is a sacrament between one man and one woman, it has strengthened societies for millennia, and we must uphold the truth of marriage,” his campaign literature states. It goes on to declare, “Extreme leftists … are trying to extinguish these most fundamental, God-given rights.” Cruz believes that these “God-given rights” mean that only heterosexual couples can “value authentic companionship and intimate connection” and that homosexuality is a “choice.” Accordingly, he has fought against the right of federal judges to rule in favor of same-sex marriage.

The Republican frontrunner has also repeatedly sought to restrict women’s access to abortion through legislation and through attempts to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood. In fact, he vows that, if elected, one of the first things he will do on his first day in office is order the attorney general to investigate Planned Parenthood. Cruz’s religious fervor is also evident in his campaign’s declaration that “Our rights do not come from government. They come from God.” Accordingly, Cruz was instrumental in ensuring that the Supreme Court did not remove the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance.

Cruz is also an opponent of gun control and a staunch defender of his interpretation of the Second Amendment. In reference to his defense of our right to bear arms, Cruz’s campaign states, “When citizens cease to have the right to defend ourselves, we cease to be free. And now, more than ever, as radical Islamic terrorists seek to attack Americans on our own soil, Americans’ right to protect our families and communities is all the more critical to our safety and freedom.” If Cruz is seriously concerned with the safety of US citizens then it is Americans and not foreign terrorists that he should be worried about. After all, the number of Americans killed on US soil by radical Islamic terrorists is miniscule in comparison to the more than 10,000 Americans who are killed by their gun-wielding fellow Americans every year.

A Cruz victory in November would result in a serious shift to the right for the United States with regard to both domestic and foreign policies. The Republican candidate’s policy proposals should terrify not only Americans, but people around the world who do not believe that the United States is an “exceptional nation” that knows what’s best for everyone. Such an imperialist approach over the past half-century by Washington has bestowed on us a chaotic world marked by terrorism, refugee crises, human trafficking, growing inequality and ecological destruction. A Cruz administration would only intensify this tragic reality. Contrary to what Cruz believes, what is best for America is not best for the world, as evidenced by recent polls that show the United States is seen around the globe as the greatest threat to world peace. A Cruz presidency would further validate that perception.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/05/terrifying-ted-and-his-ultra-conservative-vision-america

But but but, Krazy Kruz is widely, deeply loved by all who know him personally. :lol

[boutons_deux]

Cruz App Data Collection Helps Campaign Read Minds of Voters

Protecting the privacy of law-abiding citizens from the government is a pillar of Ted Cruz’s Republican presidential candidacy, but his campaign is testing the limits of siphoning personal data from supporters.

His “Cruz Crew” mobile app is designed to gather detailed information from its users’ phones — tracking their physical movements and mining the names and contact information for friends who might want nothing to do with his campaign.

That information and more is then fed into a vast database containing details about nearly every adult in the United States to build psychological profiles that target individual voters with uncanny accuracy.

Cruz’s sophisticated analytics operation was heralded as key to his victory in Iowa earlier this month — the first proof, his campaign said, that the system has the potential to power him to the nomination.

The Associated Press found the Cruz campaign’s app — downloaded to more than 61,000 devices so far — goes furthest to glean personal data.

The Cruz app prompts supporters to register using their Facebook logins, giving the campaign access to personal information such as name, age range, gender, location and photograph, plus lists of friends and relatives. Those without a Facebook account must either provide an email address or phone number to use the app.

The Cruz app separately urges users to let it download their phone contacts, giving the campaign a trove of phone numbers and personal email addresses. The campaign says that by using its app, “You hereby give your express consent to access your contact list,” but Wilson said the campaign will not do this to anyone who declines to allow it when the app requests permission.

Cruz’s app also transmits to the campaign each user’s physical location whenever the app is active, unless a user declines to allow it. The campaign said it does this “so that we can connect you to other Cruz Crew users based on your particular geographic location.”

The campaign tells users it can share all the personal information it collects with its consultants or other organizations, groups, causes, campaigns or political organizations with similar viewpoints or goals.

It also shares the material with analytics companies. Cruz’s campaign combines the information with data from a group called Cambridge Analytica, which has been involved in his efforts since fall 2014. A Cambridge investor, Robert Mercer, has given more money than anyone else to outside groups supporting Cruz.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1964060-cruz-app-data-collection-helps-campaign-read-minds-of-voters/

But can we know who is providing the "dark money" for candidates? hell no

[boutons_deux]

hard-core Christian Taliban news

Porn Star From a Pulled Ted Cruz Ad Is the Chatter at Bob Jones University (http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/02/12/porn-star-from-a-pulled-ted-cruz-ad-is-the-chatter-at-bob-jones-university/)

In a corner of Bob Jones University, the evangelical institution where presidential candidates have long gathered to highlight their faith, Senator Ted Cruz stared into the cameras to answer the question that had almost certainly never been posed inside these halls.
What was up with that porn star in your attack ad?

“It happened that one of the actresses,” Mr. Cruz told reporters coyly, “had a more colorful film history than we were aware.”

The remarks came a day after Mr. Cruz’s campaign pulled an ad knocking Senator Marco Rubio for his shifting positions on immigration. It had featured a mock support group for disappointed voters, with one woman calling Mr. Rubio nothing more than a “pretty face.” That woman, as Buzzfeed reported (http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/soft-core-porn-actress-in-new-cruz-ad-choosing-between-him-a#.dje4n9yAb)on Thursday, has appeared in several soft-core pornographic films.

“She came and auditioned, and we did not realize her film history,” Mr. Cruz said. “When we did, we decided that prudence dictated pulling the ads.”

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/02/12/porn-star-from-a-pulled-ted-cruz-ad-is-the-chatter-at-bob-jones-university/?partner=rss&emc=rss

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz's Wife Says He Will Reveal 'the Face of the God' in Wacky Religious Rant

his wife says the Texas Republican is running for president to show Americans the “face of God.”

Heidi Cruz, who is probably best known for turning her own face away (http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/even-ted-cruzs-family-thinks-hes-creepy-and-here-are-four-ways-we-know-that/) from her husband’s kiss, said the senator had an explicitly religious motivation for his White House bid, reported Right Wing Watch (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/heidi-cruz-ted-running-show-country-face-god-we-serve).

Cruz’s father said the Holy Ghost had authorized (http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/here-am-i-lord-use-me-ted-cruzs-dad-says-holy-ghost-authorized-white-house-run/) the senator’s presidential campaign, and his wife said she and her husband were “doing it for our country.”

“We are at a cultural crossroads in our country, and if we can be in this race to show this country the face of the God that we serve — this Christian God that we serve is the foundation of our country, our country was built on Judeo-Christian values, we are a nation of freedom of religion, but the God of Christianity is the God of freedom, of individual liberty, of choice and of consequence,” Heidi Cruz said.

Heidi Cruz said her husband’s campaign — which is built largely on the intolerant, socially conservative ideals abhorred by younger voters — should help reverse that demographic tide.

“That’s something that this country really needs to be reminded of, is that

Christians are loving people, are nonjudgmental people, :lol

but there is right and wrong, we have a country of law and order, there are consequences to actions and we must all live peaceably in our own faiths under the Constitution,” Heidi Cruz said. “And Ted is uniquely able to deliver on that combination of the law and religion.”

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/listen-ted-cruzs-wife-says-he-will-reveal-face-god-wacky-religious-rant


"there is right and wrong" and we fucking scary, deluded, Bible-addled Christian Taliban are hateful, unpeaceful, judgmental toward non-Christian Taliban.

[Nbadan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRWIj6os4L4

Lol Canadians....

[boutons_deux]

Christian Taliban Krazy Kruz hatin on non-Christian Jews

Maddow rips Cruz for embracing Ted Nugent’s support after singer’s anti-Semitic rants

While no candidate is responsible for the people who like them, Rachel Maddow argued on Friday, Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) latest endorsement from an extremely conservative figure should be setting off some red flags.

“Honestly, this year, Ted Cruz is shooting the moon on this stuff,” she said. “I don’t know how long it’s gonna be before the Beltway and notices this pattern, and realizes it might be a real issue for him.”

As Media Matters reported, (http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/02/10/after-promoting-anti-semitic-image-ted-nugent-s/208505) Cruz boasted on his website that he had won the support of Ted Nugent, less than a week after Nugent made several anti-Semitic posts, including one accusing Jews supporting gun safety laws of being “Nazis in disguise.” (http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/02/09/nras-ted-nugent-jewish-supporters-of-gun-safety/208468)

Maddow compared Nugent’s support of the Tea Party senator to similar endorsements by anti-Semitic pastor Mike Bickle (http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/activists-rip-ted-cruz-after-endorsement-by-abhorrent-anti-semitic-preacher/) and Kevin Swanson, (http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/watch-ted-cruz-ducks-cnn-reporters-question-on-speaking-with-pastor-who-wants-to-execute-gays/) a pastor who has called for the death of the US LGBT population.

“If you’re Senator Cruz and you put this up on your website proudly embracing an endorsement from Ted Nugent — showing off, campaigning even tonight on the fact that you are the choice for president of Ted Nugent — then you do kind of own this,” she argued.

“Just like you own the guy who said that God sent Hitler to kill all the Jews, because you campaigned on his endorsement, too.

Just like you own it when the guy saying every gay person in America should be executed, because you attended his event. You shared a stage with him. You did not have to do that.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/maddow-rips-cruz-for-embracing-ted-nugents-support-after-singers-anti-semitic-rants/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

yep, Christian Taliban are hateful, intolerant, murderous assholes, just the opposite of which Krazy Kruz' Goldman-Sacks bitch says.

America the Beautiful

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz would radically reform taxes but also explode the debt

Ted Cruz has promised voters his tax reform plan would simplify their income taxes so much that Americans could do their taxes on a single postcard.

The details of the Republican presidential candidate's plan suggest that may be a slight exaggeration. But his plan is "much simpler than current law and than the other [Republican candidates'] plans we've analyzed," said Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, which released its analysis of Cruz's plan (http://taxpolicycenter.org/publications/url.cfm?ID=2000612) on Tuesday.

That's because Cruz would impose a single flat rate on wages and salaries, get rid of most tax breaks, eliminate whole taxes like the payroll tax, and tax businesses at a single broad-based consumption rate.

There is one big way, however, that Cruz's plan is very much like his Republican competitors' in the race for president: It would explode (http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/22/pf/taxes/donald-trump-tax-plan/index.html?iid=EL) the nation's debt over time, unless unrealistically large spending cuts are imposed.

The Tax Policy Center estimates that his plan would add at least $8.6 trillion to deficits over the first decade, and by more than $12 trillion in the second decade.

Another way Cruz's plan echoes (http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/08/pf/taxes/bush-tax-plan/index.html?iid=EL) that of his fellow GOP candidates: It would disproportionately benefit the rich.
Here are some key details from the Texas senator's plan:

A 10% flat income tax rate

Cruz would replace the seven income tax rates in current law with a single flat rate of 10%. He would increase the standard deduction to $10,000 from $6,000 currently for single filers, and to $20,000 for joint filers, up from $12,600 today. He would also preserve personal exemptions at $4,000 a person.

Eliminate several major taxes

Cruz would repeal the payroll tax, the alternative minimum tax, the estate tax, the Medicare surtax on income and investment imposed by Obamacare, and the corporate tax.

Bye-bye tax breaks but for a few

Cruz would get rid of all deductions, except those for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, and retirement savings.
But he would only allow mortgage interest deductions to be taken on loans up to $500,000, half of what it is today. And the tax incentive to give to charities would be reduced since one would only be able to deduct 10% of the money, down from rates as high as 39.6% today.

(http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/11/pf/taxes/marco-rubio-tax-plan/index.html?iid=EL)He would also get rid of all tax credits other than the earned income tax credit and child tax credit.
Cruz wants to create one big tax break of his own, however: Filers could deduct up to $25,000 a year if they put it in a Universal Savings Account.

Change how businesses are taxed

In place of today's corporate tax, Cruz wants to impose what he calls a business flat tax of 16% on their sales minus their purchases from other businesses (e.g. for supplies). They would no longer, however, be able to deduct the costs of wages and salaries.

Even though Cruz objects to his proposal being called a value-added tax, that's exactly what the Tax Policy Center calls it. (Here's why.) (http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/2016/01/15/ted-cruzs-business-flat-tax-is-a-vat/)
The flat tax -- or VAT -- could reduce wages somewhat, the analysis asserts, because the 16% rate is higher than the payroll tax rate that employers pay today and which would be repealed under Cruz's plan. Both taxes reflect the cost of employing people, and as such is part of the calculation an employer would make in deciding what a worker's wage should be.

What the plan means to taxpayers' bottom line

The Cruz plan would cut taxes for everyone in 2017 by an average of $6,100, boosting after-tax income by 8.5%, according to the Tax Policy Center.

But the bulk of those tax cuts would flow to the richest of the rich. The analysis estimates that the top 0.1% of filers (those with incomes over $3.7 million) would see a boost in after-tax income of $2 millionon average, or nearly 29%.

Middle-income filers would get an average tax cut of $1,800, providing a 3.2% boost to their after-tax income.

The lowest-income filers, however, would barely notice a difference -- enjoying an average tax cut of just $46, or 0.4% of income.

By 2025, the analysis finds that those in the lowest income group might even see their taxes rise a bit, by $116 on average.

The economic effects

There are plenty of elements in the Cruz plan that could benefit the U.S. economy, the Tax Policy Center found.

"Repealing the corporate income and payroll taxes, imposing a new VAT, and significantly reducing individual income tax rates would boost incentives to work, save, and invest if interest rates do not change. The plan would also remove most of the tax distortions in the allocation of capital," according to its report.

But it cautioned that all those good effects could be undermined unless there are "unprecedented cuts in federal spending" to ensure the Cruz plan doesn't add crippling amounts to the nation's already high debt load.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/16/pf/taxes/ted-cruz-tax-plans/index.html?sr=fbmoney021716ted-cruz-tax-plans1057PMVODtopLink&linkId=21357969

[spurraider21]

it would be nice if cruz gets the nomination but gets crushed in the national election. the republican base is operating under the delusion that they haven't been successful because they aren't conservative enough. having an uber conservative get crushed might actually get them to start looking in a different direction.

but if a wildcard like trump gets the nomination and loses, they'll again shift to being even more conservative come 2020

[ElNono]

it would be nice if cruz gets the nomination but gets crushed in the national election. the republican base is operating under the delusion that they haven't been successful because they aren't conservative enough. having an uber conservative get crushed might actually get them to start looking in a different direction.

but if a wildcard like trump gets the nomination and loses, they'll again shift to being even more conservative come 2020

agree

[Splits]

it would be nice if cruz gets the nomination but gets crushed in the national election. the republican base is operating under the delusion that they haven't been successful because they aren't conservative enough. having an uber conservative get crushed might actually get them to start looking in a different direction.

but if a wildcard like trump gets the nomination and loses, they'll again shift to being even more conservative come 2020

Funny thing is all they have to do is quit hating on Hispanics. They're a natural constituency, and they only need to with 2 out of 5 to win the WH.

[boutons_deux]

Funny thing is all they have to do is quit hating on Hispanics. They're a natural constituency, and they only need to with 2 out of 5 to win the WH.

Hispanics aren't real Americans for the Repug Euro White males.

[Aztecfan03]

Hispanics aren't real Americans for the Repug Euro White males.
:rolleyes

[boutons_deux]

First up from the God Machine this week is a culture-war pitch from a Republican presidential hopeful that pushed the ideological envelope in unexpected ways.

As a rule, when national GOP candidates make appeals to social conservatives, they stick to the usual issues like reproductive rights, the Second Amendment, and LGBT rights. But McClatchy reported (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article60945202.html) this week on a new area of interest for one Texas senator.


Even before Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death last weekend, Ted Cruz was already stoking fears among conservatives about what could happen if Democrats win the White House and trigger a liberal takeover of the high court.

Like sandblasting the crosses and Stars of David off of the headstones in veterans’ cemeteries?


That’s actually the argument Cruz made on NBC’s “Meet the Press” earlier this week.

As the Texas Republican put it (http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-february-14-2016-n518621),

“[I]f liberals are so confident that the American people

want unlimited abortion on demand,

want religious liberty torn down,

want the Second Amendment taken away,

want veterans’ memorials torn down,

want the crosses and stars of David sandblasted off of the tombstones of our fallen veterans,

then go and make the case to the people.”

The notion that liberals “want the crosses and stars of David sandblasted off of the tombstones of our fallen veterans” seemed new to me, but Cruz campaign spokesman Rick Tyler defended the claim in a McClatchy interview (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article60945202.html), citing “several cases where memorials to veterans – in the shape of crosses – built on public land have triggered lengthy legal battles.”

Still, there’s a pretty significant different between crosses erected on public land and “sandblasting” crosses off tombstone in veterans’ cemeteries.

So, I checked in with Rob Boston, a longtime friend and a spokesperson for American United for Separation of Church and State, to ask if Cruz’s concerns have merit. Boston described the senator’s argument as “pathetic,” adding,

“At cemeteries like Arlington, the families of deceased veterans have the right to choose from a variety of religious and secular symbols to use as grave markers. Obviously these are private graves that memorialize the individuals buried there. That’s far removed from the government erecting a giant cross and saying it represents all veterans. I’m sure Cruz knows the difference.”

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/week-god-22016?cid=sm_fb_maddow

Thanks, nullifying, secessionist, Bible humping Texians

[boutons_deux]

Ted Cruz declares war on gluten-free meals (because we are living through the dumbest election in history)

The 2nd-place candidate for the GOP nomination thinks its *very* important that the military not worry about gluten

Here is how head-smackingly ridiculous the 2016 election has gotten before we’re even out of February.

This week, the second-place candidate for the Republican nomination told an audience of South Carolina primary voters that as president, he will ban the military (http://www.eater.com/2016/2/17/11038528/ted-cruz-gluten-free-meals-us-military) from serving gluten-free MREs (Meals Ready-to-Eat, those foil-wrapped packets of dehydrated food-like substances that soldiers carry into combat zones).

I’m sure that’s right at the top of every soldier’s wish list, right after sufficient armor to wear in combat and a functioning Veterans Administration.

What is Ted Cruz’s rationale for saving our mighty fighting forces from the scourge of exposure to dietary items for sufferers of celiac disease?

Quoth Cruz:

“[T]he last thing any commander should need to worry about is the grades he is getting from some plush-bottomed Pentagon bureaucrat for political correctness or social experiments — or providing gluten-free MREs.”


Psst, no one tell Cruz that our military’s Muslim soldiers can get halal MREs (http://www.mreinfo.com/other-us-rations/current-us-rations/) if they so desire. His brain might turn into pudding.

http://www.salon.com/?p=14406067

Holy Shit, you Repugs, rigthwingnuts, right wing hate media consumers, bubbas, rednecks, shit kickers, dirt scratchers, dimestore cowboys, etc, etc, really, really gave some EXCELLENT civilization-uplifting candidates. Thanks!

[boutons_deux]

Rafael Cruz: God Sent My Son's Wife A Sign That He Should Run For Prez

Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-TX) father said last year on a syndicated radio program that his son decided to launch a bid for the White House after his wife, Heidi, was sent a sign from God.

In audio surfaced Monday by Mother Jones (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/rafael-cruz-ted-cruz-campaign-god-sign), Rafael Cruz said that he and his family spent "six months in prayer" to learn of God's plan for his son. The "green light" finally came on a Sunday while the family and some of the senator's staff members were at church in Houston, Texas, he recalled.

"After the church service, we all gathered at the pastor's office," said Cruz, who is a pastor himself. "We were on our knees for two hours seeking God's will. At the end of that time, a word came through his wife, Heidi. And the word came, just saying, 'Seek God's face, not God's hand.'"

Cruz said he then felt as if a "cloud of the Holy Spirit" had filled the room.

"Some of us were weeping, and Ted just looked up and said, 'Lord, here am I, use me. I surrender to you, whatever you want,'" he said. "And it was as he felt that was a green light to move forward."

Ted Cruz's Christian faith has been a cornerstone of his presidential bid. Heidi Cruz previouslyhas said (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/heidi-cruz-face-of-god) that her husband's presidential campaign was showing Americans "the face of the God that we serve."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rafael-cruz-god-sign-presidential-campaign?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

Even worse, shit-for-brains Bible humpers believe Cruz is from God.