Rafael Edward Cruz (1970- ), better known as Ted Cruz, is the junior senator from Texas. In 2016 he is running for US president as a Republican, hard to the right of Donald Trump. He is the son of a Baptist preacher and the husband of a manager director at Goldman Sachs, a big Wall Street bank.
Votes: Cruz appeals to Evangelical Christians, who make up about half of Republicans. He is one of their own.
Money: He gets money from Sheldon Adelson (pro-Israel), the Koch brothers (oil industry) and the Wilks Brothers (fracking). Cruz speaks kindly of Netanyahu, Israel’s hard-right prime minister, and calls climate change “a so-called scientific theory.”
The horse race: Cruz is unlikely to get enough delegates in state races to win the Republican nomination outright. But so long as he stays in the race, Trump is unlikely to either. That will leave the choice to the party convention in July.
Endorsements: six current governors, National Review, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, Thomas Sowell, James Dobson, Glenn Beck, Dana Loesch, etc.
Achievements: Ted Cruz led the shutdown the US government in 2013, bringing the country to the edge of default on its debts. He was trying to block ObamaCare, President Obama’s health care reforms. He also opposed gun control, raising the minimun wage to $10.10 and shortening prison sentences for non-violent drug crimes.
Policy: As president he wants to:
- Overturn ObamaCare.
- Defeat ISIS: “We will utterly destroy ISIS. We will carpet bomb them into oblivion. I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out.”
- Get rid of the IRS by passing a 10% flat tax on income.
- “Secure the border” to control the number of people coming from Mexico.
US Constitution: He is a big believer in the US Constitution. In high school he knew a shortened version of it by heart. But while he is big on gun rights and religious liberty, he is against birthright citizenship, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and wants:
“law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighbourhoods before they become radicalized.”
Frank Gaffney, a Cruz adviser, is “one of America’s most notorious Islamophobes” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Black Lives Matter he says is “embracing and celebrating the murder of police officers.”
Education and experience: like Obama in 2008, Cruz has a Harvard Law degree and three years of Senate experience. He is 45, a year younger than Obama was back then. At Princeton University he was a champion debater. As solicitor-general of Texas (2003-2008), he argued nine cases before the US Supreme Court. As a corporate lawyer he made millions.
Birth: Cruz was born in Canada – yet Birthers are not going nuts. Like Obama, his father is foreign-born (Cuba) but his mother is US-born. That makes him a natural-born US citizen, required for becoming president.
The Latino vote: In his Senate race he lost the Latino vote. Cruz’s mother is Anglo and he grew up in Anglo neighbourhoods. Unlike Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush, he cannot campaign in Spanish.
– Abagond, 2016.
See also:
- 2016 election for US president
- Birthers
- Black Lives Matter
- Voting Rights Act of 1965
- mass incarceration of Black men
- ISIS
- Islamophobia
- Barack Obama – the post I wrote about him in 2007
- Anglo Americans
- Thomas Sowell
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Another Loony Canuck! He lived there in Calgary(correct me if I’m wrong) for the first four years of his life. We import our loons!
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I read somewhere that he has/had mistresses. He looks like a smarmy prevert!
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If I was an alien looking down on some of these candidates, I would think it was some form of comedy entertainment. Perversely, I wish we had similar maniacs and clowns like these here. The elections would be that much more fun!
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I’m no Trump fan, but neither am I for this clown.
The only thing he got right is that he opposed gun control, imo.
(In too many areas of Amerika it is an automatic death – by cop – sentence for a Black person to possess a toy guy, much less a real firearm.)
@Herneith
“If I was an alien looking down on some of these candidates, I would think it was some form of comedy entertainment.”
L. Ron Hubbard wrote a hilarious series of Sci-Fi novels describing exactly that and how life in general is lived on this planet – from an alien perspective. He nailed it.
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Cruz first back the Koch brother’s immagration reforms but then switched once his xenophobic constituents had a cow.
He also wanted to outlaw dilldoes, sex toys in the State of Texas and thinks masterbation is immoral. So beyond interfering with women’s rights to abortion he has taken farther into whatever people do in the privacy of their own homes. And of course he opposes marriage equality.
He’s opposes Islam but works to pass laws the Taliban would approve of.
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He also wanted to outlaw dildos, sex toys in the State of Texas and thinks masturbation is immoral.
He’s th biggest onanist around!
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‘the’^^^^
Sorry I was laughing too hard. These colostomy bags lend themselves to jokes.
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While Trump and his supporters are scary, Ted Cruz his funders and supporters are downright petrifying. Cruz is a theocrat and supports a Christian Dominionist country.
He and his crowd support a country that resembles the dystopian society in the book, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale
Atwood wrote the book to speculate how the US would slide into totalitarianism by means of religion. Atwood describes her reasoning this way:
It is important to note that in this book, only White male Christians of high status have full rights. Other White men have partial rights. Black people, Jews, and women of all ethnicities are considered fully subordinate and are systematically stripped of their rights.
That is the country that Cruz and his supporters want to impose on the rest of us. Racism, sexism and religious intolerance on steroids.
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Younger than I am by a few months but looks much older lol. I’m not voting for any of those clowns, republican or democrat. They’re all a bunch of liars.
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@Afrofem:
You can always move to Canada with its’ feminist Prime Minister!
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@Herneith
Justin Trudeau is a feminist? (chuckle…ok rather loud chuckle)
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“God’s blessing has been on America from the very beginning of this nation, and I believe God isn’t done with America, yet.” – Ted Cruz
God’s curses (slavery, floods, racism, three fifths of a man, lynching, castration, immolation, earthquakes, homosexuality laws, tornadoes, terrorism, secret government, etc.) have been on Amerika from the very beginning of this nation, and I also believe God isn’t done with Amerika, yet, … but for far different reasons.
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Cruz believes the Constitution is a “God breathed” document and lays the foundation that the U.S. is a Christian Nation.
For those interested in questioning the validity of the U.S. Constitution Sheldon Richmond has just released a book, “America’s Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited.”
I’m part way through it.
“This book challenges the assumption that the Constitution was a landmark in the struggle for liberty. Instead, Sheldon Richman argues, it was the product of a counter-revolution, a setback for the radicalism represented by America’s break with the British empire. Drawing on careful, credible historical scholarship and contemporary political analysis, Richman suggests that this counter-revolution was the work of conservatives who sought a nation of “power, consequence, and grandeur.” America’s Counter-Revolution makes a persuasive case that the Constitution was a victory not for liberty but for the agendas and interests of a militaristic, aristocratic, privilege-seeking ruling class”.
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As an atheist I find it interesting how a Harvard law graduate and successful corporate lawyer can still adhere to an ancient and arciac interepretation of reality – perhaps its just code for how the social hiarcharcy is enforced and rationalized.
I also find it curious how the most militarily advanced as well as technically advanced society is also the most religious of the “industrial” nations.
And finally I find the level of insight and analysis remarkably sparce in regards to these primarily social psychological and occasionally philosophical issues and it seems a culture and society extensive phenomena – even at atheist blogs allegedly discussing these issues ,the sciences are rarely brought to bear apon the issues at hand.
Which causes me to view most discussion in “mainstream” media with contempt and disdain as I delve far more deeply via my own research using the freely available tools at hand.
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@Mbeti
Also known as power and control mechanisms….
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I believe there is some legitimate question about whether he is a “natural-born” US citizen. The question came up when McCain unsuccessfully ran for president, but was never fully sussed out since he lost the election. McCain was born on a US naval base in the Panama Canal zone. There is a section of the United States Code specifically stating that people born in the Canal Zone of US parents are US citizens. Recall that the birthers took the position that (a) as a factual matter, Obama was born in Kenya, and therefore (b) as a legal matter, regardless of the fact that his mother was a US citizen, Obama was not a natural-born US citizen and thus was not qualified to hold office.
In the case of Cruz, there is no dispute on the factual question (item (a) above). He was in fact born in Canada. Therefore, assuming that what the birthers were asserting is accurate, Cruz is not qualified to be president.
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@Blanc2
That is a good point. Shows the double standard because many of the “birthers” are backing Cruz.
And who knew Cruz had a twin?
They both favour their father:
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@ resw
Good one!!!!!!!!!
rotflol
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You forgot his little brother Eddie:
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Trump is such a birtherist, going after the president with a foreign born father and a US born white mother, even though he was born right in the USA.
Cruz has a foreign born father and a US born mother, yet born in Canada. Certainly someone with a foreign born father and born in a foreign country should be perfect fodder for a birtherist.
What’s more, he is running head to head against him. He should be milking his birtherism to the hilt.
Yet he doesn’t.
His selective enforcement of the birtherism debate reveals what the underlying message really is.
Has anyone ever actually voiced if Cruz is authentically American or not?
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@ jefe
Trump did raise questions about Cruz’s birth, saying that his natural-born citizenship status is not settled law, that it could be challenged in court. But the press baited him into that and he did not push it much. He did not, for example, require Cruz’s long-form birth certificate. A week later it was all but forgotten.
Similarly, there were questions raised in the press about McCain’s citizenship in 2008, but no candidate made a big issue out of it.
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@abagond
“He did not, for example, require Cruz’s long-form birth certificate. ”
The difference is that Cruz doesn’t deny he was not born in the US. Obama maintained he was born in the US. So Cruz’s birth certificate is moot.
But it is suspicious why Trump is not pushing the natural-born issue, especially since Cruz is basing it on, as he says, “the standard that Mr. McCain and Mr. Goldwater and the others utilized was the fact that they were born in a protectorate or a territory of the United States.” Canada is neither.
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The idiot renounces his Canadian citizenship recently when he decided to run for president:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ted-cruz-tea-party-favourite-renounces-canadian-citizenship-1.2671479
He lived in Canada for the first four years of his life. Why did it take him so long to renounce his citizenship? Why did he keep it so long? Political opportunism and hypocrisy obviously.
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I was watching Bill Maher on HBO and he made a funny joke about Ted Cruz saying he looks like a toddler who just pooped in his pants and was proud of it. I never knew what to make of him except that he just had a stupid looking face. But i kind of agree with Bill Maher that he does have a face that we can make fun of. I need to laugh today seeing i am so sad about losing Prince this week.
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re: Abagond
re; resw
Indeed, if Cruz shared his birth certificate, all it would show is that he was born in Canada. It is indeed telling that he renounced his Canadian citizenship less than 2 years ago.
Every single president born after 1789 was born in the USA. I just checked that there is no legal definition of natural born citizen. We can expect that it will come up in the Republican convention. If it becomes a brokered convention, maybe Trump will bring up this “Trump” card.
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Canada is neither.
You’d never know it according to some. Thanks for the War of 1812 or we might have been!
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@Herneith
“Why did he keep it so long? Political opportunism and hypocrisy obviously.”
Good point. Like a typical politician, he will say or do whatever he believes will help his poll numbers.
@jefe
“I just checked that there is no legal definition of natural born citizen.”
Right, but courts in PA and NJ recently ruled that Cruz is a natural born citizen, even though Cruz, in principle, does not believe in this type of living constitutionalism or judicial activism. Here’s a good article about that: https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/01/11/through-ted-cruz-constitutional-looking-glass/zvKE6qpF31q2RsvPO9nGoK/story.html
Like Herneith said, it’s nothing but “political opportunism and hypocrisy obviously” for Cruz.
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You Yanks can keep him!
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Yes, please keep him. We don’t want him. He would suck being a Canuck anyway.
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@ Michael Jon Barker
“This book challenges the assumption that the Constitution was a landmark in the struggle for liberty. Instead, Sheldon Richman argues, it was the product of a counter-revolution, a setback for the radicalism represented by America’s break with the British empire. Drawing on careful, credible historical scholarship and contemporary political analysis…
Michael, thank you for reminding me to go back and read Thomas Paine, a task in political self educating that as yet, remains (worryingly) incomplete. As I understand it Paine was more radical than the other founding fathers, and fulfilled a prominent political role in the conflict against England but was later ostracized by his contemporaries as the new republic set itself up.
Michael, I imagine this book you cite discusses Thomas Paine and the particular political climate of which he was a member and agitator for, is this so?
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@ Mary Burrell, et al.
It’s true, his face is unpleasant (no matter what expression he’s wearing).
I’ve not yet read this, so forgive me if it’s just a piece of internet idiocy, but the following may be of interest:
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/neurologist-explains-why-its-hard-to-look-at-ted-cruzs-creepy-unsettling-face/
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@ legion
Sheldon quotes Paine here and their. This is from the preface to the first chapter.
“It’s easy to see that the Federalists tended toward the rationalist camp and the Anti-Federalists toward the pluralist camp, though few individuals have ever been pure rationalists or pure pluralists. Some Federalists praised the move from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution on the explicit grounds that the new national government would relate directly to the individual citizen. (This enthusiasm, however, was not necessarily out of a love of liberty; an independent power to tax people directly was understood to be the key to national greatness.) A direct central-state-to-citizen relationship is precisely what the Anti-Federalists feared; they saw the states, among other associations, as buffers between the individual and a distant ruling aristocracy. (Madison is a complicated case; as we’ve seen, he was not fond of the states, but he famously thought an extended republic would, in Levy’s words, “multiply factions to make it difficult to assemble a majority coalition in favor of any particular partial interest.” Charitably put, his was a horizontal rather than vertical pluralism. The reader may judge for himself or herself how that’s worked out.) Levy argues that these two approaches cannot be reconciled or transcended and that the risk to liberty comes from all directions. As long as governments exist, pluralism seems the better of the two approaches, primarily because the smaller the jurisdiction the cheaper the exit. The potential to vote with one’s feet at least has some chance to exert pressure on state and local governments to minimize their burdens. The resulting competition ought somewhat to serve the cause of liberty. (Of course we today are in a different position from the Americans of 1787. Our political system has both rationalist and pluralist elements with radical change in the offing. So our best hope, for now, is for each component to block the usurpations of the other.) What was missing from the debate in the late 18th century was the anarchist perspective. By this I mean that neither side could imagine how order and prosperity could be achieved and sustained without government, state or national, that without the initiation of force. Lacking this perspective, the Anti-Federalists handicapped themselves because, as noted, it meant they shares many premises about the necessity of government with the Federalists. When they were accused of favoring anarchy, they could only react defensively. No one could respond in effect: “Anarchy, yes. Chaos, no.” The Anti-Federalists needed to assimilate fully the truth that Paine (who failed to assimilate it fully himself) would formulate a few years later Rights of Man (1792):
” Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all the parts of civilised community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and forms their law; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater influence than the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself almost everything which is ascribed to government.”
Government, Paine went on to say, “purloins from the general character of man, the merits that appertain to him as a social being” .
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I ran across this post from a Quiverfull* refugee, Heather Doney, about Ted Cruz.
This is part of the summary of her post where she describes how she thinks America could change under a Cruz presidency:
To me, Cruz is much scarier than that blowhard, Trump, could ever be.
(*This is a description of the Quiverfull movement written by Vyckie Garrison, founder of the blog, No Longer Quivering.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/what-is-quiverfull/)
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Afrofen will appreciate this.
This website details in part how to turn the U.S. into a theocracy as well as ‘Investment strategies”
“It was a public execution. The accused had an opportunity to confront his accusers one last time. In the New Testament, the preeminent example was the testimony and execution of Stephen (Acts 7).”
“What was the penalty for a capital crime? Death by stoning.”
And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear (Deuteronomy 21:21)”.
“Why stoning? Because the stone was the mark of universal citizenship. This was the sign of every citizen’s right of self-defense. It was the mark of the right to keep and bear arms. It was also cheap. Every citizens could afford a stone.”
“The legal right to defend yourself with a stone is a mark of your judicial sovereignty.”
LMAO only its not really funny.
http://www.garynorth.com/public/department158.cfm
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Another North quote:
“So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy constructing a Bible-based social, political, and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God. Murder, abortion, and pornography will be illegal. God’s law will be enforced. It will take time. A minority religion cannot do this. Theocracy must flow from the heart of a majority of citizens, just as compulsory education came only after most people had their children in schools of some sort.”
And guess who is helping edit Ron Paul’s home school course ? Gary North.
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@Michael Jon Barker
That is some “religion”. It seems more like a death cult, saturated in all manner of violence, control, blood, punishment, enemies, hatred and utter hypocrisy!
They dare to call themselves followers of The Christ. A historical figure who preached love, oneness and forgiveness. That religion has devolved into a mob of control freaks who are not content to simply enjoy the freedom to follow their beliefs (tax free). Instead they are constantly scheming for power and attempting to cram their beliefs down everyone else’s throats.
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@ MJB
Thank you Michael.
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Ted Cruz has dropped out of the race.
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@Afrofem: Quiverfull is a cult.
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@ Mary Burrell
You speak the truth. They give regular Christians a bad name. Actually, a lot of cults do that. They distort a religion or belief system until it is unrecognizable.
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What interesting about Cruz is that he was elected as a Tea Party canidate and if I recall correctly Abagond exposed them at the time as having an underlining racial message and below surface bigotry.
I think the Tea Party movement was largely a Fox News sponsored “movemwnt”.
That Cruz would loose so bad to Trump I think indicates that the country is ready for an openly bigoted canidate whose economic populism is tied around “bringong our Jobs” back and keeping them from leaving the U.S.. His mocking of PC language and tone also scores well with whites.
What he has not explained is “how” he plans “to bring the jobs back” . He can’t. And making politicale promises you can’t keep requires scapegoating non whites who will be blamed for interfering with “making America great again”. Expect racism and bigotry to increase under a Trump presidency within the U.S. population and be more out in the Open.
I thought back in March Trump would get the nomination. I think if Hillary gets the Democratic nomination I would be willing to bet Trump becomes president.
The media elite as well as the establishment live in a bubble.
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Ted Cruz is finito. But check out what Malloy says about Trump and Clinton!.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y3AQ6GFghg)
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http://www.burrardstreetjournal.com/ted-cruz-admits-father-killed-jfk/
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