CNN? Is that you?
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Ted Cruz assails fellow Republicans senators for 'trickery'



Posted by
CNN Political Unit

Beaumont, Texas (CNN) - Sen. Ted Cruz accused his own Republican leadership of �trickery� in trying to force a �show vote� on raising the debt ceiling last week, warning Republicans will get �clobbered in the polls� for not standing up for principle.

"What Republican leadership said is we want this to pass, but if every senator affirmatively consents to doing it on 51 votes, then we can all cast a vote no and we can go home to our constituents and say we opposed it. And listen, that sort of show vote, that sort of trickery to the - to the constituents is why Congress has a 13 percent approval rating.


In my view, we need to be honest with our constituents. And last week, what it was all about was truth and transparency. I think all 45 Republicans should have stood together and said of course not.,� Cruz told CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash in a network exclusive interview airing on CNN.

Last week, Cruz angered many fellow Republicans by blocking a vote to raise the debt ceiling and forcing them to take a politically perilous vote.

Cruz's move meant 60 votes were needed to avoid defaulting on America�s loans � so GOP leaders voted against Cruz' filibuster, which put them in the crosshairs of conservatives and frustrated with Cruz

�Go back to those Senate lunches. I - I won't identify anything, but I'll - I'll tell you several people raised a question just like you did there - why are you trying to throw five Republicans under the bus and make them vote for raising the debt ceiling?

And I'll tell you my response. My response is I don't want to throw any Republicans under the bus. I would like to see all 45 Republicans stand together and actually do what we tell our constituents.�

Bash asked whether � on a human level � whether it stings to have so many fellow senators from his own party so angry with him.

�As a human being, I can't control what they say, how they behave. I can control what I do. So every interaction that I have with every senator, Republican or Democrat, is consistently civil, courteous, respectful, treating them with - with the dignity that they deserve, � replied Cruz.

Here are other highlights from the interview:

Not worried about standing with other Republicans: Cruz fortified his standing among grassroots conservatives with his opposition to the debt ceiling deal. Last year he was one of the leaders of conservatives who blocked an agreement that would have avoided the 16-day partial federal government shutdown in an effort to defund President Barack Obama�s health care law. If Cruz is worried about relationships with other Republicans in the Senate, he didn't sound like it.

"What I try to keep an eye on is I don�t work for the party bosses in Washington. I work for 26 million Texans,� he said.

Cruz stood by his attempt to block the debt ceiling votes, insisting his efforts were based on transparency and fairness to conservative voters, not to political damage his colleagues in the GOP.

�The funny thing is what I told the voters of Texas, I guarantee you all 45 Republican senators tell voters in their states the same thing, which is they're going to lead the fight to stop the spending and to stop the debt and if 45 Republicans had stood together, nobody gets thrown under the bus.�

Ted on Ted: Republicans have been called to distance themselves from the aging rock star, who has been a frequent GOP campaigner, after he called Obama a "subhuman mongrel." Cruz said he doesn�t share Nugent�s sentiment but, �There's a reason� people listen to him.�

�He has been fighting passionately for Second Amendment rights," Cruz said of Nugent. "And this administration has demonstrated an incredible hostility to the Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens."

Cruz suggested a double standard in news coverage, insisting that incendiary comments from the left don't get the same attention.

Backbone wins elections: Some Republicans fear Cruz's image outside of the conservative wing might cost them an opportunity to take back the Senate. But Cruz said it's Republicans backing down from principles that's costing them elections.

"The Washington establishment think Republicans win elections by you don't stand for anything, you keep your head down, you don't rock the boat. You know what? Every time we do that we get clobbered in the polls,� Cruz said.

Cruz pointed to the midterm elections in 2010, when the tea party wave swept Republicans into the majority in the House, as the only recent election where his party took a stand.

Obama 'utterly ineffectual' against Putin: Cruz called the Obama administration�s policy toward Russia and the unrest in Ukraine �misguided.�

�You know, if you look at the last five years, one of the tragic results is U.S. leadership has been receding. We have been shrinking. And into that vacuum others, like Iran, like Russia, have expanded. Putin is trying to reassemble the old Soviet Union and - and this administration's foreign policy has been utterly ineffectual standing up to prevent that.�

A shot at a possible rival: Cruz dismissed possible 2016 GOP presidential rival Rand Paul's criticism of Bill Clinton's "predatory behavior" in the White House � he said he had plenty of problems with Clinton's wife.

"I'm a lot less concerned with Bill Clinton's escapades decades ago than I am with Hillary Clinton's consistently wrong record when it comes to foreign policy, when it comes to domestic policy,� Cruz said of the comments from the GOP senator from Kentucky.

"Throughout her tenure, Hillary Clinton has embraced the same far-left agenda. Before Obamacare there was Hillarycare. And that agenda hurts people who are struggling.�

Calling out Kerry, doubting climate change: Cruz said that the data on global warming doesn�t support environmental activists� argument.

"You always have to be worried about something that is considered a so-called 'scientific theory' that fits every scenario. Climate change, as they've defined it, can never be disproved,� he said.

He called Secretary of State John Kerry�s remarks that climate change is a national security threat �ironic� considering the other major crises rocking the world.

Secretary of State John Kerry�s recent comments that climate change ranks among the world's most serious problems has sparked outrage, particularly from Republicans.

"He sees a greater threat from your SUV than he does to Iranian nuclear weapons,� Cruz said.

The other Senator from Texas might get the message this election.

Maybe.

The problem is, when Ted shines the light on these roaches, they look right into it & say, "GFY". Gotta carve 'em out, one at a time. They're just too powerful to beat too many at a time.

Ted is positioning himself for a major "I told you so moment", after the American public has felt enough pain.

Notice, I did not say the public would ever see the light.

Oh I hope so Cornyn is a huge RINO...

plus 1!

New Poll Shows John Cornyn Heading Into Runoff With Steve Stockman for U.S. Senate



A new poll suggests what many have known all along -- John Cornyn is at best lukewarm with Republican primary voters. A runoff is beginning to look more likely as the last 5 known polls taken on the race for the U.S. Senate nomination have Cornyn with less than 50% support. That's always bad news for an incumbent. The good news for Cornyn is 2nd place has typically been taken by "Unsure," a name that won't actually be appearing on the ballot.
Cornyn's biggest asset besides his enormous war chest, is his lack of a high-profile and credible candidate, he just happens to have one of each (talk about splitting the vote!). His high-profile candidate who typically comes in behind "unsure" is Congressman Steve Stockman who received 28% in the latest poll, while Cornyn took just 43%. But, the more credible candidate Dwayne Stovall has been quietly (as far as media attention is concerned) gathering Tea Party endorsements and straw poll victories across the state.

The Tea party hasn't endorsed anyone for Cornyn's seat....they just don't want Cornyn. Unless the vote is concentrated for someone other than Cornyn, he wins the primary.

Pat...here is another conservative's take on the issue:
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Strassel: Another Misguided Cruz Missile

Ted Cruz is aiming for Mitch McConnell, but he may blow up the GOP's chances for a Senate majority in November.

By
Kimberley A. Strassel

Feb. 20, 2014 7:23 p.m. ET

A rump band of Beltway conservatives has seen the enemy and it is not Harry Reid. It is Mitch McConnell, whose scalp is apparently worth blowing yet another shot at a Republican Senate majority.

There's a new dividing line in the conservative movement�between a majority who'd like to win against President Obama, and a handful who'd like to win some scalps. It was on vivid display last week during the Senate debt-ceiling vote. Republicans were looking to avoid a fight they were destined to lose. Democrats had the votes to pass the bill with a simple majority, meaning they also would have owned their president's refusal to tackle the debt.

In walked Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to demand a 60-vote majority to pass the increase. Mr. Cruz has subsequently claimed he alone was attempting to get Mr. Obama to agree to spending reforms. Odd, given that he didn't publicly present any reforms to attach to the debt bill. He didn't take to the floor to escalate the issue. To the contrary, he agreed to speed up the vote.

There was only one point to Mr. Cruz's action: To force Republican colleagues, in particular Mr. McConnell, into voting "yes" to proceed to the actual bill. Mr. Cruz has admitted as much, bragging to radio host Mark Levin the next day that his colleagues' "heads exploded" because he'd "forced" them to "tell the truth"�namely, that they "wanted" to give Barack Obama a "blank check to raise our debt." Never mind that every Republican, once past the Cruz show vote, opposed the increase on final passage.

Members of Congress routinely cook up situations that force opposing parties to take "tough votes." This may be the first time a senator did so solely to damage his own party. It may also be the first time a senator has used the privileges afforded him under Senate rules to benefit a small and coordinated band of conservative campaign groups. Their No. 1 target is Mr. McConnell, who Mr. Cruz hasn't forgiven for failing to embrace his damaging shutdown.

The breadth and coordination of these groups was striking. First came Heritage Action�which was created in 2010 by the Heritage Foundation, which is itself run by Cruz-promoter Jim DeMint �explaining it would mark down in its legislative scorecard any senator who voted to move beyond Mr. Cruz's procedural hurdle. Within minutes of Mr. McConnell voting to proceed, his opponent in the Kentucky primary, Matt Bevin, had tweeted out that his rival had given "Obama another blank check."

The Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF), which is backing Mr. Bevin, also immediately blasted Mr. McConnell for voting "with the Democrats to advance yet another debt limit increase." The group, founded by Mr. DeMint and now run by a former DeMint staffer, released a Web video that was already trashing Mr. McConnell on the debt ceiling. The blog site Red State, on cue, praised the ad, instructed readers to "Send Senate Conservatives Fund As Much As You Can NOW," and also complained that Mr. McConnell had given the president a "blank check." The Madison Project, also backing Mr. Bevin, put out a mirror release: "Mitch McConnell Votes to Give Obama a Blank Check."

On Thursday, Mr. Cruz told me his debt procedure was a matter of principle, though he acknowledged an "additional benefit" was the "transparency" he'd forced on Republicans. He told me he had not "spoken to anyone at SCF in months." However, when I asked if anyone on his staff had been in contact with outside groups about his debt-ceiling procedure, he acknowledged: "My staff periodically speaks with people across the conservative movement." He added, "But the debt ceiling vote occurred suddenly and it was a surprise to everybody when Republican leadership asked every Republican senator to consent to letting Harry Reid raise the debt ceiling."

In addition to Mr. McConnell, conservative groups are targeting senators John Cornyn (Texas), Pat Roberts (Kan.), Thad Cochran (Miss.), and Lindsey Graham (S.C.). While the primary challengers aren't likely to win (Mr. Bevin is trailing by 25 points), the attacks are hurting incumbents' general-election prospects.

None of this is about substance. If political principle were at stake, one would assume these outside groups�so keen on purity�would have already dropped Mr. Bevin. It came out recently that he had once praised the very bank bailouts that he has been slapping Mr. McConnell for supporting.

Mr. McConnell holds the same positions as Mr. Cruz on spending, ObamaCare, gun control, etc. His sin? He has refused to ask Republicans to run into the Obama fixed bayonets, a la the Cruz shutdown. Groups like SCF and Heritage Action want to replace the leadership with more of their own kamikaze caucus. They also understand there are far more fundraising dollars and media attention in attacking fellow conservatives.

Republicans have fumbled their last two Senate takeover chances, mostly thanks to infighting. But this latest movement�to take down incumbents over tactics�is a new low. If the GOP remains a minority, this will be why.

Not if he get's less than 50% of the vote. That's why he, and Karl Rove, is spending $16 million on political advertisement. This election is important to the entire country...the other candidates can't even afford a single TV commercial. It's a referendum on the establishment.
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SUBCHAPTER B. RUNOFF ELECTIONSec.

2.021. RUNOFF ELECTION REQUIRED. If no candidate for a particular office receives the vote necessary to be elected in an election requiring a majority vote, a runoff election for that office is required.
Acts 1985, 69th Leg., ch. 211, Sec. 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1986.

Sec. 2.022. CONFLICTS WITH OTHER LAW. (a) Except as provided by Subsection (b), a law outside this subchapter supersedes this subchapter to the extent of any conflict.(b) Sections 2.023 and 2.028 supersede a law outside this subchapter to the extent of any conflict.
Acts 1985, 69th Leg., ch. 211, Sec. 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1986. Amended by Acts 2003, 78th Leg., ch. 652, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 2003.

Sec. 2.023. RUNOFF CANDIDATES. (a) Except as provided by Subsections (b) and (c), the candidates in a runoff election are the candidates who receive the highest and second highest number of votes in the main election or who tie for the highest number of votes.

It will be interesting to see who the Tea Party chooses should there be a run off.....Stockman's disappearance hasn't helped him. Regardless, a strong message will be sent to Cornyn, maybe he'll get the message.

She's not a conservative.

There's no doubt who they will pick. Stockman didn't "disappear", he was out of the country. That's just another straw the liberal media is grasping at. Sixteen million dollars buys a lot of muck, especially when there is no competition for it. You'll notice that none of the other candidates are saying anything bad about Cornyn, other than his record? ALL Cornyn is saying is that the others are crazy, criminal, amateurish, etc. The John Wayne music in his advertisements must be Roves idea.

I thought this was going to be another Nuge thread!!

He's in the mix, but you know how that is...they want him around, but not too close.

We are better served if the various Tea Parties in Texas work for different individuals like Stockman and Stovall. Even primary write in votes for Mickey Mouse help the cause since they add to the total number of votes that DON'T go to Cornyn.

"Anyone but Cornyn" ain't gonna be on the ballot, but it's a good strategy at this point.

Yes! This race is very difficult for the Republican establishment to bear, because the standard scare tactic of "If you don't vote for our guy, you'll get a Democrat!", doesn't apply. Guys like McCain and McConnell have been running on that platform for years.

And that's the message Cornyn needs to get.

Cornyn would be a real step up in an R Senator exchange with a lot of Red States.

But........... Texas can do better.

I wonder why all of the MSM is coming to the rescue of the (R) establisment? MSNBC is suddenly supporting "Republicans".
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Former Republican Congressman: Ted Cruz Should Leave The Party

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Well, let's go back to what Ted Cruz said. We just heard him say this: 'The single thing that Republican politicians hate and fear the most, that is when they're forced to tell the truth.'

I got to say, if I just submitted to that to you, Steve, as a blind quote, I didn't tell you where that came from in your wildest dreams, would you pin that on a Republican United States Senator?

FMR. REP. STEVE LaTOURETTE (R-OH): Well, sadly you can't do that anymore because I would know exactly where that came from.

O'DONNELL: Yeah.

LaTOURETTE: But the fact of the matter is, I mean, it's those kinds of statements that are just irresponsible. And if you go back to the government shutdown. I mean, this guy is a bomb thrower, he's a flame thrower, but he's got no exit strategy, he's got no Plan B. He doesn't have the responsibility of governing, which Mitch McConnell does. I think that he can go on Mark Levin's show and say whatever the heck he wants.

O'DONNELL: Well, I mean, a guy who says the single thing that Republican politicians hate and fear the most is telling the truth, Steve, why is he a Republican?

LaTOURETTE: Well, I don't think he is a Republican, to tell you the truth. I wish he would stop being a Republican and leave the party. That would be a nice thing. He's really a libertarian. I mean, he comes out of the Ron Paul wing of the libertarian wing of the party, and, you know, they use the Republican party as a vehicle to get elected, but once in it, they want to cannibalize it and criticize it. If he spent half as much energy trying to defeat Democrats and gain control of the Senate as he does bashing other Republicans, we'd have 60 votes in the Senate.

Sounds like a few posters here & I don't mean the real libs..

The answer may be found in the Bible:

Lo, that which I feared has come upon me.

Change causes stress. That's why people resist it, even when it's good for them. I feel it.

I admire and respect Ted for standing on principle and faithfully representing the voters that elected him. I really do. BUT ...

He picks the wrong battles. He's a poster child for the Republican Party of "NO". He stands on principles and says "no" without a strategy to win the battle let alone the war.

In addition to that, he don't play fair with the other politicians in both parties.

He uses the TRUTH as a weapon of mass destruction.

All politicians know that it is such a powerful weapon that it must be used sparingly and only in a much diluted form.

That's a liberal talking point. They always say, "You don't want us to (fill in the blank), but you don't offer an alternative.". The alternative is "Don't do it.". We'll use the most recent "crisis" as an example...raising the debt ceiling. "No" IS the alternative. Gun control? Amnesty? There is no appropriate response to the liberal agenda but "No".

Don't drink the Kool Aid dude! "No" is often the only right answer.



Travis

There was another alternative for Ted regarding the debt ceiling.

Vote no and then STFU.

Ted didn't have to lambaste the Rs that voted for the debt ceiling increase and further the divide in the party. A no vote by Ted would have sufficed.

"Vote no and then STFU."

That's exactly what he did on the measure to allow it to pass with only 50 votes.

Any harm done to Republican Senators on this vote was by their own hand.

McConnell, Cornyn,etal could have followed your suggestion.

Spot-on. I'm getting tired of being polite too.

It's refreshing to have a R slam RINO's for a change. Very refreshing. The grassroots is paying off.

Cruz isn't hurting RINO's. RINO's are hurting RINO's.

Texas would be very disappointed in him if he did that, and it's Texas that he represents. See, Cruz is displaying a trait that is very, very rare in politics...honesty. That is a very difficult thing for Politicians to take. You might even say that it's a trait worth fighting for, even if you lose. We're dumb like that.

It's all good. No more austerity

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.o...ill-call-for-an-end-to-era-of-austerity/

and thus part of my high regard for Texans


no bullchit, here's the way the cards lay on the table.

what you don't like that and want to fight me? Well it seems I've just enough time in my schedule to honor your request for this dance, so let's dance!


there's guys on here whom I respect that have a different take, they believe a RINO is better than a Dem and I agree with them.

the trouble is, they're not good enough.


last time we had the administration, and both houses, how many gov't programs got cut?


with RINO's it's always the same old story "if only.....we had this house or the presidency or whatever, we could initiate real changes good for America"

BULLCHIT, I've never seen them do it.


you won't find many Paul's or Cruz's in DC, cause they'll speak the truth, kryptonite for most politicians.

Carson/Cruz has a damn fine ring to it...
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Is Ted Cruz's visit good for Florida Republicans?




It�s easy to understand why U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is spending part of the week off the Senate gives itself for Presidents Day in Florida engaging in Republican politics.
It�s less easy to understand, said Lynn University political scientist Robert Watson, why Florida Republicans are hosting Cruz.

Cruz, a leader in the tea party movement, is easily one of the most controversial figures in the party, disliked by many moderate Republicans and parts of the party establishment.

On Thursday he did three events with the Sarasota Republican Party. Friday night he keynotes the Palm Beach County Republican Party�s annual Lincoln Day dinner.

�It does raise eyebrows,� Watson said. �The question is why the Palm Beach County Republican Party would want him to keynote such a high profile and such an important event. Important because this is a midterm election year and the party needs to gear up its funding, and he promises only to invite negative media attention and potentially split and polarize the party and paint the party as more conservative than they would want to be painted.

�As to why he�s coming here, the folks that are looking at running for president always do this. They go to key swing states. Everyone visits Iowa and New Hampshire because they�re early [in the nominating process]. But everyone visits Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Missouri, Colorado, Nevada � all the swing states � and starts setting up donor lists,� he said. �It�s good to have that in your back pocket and start developing donor lists, start developing contacts, start developing all of that networking that one needs to do if one is going to raise a couple of hundred million dollars to make a run for the presidency.



�So the same way [New Jersey Gov. Chris] Christie was here, even though he was acting on behalf of the Republican Governors Association, they all come here and start to test the waters. And the fact that he is coming here raises his profile as a serious candidate.

�You�ve got to raise money in Florida, and you�ve got to have connections in the most important swing state in the country.

�I was intrigued, and I�m interested to see what kind of blowback the Palm Beach County Republicans get to see if there�s folks that are giving him a rough time � about his divisiveness in the party.�

He�ll be joined by another controversial conservative, Dr. Ben Carson, and the host of the event and another guest, Donald Trump.

�All three, not just Ted Cruz, but The Donald and Dr. Carson all represent � they themselves and their policies � represent the fringe of the party, the far right of the party. So at a time when everyone knows the Republicans need to move toward the center electorally if they are to win, not only in the midterms but the White House in 2016, it seems kind of odd that they�re inviting and featuring the fringe of the party.�

�So the question would be why is the Palm Beach County Republican Party doing this?�

Wouldn't the liberals be supporting Cruz if they thought he was hurting Republicans. ..Like they do Christie? Like they did Romney and McCain until they faced Obama?
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Texas Sen. Cruz stirs GOP enthusiasm at Sarasota rally

SARASOTA -- Sen. Ted Cruz from Texas received one raucous standing ovation after another Thursday night moments after he accepted the Sarasota Republican Party's 2014 Statesman of the Year Award.

The event, which drew a crowd estimated at 1,800 at the Sarasota Hyatt, had the feel of a rally for a 2016 presidential candidate. Cruz did nothing to defuse the impression.

The Cuban-American, one of only three Latinos in the Senate, is criticized and admired for his 21-hour, 19-minute filibuster on the Senate floor Sept. 24, 2013, against President Barack Obama's Affordable Health Care Act.

He smiled and said nothing at one point when the crowd chanted for about 30 seconds straight: "Run, Ted, Run."

"I would love for him to be a candidate," said Sheila Connolly, one of six enthusiastic Manatee County Republicans who came early enough Thursday to claim front-row seats in the hotel ballroom to hear the controversial Cruz.

"I'm not sure 2016 is his time, but he can take us where we need to go," added Connolly, who lives in Stony Brook in Heritage Harbor.

Every year since 2011, the Sarasota Republican Party has handed out a Statesman of the Year Award to a person who "stands strong on what he or she believes," said Sarasota Republican Party Chairman Joe Gruters.

Previous Statesmen of the Year: former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, real estate tycoon Donald Trump and talk show host Sean Hannity.

This year, Connolly and fellow Heritage Harbor Republicans Betsy Chartier and Sandy and Don Willetts all cheered the senator along with Berit Roberts of Waterlefe and John Westberg of East Manatee.

Cruz touched on some of his political positions, which include pro-life, gun rights and cutting back the National Security Agency's role in American's private lives.

He got cheers when he advised the audience to leave their cell phones on so President Obama could hear what he had to say, a reference to the NSA's eavesdropping.

He spoke passionately about jobs and economic growth, saying his father came to America with $100 sewn into his underwear and got a job washing dishes for 50 cents an hour before educating himself enough to earn a slice of the American dream.

"But that 50-cents-an-hour job doesn't exist today because small businesses are taxed to death by government," Cruz said. "And if it did exist, it would only be 29 hours a week to avoid Obamacare."

Cruz said he was "profoundly optimistic" America can bounce back from what he called its "economic malaise."

"We are back in the late 1970s when Jimmy Carter was president," Cruz said. "Something incredible happened at that point at the grassroots level in the country. There was a Reagan revolution. It's happening again. Millions of Americans like you are saying, 'We want our country back.' "

Cruz stepped down from the podium when his speech was over and shook hands with the Manatee County contingent.

"He's an inspiring guy," Chartier said. "He touched on liberty a lot in his speech. He reminded us that when you are born into liberty and have it, it's easy to take it for granted. I think that was the thing I will remember most from his speech."

Chartier was referring to a moment when Cruz asked the crowd how they would feel if they knew that one future generation of Americans might ask their parents: "What was it like to be free?"

"Together we can restore the shining city on the hill that is the United States of America," Cruz said in closing, triggering the audience to rise and cheer madly.

The award was a coup for Sarasota's Republican Party but not all were applauding.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Weston, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said it is "shocking" Cruz was being honored in Sarasota.
"The Sarasota Republican Party is actually honoring him as the 'Statesman of the Year.' That really says something about the sad state of the Republican Party today.

"We're talking about a guy who just in his brief time in Washington -- he hasn't even been there but a year and a half -- and he orchestrated the government shutdown that cost our economy $24 billion," Wasserman Schultz said.

Club for Growth gives Ted Cruz, Mike Lee perfect marks



The conservative Club For Growth released its annual scorecard for 2013 on Monday, bestowing two Republican U.S. senators � Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah � and four GOP congressmen with 100 percent ratings for their voting records �based on issues relating to limited government and economic growth.�

The four congressmen with perfect ratings for 2013 are Republican Reps. Matt Salmon, Trent Franks and David Schweikert of Arizona and Tom McClintock of California. Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan got a 99 percent rating in 2013 �but because of rounding has a 100 percent LifeScore,� the group said.

�2013 saw the emergence of several new defenders of economic freedom as well as continued excellence among old allies,� said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola. �While there are more champions of pro-economic growth policy serving in Congress than at any time before, it�s clear that our fight against the big spenders in both parties has a long way to go.�

The 2013 and lifetime scores of GOP Sens. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Tim Scott of South Carolina and Jim Risch of Idaho were good enough to qualify all seven, along with Mr. Cruz and Mr. Lee, for the �Defender of Economic Freedom� Award.

In all, 31 members of Congress will receive the award, which requires a 2013 and lifetime score from the group of at least 90.

Making the big time?
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NBC's 'Blacklist' Portrays Villain Socializing With Tea Party Republicans


On Monday night's episode of NBC's The Blacklist, the FBI is shown going after a fictional international thief named "Madeline Pratt," who actor James Spader's character Raymond Reddington explains "fosters relationships with incredibly powerful people" and then "exploits those relationships in ways that impact national security."

Photoshopped images appear on screen showing viewers the "powerful people" that Pratt is supposed to have connections with. The fake photos show her socializing with former Florida Republican Congressman Allen West and current Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz. No pictures are shown of the made-up criminal mastermind rubbing elbows with any real-life Democratic politicians.

Ted Cruz refuses to endorse fellow Sen. John Cornyn in GOP primary


WASHINGTON -- The sniping between establishment Republicans and tea partiers resumed Thursday as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz refused to endorse his state's senior senator in next week's Republican primary.

Sen. John Cornyn, the Senate's second-ranking Republican leader, faces tea party-backed Rep. Steve Stockman in Tuesday's election. Cruz declined to tell reporters how he plans to vote.

"I am not supporting any of the senators from my party or their opponents" in this year's primaries, Cruz said, adding that he might change his mind later.

Cruz, a tea party favorite and potential 2016 presidential candidate, has infuriated fellow Republicans by forcing uncomfortable votes on issues such as the debt, and by raising money for conservative groups trying to defeat veteran Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Cruz's comments are especially notable because he is a vice chairman of the GOP committee tasked with winning Senate elections. He criticized the committee's track record and policy of virtually always backing incumbents.

At a breakfast sponsored by Politico, Cruz said he is no longer writing fundraising letters for anti-establishment groups such as the Senate Conservatives Fund. McConnell's backers are angry at the group for supporting his tea party challenger, Matt Bevin, in Kentucky's May 20 primary.

Still, Cruz sharply criticized McConnell's leadership, and praised the Senate Conservatives Fund by name.

"The brightest stars in the Republican Party," he said, were opposed by "the Republican leadership in Washington" and backed by groups such as the conservatives fund.

"Washington insiders have a terrible record at picking winners and losers," Cruz said.

Senators typically back party colleagues for re-election. Serious primary challenges were rare until tea party activists ousted some GOP veterans in 2010 and 2012. Other Republican senators steered farther right to protect themselves from similar fates.

Oddly, Cruz's unwillingness to back Cornyn came as a group of tea party activists in Texas disavowed Stockman, calling his campaign lazy and unethical and chiding him for refusing to answer media questions.

Cruz had few kind words for McConnell, who hopes to become Senate majority leader if Republicans gain six net seats this fall.

"I strongly disagree with some of the decisions the Republican leadership has made," Cruz said. He said McConnell is the party leader because "that is what is stenciled on his door."

Cruz infuriated McConnell's allies this month by threatening to filibuster a proposed increase in the federal debt ceiling. His actions forced several GOP senators to vote to clear the way for the increase, lest the party be blamed for a possible economic crisis.

McConnell and Cornyn, the Senate Republicans' top two leaders, were among those casting the unpleasant votes and drawing immediate criticism from tea partyers back home.

Also Thursday, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, noted the fifth anniversary of the tea party uprising.

"I have made it clear that I have great respect for the tea party and the energy they brought to the electoral process," Boehner told reporters. "My gripe is with some Washington organizations who feel like they've got to go raise money by beating on me and others."

The Tea Party Patriots marked the fifth anniversary of the grassroots movement at a Washington event. If reaction of some 300 tea partyers were a barometer of 2016 preferences, Cruz drew a standing ovation and loud applause while Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was warmly received.

Cruz, working the stage as if at a town hall, elicited cheers when he said he was "absolutely convinced we are going to repeal every single word" of Obama's health care law.

Paul drew laughs with a good news-bad news pairing: "The government is open, and the government is open."

He urged the group to offer an upbeat message and avoid name-calling.

Some tea party activists expressed disillusionment with GOP congressional leaders. Viveca Stoneberry of Spotsylvania, Va., said Boehner and others "pretend to be on the side of conservatives."

Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., was interrupted by the crowd, which stood and cheered when he said, "It's high time we retire John Boehner." When the applause died down, he completed his statement that it was "high time to retire John Boehner's biggest excuse that we only control one-third of the government."

The exchanges came as establishment Republicans are pushing back aggressively against Senate tea party challengers in Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and elsewhere.

In Colorado, a political deal announced this week results in Ken Buck, a tea party-affiliated Republican who lost a close Senate race in 2010, dropping a similar bid this year, and running for the House instead. Replacing him in the Senate race against Democratic Sen. Mark Udall is Rep. Cory Gardner, who is more palatable to the GOP mainstream.

In Kansas, the Tea Party Express endorsed Milton Wolf, who opposes three-term Sen. Pat Roberts in the Republican primary.

Daily Dose of Ted:
2/27/14
"I am absolutely convinced that we are going to repeal every single word of Obamacare"

Daily Dose of Ted:
2/20/14
SARASOTA, Florida�The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) winter meeting:
Cruz opened his remarks here with one his signature phrases.
�I spent all of last week in Washington, D.C.," he said. "It is great to be back in America.�

http://www.tpnn.com/2014/02/28/chuc...first-amendment-away-from-the-tea-party/

Make no mistake. The Tea Party terrifies the establishment...Republicans, Democrats and the MSM alike. They are doing everything in their power to minimalize us.

Yes, but they only wish we were dead. It has to be a terrible disappointment to know we are alive.

Yup, George "Himmler reincarnated" Stephanopolous on ABC this morning was commenting about how the Tea Party had been shut down, marginalized by mainstream Republicans in this primary because Cornyn won the primary.

They would love for the Tea party to go away. We can't let that happen.

Ed

Ted Cruz Wins Big in Texas
March 5, 2014 | Erick Erickson


Wow � we all knew John Cornyn was going to win last night. He had no significant opposition. His opponents never got tea party or conservative support. His most significant opponent was�well�eccentric to put it politely. Cornyn managed to get 60% in his primary.

Ted Cruz was not on the ballot in Texas last night. After the Cornyn race was called, Brian Walsh, a paid adviser to the NRSC, took to Twitter and, as many including myself interpreted it, obtusely attacked Cruz, who is Deputy Chair of the NRSC.

Cruz did not endorse Cornyn, who himself did not endorse Cruz in 2012. As a friend of mine who saw that tweet noted, �Walsh is like the professional gay lobby. He has Cruz nominally supporting the establishment by sitting in the NRSC post and not causing trouble. He has Cruz staying out of primaries � not picking against the NRSC candidates. That�s not enough though. He wants to have his cake and eat it too, by having Cruz kiss Cornyn�s ring.�

But this was all a distraction.

Ted Cruz showed just how powerful he is in his home state last night. Cruz endorsed 5 candidates. Four of the five won outright and the fifth is the heavy favorite going into a runoff. Cruz did not endorse in the Attorney General race in Texas, but he said some pretty glowing stuff about Ken Paxton. Several people tell me Paxton got strong momentum after Cruz�s kind words and now he finds himself in the lead headed into a runoff against a guy who spent $5 million. GET MONEY TO KEN PAXTON NOW. We need him to win. Paxton�s opponent is still heavily funded.

Paxton, by the way, features himself with Ted Cruz on the homepage of his website. Consider the Cruz effect in Texas in other races.

Konnie Burton is headed into a runoff in Wendy Davis�s State Senate District. Konnie was behind, but after Cruz�s support found herself in first place.

Donna Campbell, running against a well funded establishment pick for the State Senate, won without a runoff after getting a positive reference from Ted Cruz.

Wayne Christian, an early support of Cruz in 2012, is leading a race for Texas Rail Road Commissioner now. Christian is also the former head of the Texas Conservative Coalition.

And then there is David Dewhurst, the Texas Lieutenant Governor. He ran against Tex Cruz in 2012 as the establishment pick and front runner until Cruz beat him. He has high statewide name ID. And now he finds himself in a runoff with Dan Patrick to keep his job.

Cruz is showing his ability to not just get himself across the finish line, but get other Republicans through their own primaries. Perhaps if Walsh and Senate GOP staffers and Senators keep attacking Cruz, it�ll finally dawn on Cruz that he needs to collect some scalps on his own side in his own chamber to change things. Ted Cruz needs to stretch his legs in Republican primaries outside Texas.

That's funny, and a good example of the contempt the media has for us. Cornyn ( Incumbent senate Republican Whip, "2nd Most Conservative Senator) was almost forced into a runoff (60%)by one guy that had nothing but debt and another that had a station wagon full of yard signs. Trust me. They're scared.

Big weekend coming up for Cruz, Palin, and Paul at CPAC.

Cruz and Palin. Palin and Cruz.

Sarah Palin
Politician � 4,013,981 Likes
It was a great night for conservatives in Texas last night � despite what the D.C. media would have you believe.
Voters wisely selected many Tea Party candidates across the board.

Congratulations to Greg Abbott, we�ll work hard to make sure he is the next Governor of Alaska�s little sister state.

We were proud to support Katrina Pierson as well � a bold conservative woman who has overcome bigger challenges in life than election results.
Katrina has a bright future ahead, and we know she will continue her fight for conservative values � after all, you don't need a title to make a difference.

We need more bold women like Katrina in the GOP. 2014 is just underway, and together we�ll continue to give a leg up to grassroots conservatives, despite the odds, who embrace inspiration, ingenuity, and integrity.
We�re just getting started!

WASHINGTON, D.C. � Ten Democrat senators � none up for re-election this year � killed a measure to prohibit political discrimination by IRS employees.

The Senate Judiciary Committee defeated an amendment by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Titled �Intentional Discrimination by Employees of the Internal Revenue Service,� the measure stated:

�(a) Offense. � It shall be unlawful for any officer of the Internal Revenue Service to, regardless of whether the officer or employee is acting under the color of law, willfully act with the intent to injure, oppress, threaten, intimidate or single out and subject to undue scrutiny for purposes of harassment any person or organization of any state �

�(1) based solely or primarily on the political, economic or social positions held or expressed by the person or organization; or

�2) because the person or organization has expressed a particular political, economic, or social position using any words of writing allowed by law.�

The senators � all Democrats � who voted to kill Cruz�s amendment were:
�Patrick Leahy of Vermont
�Dianne Feinstein of California
�Charles Schumer of New York
�Richard Durbin of Illinois
�Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island
�Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken of Minnesota
�Chris Coons of Delaware
�Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut
�Mazie Hirono of Hawaii

�They must like IRS employees, or they must like discrimination, or both,� Christian Adams told Watchdog.org.

The Northern Virginia lawyer has worked with the Texas-based True the Vote, an election-watch group targeted by the IRS with extensive audits.

The IRS inspector general reported the agency gave extra scrutiny to 298 groups applying for tax-exempt status from spring 2010 to spring 2012.

The vast majority � 248 � were conservative/tea party organizations. Twenty-nine were rated liberal and 21 were neither, according to the Republican staff of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Former IRS Director Lois Lerner, again taking the Fifth Amendment, declined Wednesday to answer questions from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Ted Cruz's Winning Weekend

C. Edmund Wright

As has been reported, Rand Paul indeed won the Washington Times CPAC straw poll.

Ted Cruz, however, was the big winner coming out of the conference -- and the weekend. No doubt about it.

I say this because just minutes after some 750 mostly young CPAC straw voters had given Paul his numerical win and outsized vocal salute, a pair of very significant speeches -- talks that will live on virally for much longer and to far more voters -- changed the entire atmosphere of the weekend. In started in the very hall where Paul�s win was announced, as Sarah Palin electrified the room and conservatives everywhere with a presentation that heaped praise on Cruz and �Cruz control� tactics � while virtually ignoring the junior senator from Kentucky.



This not so subtle pro-Cruz flavoring was not lost on dozens of red-clad Rand Paul supporters, who walked out of the hall during Palin�s speech. Paul�s supporters had spent the weekend decrying social issues, intervention in the Ukraine, and Cruz� shutdown filibuster. Palin spent the first few minutes of her talk praising all of the above, using the filibuster as the centerpiece of her thesis and the foundation of her entire talk, even resorting to a Cruzlike use of Dr. Seuss.

Say what you want about Palin and her speeches, but there is no doubt that they are very carefully crafted and have been for years. In the past, she has very clearly laid to rest the notion of third-party fantasies. Saturday night, she made it clear that the direction conservatives should take is Cruz control.

To clarify, this is not to say that Palin has any antipathy towards Paul. It�s clear she thinks very positively of him. It is equally clear that she prefers the tactics and moreover, the emphases of Cruz. She is more worried about ObamaCare than drones and she thinks the filibuster was a move of genius that has been validated by history. This would not be considered an endorsement of any candidate for 2016 necessarily, but it was clear that the Cruz message was her prescription for the 2014 midterms.

A little later Saturday evening, across town at the annual Gridiron Dinner, Cruz himself impressed those from all over the political spectrum with a stunning and at times very funny speech that skewered many of his critics and adversaries with a rapier wit. Politico�s Mike Allen, no fan of Cruz or his filibuster tactics, said Cruz �crushed his speech� and that �even Dems said he knocked it out of the park.�

And while an endorsement from the Politico and the Democrats is normally an indictment for a Republican, understand that Cruz did not win this praise by being Democrat lite. That may be how John McCain or Lindsey Graham get praise from the left, but that�s not at all how Cruz rolls.

Far from it. Cruz went hard core, eviscerating former Florida Governor Charlie Crist by referring to himself (Cruz) as the anti-Crist. He devastated GOP establishment figures who have criticized him in the past, including McCain, who Cruz bragged �this week has only once demanded an apology from me.� He also went after a favorite of the liberal media, Elizabeth Warren, by saying that by her standards he (Cruz) is an Algonquin Indian -- a jab that also left a mark on establishment figures floating the notion that Cruz is really a Canadian citizen.

Of course, President Obama was not immune to Cruz� sharp attacks either. �We are still a nation of laws,� Cruz said. �You just have to check with Barack Obama every day to see what they are."

These remarks at the Gridiron Dinner appearance capped off what would be considered, by Washington standards, a homerun appearance. Cruz�s conservative philosophy will never win over the elites, but his Gridiron performance validated his credibility. He was clearly the hit of the evening, dwarfing all other speakers. This success, along with remarks that Palin had made earlier at the National Harbor Gaylord Hotel, make Cruz the weeks� biggest winner.

FWIIW: 2014 CPAC straw poll vote was down 16% since just last year and 34% since 2011.

At Least Canadian Immigrant Ted Cruz Can Never be Presidente




Texas teabagger Ted Cruz is already making an effort to be the most revolting badass in town. And it's working. He was the first senator out of the box to attack fellow Cuban-American wingnut Marco Rubio and other Republicans for working with Democrats on a comprehensive immigration policy. And yesterday he was one of only 3 reactionaries to vote against confirming John Kerry as Secretary of State. A chickenhawk and spawn of Joe McCarthy himself, Cruz went out of the way to smear two decorated war heroes, Kerry and Chuck Hagel.

And on top of all that, Cruz picked a fight with Rahm Emanuel. I immediately thought of the crocodile vs shark video but I found something else instead that makes the same point (down below). Cruz doesn't want Emanuel coming around Texas. Who could blame him-- and who could care?

Emanuel is working with NYC Mayor Bloomberg to get dangerous firearms off the streets and out of the schools. Cruz, of course, is an ardent advocate of violence, mayhem and lots and lots of dead children-- as long as they're not Catherine Christiane Cruz or Caroline Camille Cruz.

Cruz sent a letter to Emanuel and the heads of two banks and two gun manufacturing companies on Tuesday in response to a call by Emanuel, President Obama's former chief of staff, for the banks to stop lending to the gun makers.

"Your continued anti-gun crusade may well cause some to wonder if the interests of the citizens of Chicago are being sacrificed in pursuit of a partisan agenda," Cruz writes. "Regardless, directing your attack at legitimate firearms manufacturers undermines the Second Amendment rights of millions of Texans. In the future, I would ask that you might keep your efforts to diminish the Bill of Rights north of the Red River."

On Thursday Emanuel wrote to the top executives of Bank of America and TD Bank, respectively, urging them to stop lending to gun manufacturers Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co. In Cruz's response, the junior senator from Texas urges the bank CEOs to come to Texas.

"Both of your companies do considerable business in the City of Chicago, and you may be understandably concerned that there are risks to refusing to comply with the demands of a politician who has earned the nickname, 'The Godfather,' " Cruz writes to the bank chiefs. "In Texas, we have a more modest view of government.

"We do not accept the notion that government officials should behave as bullies, trying to harass or pressure private companies into enlisting in a political lobbying campaign. And we subscribe to the notion, quaint in some quarters, that private companies don't work for elected officials; elected officials work for private citizens.

"In light of the reception you have received in the Windy City, please know that Texas would certainly welcome more of your business and jobs you create," Cruz adds.

And to the gun manufacturers, Cruz offers to introduce their companies to banks in Texas.

"Should Mayor Emanuel's bullying campaign prove successful, I am confident that there are numerous financial institutions in Texas that would be eager to earn your business. And in the event that it might prove helpful, I would be happy to introduce you to their leaders," he writes.



Emanuel has recently been active in pushing stricter gun laws, both in his hometown and at the federal level. He recently appeared at a panel at the Center for American Progress alongside Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on a House task-force for reducing gun violence, to discuss passing new gun restrictions. Only a vicious political hack like Cruz would consider the fight for gun safety "a partisan agenda." But Texans are long aware of what this guy is all about. As for Emanuel, maybe he ought to slap down his erstwhile ally, NRA shill Debbie Halvorson right there in his own city and running for Congress on a pro-assault weapons platform, before he takes on Cruz.

Cruz is going to piss off a lot of people and that is a good thing.

Uh oh... looks like Paul and Rubio are officially part of the establishment team now. Watch your 6, Senator Cruz.

___________

WASHINGTON � Earlier this week, Sen. Ted Cruz revealed that he�s taken a timeout from his role as vice-chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, where he was supposed to serve as a sort of liaison to tea partiers.

On Wednesday, Sen. John Cornyn � Texas� senior senator and the party�s deputy Senate leader � noted that Cruz isn�t the only tea party senator around, and others are clearly more cooperative.

�He is not the only one that is providing that kind of outreach and connection. There are a number of other senators that enjoy tea party support who are actively engaged in helping incumbent Republican senators,� Cornyn said on his weekly call with Texas reporters. �I�m thinking of Rand Paul in Kentucky, Marco Rubio, just to name a couple.�

Back home, Paul has been actively working to help Minority Leader Mitch McConnell fend off a tea party challenger.

As envisioned by McConnell, Cruz�s role was to bridge any gap between Senate Republicans and tea party activists.

Rather than a team player, Cruz turned out to be a huge irritant for McConnell. He�s used his visibility to pressure �establishment� Republicans. He complains regularly about �Republican leadership� � for instance, when McConnell and Cornyn killed his effort to block a hike in the federal debt ceiling by filibuster.

At the NRSC, Cruz has long been a VCINO (Vice Chairman in Name Only).

Cornyn led the campaign committee for four years before his elevation to deputy leader, just after Cruz won his seat in 2012. He shrugged off Cruz�s move to strip any pretense from his role there, given his refusal to help incumbents who draw a primary challenge.

�This is just a personal policy of Sen. Cruz,� Cornyn said, �and isn�t one necessarily shared by other people who enjoy that support from that part of our party.�

The NRSC�s central mission is to maximize the number of Republican senators. Incumbents are the main constituency and source of financial muscle. But Cruz says he never signed up to help incumbents and so far, has stuck by a personal policy of staying out of incumbent primaries.

That�s something Cornyn knows first-hand, having survived an 8-way primary last week. Cruz remained adamantly neutral. National tea party groups and Texas activists took that as a signal that he wouldn�t object to seeing Cornyn ousted, or at least given a run for his money.

�Sen. McConnell didn�t consult me before he made that appointment,� Cornyn said. In any case, �Sen. Cruz had made his position pretty clear on involvement in contested Republican primaries.�

Ted Cruz ✔ @tedcruz
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Saw this, but noticed an error. So I wanted to make one thing clear: I don't smoke cigarettes http://bit.ly/1nqK08i

Ted Cruz, Rand Paul Crush Jeb Bush, Chris Christie in Latest Tea Party Presidential Poll

While the mainstream media has already designated their preferred 2016 Republican nominee as Chris Christie or Jeb Bush, the grassroots in the Tea Party movement sent a strong message as to their preferred nominee. The Washington Examiner reported today on a new poll released by TheTeaParty.net, the nation�s largest group, and the highly influential conservative group Contract from America. The online poll boasted 62,000 respondents who sent a strong message to the GOP establishment.


In keeping with the principles of the movement, grassroots activists overwhelmingly selected Senator Ted Cruz from Texas and Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky as their choice for the GOP nominee. Showing up strongly in third place in the poll is retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson who became popular among conservative circles following his speech at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast.

These staunch conservatives performed far better among the grassroots activists than moderates New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.


The poll provided 11 different matchups. From there, the support for each were totaled. Texan Cruz was at the top with 84 percent supporting his candidacy, followed by Kentucky�s Paul at 80 percent and Carson at 77 percent. Last of the 22 candidates polled was Christie at 15 percent.

While not as scientific as standard polls, it gives a strong indication of where the primary state activists are because they were the group targeted.

�There�s a resounding message in these poll results for the Washington establishment. This is not a survey of casual Republicans or sometimes voters. These are activists who pound the pavement, make the phone calls, and cast their votes in every election every year,� said Todd Cefaratti, founder of TheTeaParty.net.

�They have a message for the candidates of status quo Washington: We are coming for you. We will beat you. And we will send you packing from the halls of power,� he added.

John McCain vs. Ted Cruz, Round 203



On Friday in an interview on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports," Arizona Sen. John McCain blasted his colleague Ted Cruz over the Texas senator's critique of the party's last three losing presidential nominees.



Here's McCain:


He can say what he wants to about me; he can say anything he wants to about Mitt.... Mitt can take it. But when he throws Bob Dole in there, I wonder if he thinks that Bob Dole stood for principle on a hilltop in Italy when he was so gravely wounded and left part of his body there fighting for our country. Bob Dole is such a man of honor and principle and integrity. I hope Ted Cruz will apologize to Bob Dole because that's crossed a line that to me leaves the realm of politics and discourse we should have in America.

McCain's comments came 24 hours after Cruz made the case in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that a purer form of conservatism was necessary if the party wanted to win in 2016. "All of us remember President Dole and President McCain and President Romney � now look, those are good men, they�re decent men, but when you don�t stand and draw a clear distinction, when you don�t stand for principle, Democrats celebrate," Cruz said.

It's not the first time the two men have clashed. Almost a year ago to the day, McCain described Cruz and his ilk in the Senate as "wacko birds." Cruz proudly owned the attempted slam; McCain apologized (though whether he was actually sorry is a whole different question). Then last fall, McCain hit Cruz's attempted filibuster of President Obama's health-care law as a misreading of the history of the fight over the law.

Two senators of the same party not liking one another isn't a new thing. (Frank Lautenberg and Bob Torricelli, anyone?) But the ongoing battles between McCain and Cruz are fueled by more than just personal animus -- although that's definitely in there, too. It's indicative of the broader differences between the establishment and tea party wings of the party and a leading indicator of just how nasty the 2016 presidential primary could get on the Republican side.

McCain, the party's 2008 standard-bearer, may think of himself as a maverick in Washington, but the truth of the matter is that when compared to the likes of Cruz, the Arizona senator is very much an establishment figure. McCain is a big believer that there is a way things are done in the Senate (and in Washington more generally), and one of the big no-no's is to attack former leaders of the party (particularly when that leader is in his 90s.) To McCain, what Cruz keeps doing is breaking the unspoken rules of the Senate for his own political gain. (Politics and baseball are similar in this way; they are both governed by scads of unstated but understood rules.)

Cruz, to put it bluntly, doesn't care about McCain and his unstated rules. (A clear illustration of Cruz's lack of interest in going along to get along? His decision to force his colleagues to vote on a clean debt-ceiling increase last month.) Not only does Cruz not care about these unspoken rules, he thinks they -- and people like McCain -- are part of the problem with the Republican Party. By hewing to a set of rules on how to act, Cruz would argue that his party has lost its way -- straying from the sort of first principles that can get the GOP back into the White House.

And it's important to remember that not getting along or even actively feuding with the powers-that-be within the Republican establishment is very good politics for Cruz. No one in Washington thinks Cruz is doing anything but prepping to run for president in two years, and the more he burnishes a reputation as the guy who refused to play nice in the D.C. sandbox, the more his image as a tea party darling will be strengthened. And, say what you will about a profile like that in a general election, but in a Republican presidential primary, it's potentially quite powerful.

In short: Expect more of McCain vs. Cruz.

McLame needs to STFU and retire. Oh, and he can take Grahamnesty with him.

Sounds good to me!

375 now...

_____

http://www.runtedrun.com/


Ex-Cruz staffer to lead �Draft Ted Cruz for President� super PAC



Supporters of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) have launched an online petition to draft him into the 2016 presidential race, and a Cruz staffer is leaving the senator's office to help out.

The Web site, RunTedRun.com, is seeking to get 1 million signatures in hopes of luring Cruz to run for president.

The effort is spearheaded by a super PAC that was set up in January called "Draft Ted Cruz for President." The super PAC is based in Houston and, until Wednesday, little was known about it.

But Cruz regional director Raz Shafer announced Wednesday on RedState.com that he is leaving the senator's office to run the PAC, lending credibility to the effort.

As of early Wednesday afternoon, the effort had 232 signatures.

He Could Be a Contender: Ted Cruz Has Book Deal

NEW YORK April 2, 2014 (AP)


Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican often mentioned as a possible presidential candidate, is working on a project considered standard for national contenders: a book.

Cruz's literary agent, Keith Urbahn, said Wednesday that the tea party favorite had agreed to terms with HarperCollins. Urbahn declined to confirm a report in the Washington Examiner that the deal was worth $1.5 million. But he says the number is "close."

Cruz, 43, is expected to officially sign with HarperCollins over the next few weeks.

"I'm looking forward to the opportunity to share my story and to tell the truth about what's happening in Washington," Cruz told The Associated Press after giving a speech Wednesday at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.

"We're having a national debate right now about the direction our country should go, and I am eager to participate in that debate through any medium possible. And a book can serve as an effective vehicle for conveying the positive hopeful optimistic vision for America that I believe together can turn this nation around."

Elected in 2012, Cruz quickly established himself as one of the most polarizing and talked-about senators, and several publishers bid for his book. Some other possible 2016 candidates have books scheduled for this year, including former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rep. Paul Ryan, while Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Rand Paul are among those who already have books out.

����

http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/02/w...rty-university-should-concern-rand-paul/

"Ted Cruz didn�t so much give a speech at Liberty University today as a sermon � and a darn good one, I might add. Plenty of others, I suspect, will dissect his words, but I think the political potential also serves some exploring.

First, a refresher: I�ve long contended that Cruz and Sen. Rand Paul are competing for the same turf, with Paul having the benefit of a superior infrastructure, and Cruz having the benefit of superior positioning. This is true when it comes to foreign policy, and when you compare Cruz�s speech at Liberty University today to Paul� speech at the Liberty University Convocation last October, it�s clear that Cruz has the greater potential to inspire and motivate Christian conservatives in places like Iowa.

I watched both speeches today, and, as such, may be uniquely qualified to compare and contrast them. As previously noted, these two men are competing for the same turf � and, in that regard � both are pro-life Christians who attempted to stress this commonality with the student crowd."

A RINO or democrap could not have said this better . . . so many clich�s!

Ted Cruz weighs in on Iowa Senate race

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has decided to throw his name into the ugly senate battle brewing in the Midwestern state of Iowa.

According to the Daily Caller on April 3, a video was published in which Iowa Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley denigrated Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley as:

�
A farmer from Iowa who never went to law school." �

Braley wanted to make a point that Grassley's lack of a law degree made him unqualified to be the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which he would be granted if the Republicans can retake control of the Senate in the midterm elections in November.

But when a backlash arose, Braley apologized for his remarks. But Ted Cruz did not take the jab to Grassely lightly.

Cruz wrote an op-ed in the Iowa Republican on April 3 that touted Grassley and the accomplishments he has made in the Senate. Cruz wrote in the op-ed:

�
"Well, let me tell you something. Washington would be a lot better off if we had more farmers in Congress and a lot fewer trail lawyers. I'm a constitutional lawyer who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and in my opinion Chuck Grassley -- that Iowa farmer whom Braley was denigrating -- would make an outstanding chairman of that committee." �

Cruz touted Grassley's opposition to immigration reform and the efforts to "protect the Second Amendment rights" as a means for his qualification to be the chairman of the committee.

Fellow Conservatives:

We wanted to share the final results of the 2016 presidential straw
poll that we conducted a few weeks ago. With more than 60,000 ballots
cast, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) was the clear winner with 43% of the
vote. U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) finished second with 18%. Here are
the results:

* SEN. TED CRUZ (TX) - 42.67% (26,114)
* SEN. RAND PAUL (KY) - 18.00% (11,018)
* GOV. SCOTT WALKER (WI) - 10.05% (6,153)
* OTHER: (write-in candidates) - 6.85% (4,192)
* FMR. GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE (AR) - 6.15% (3,765)
* GOV. RICK PERRY (TX) - 4.15% (2,540)
* SEN. MARCO RUBIO (FL) - 2.41% (1,478)
* FMR. GOV. JEB BUSH (FL) - 2.18% (1,333)
* GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (NJ) - 1.83% (1,122)
* REP. PAUL RYAN (WI) - 1.64% (1,006)
* GOV. BOBBY JINDAL (LA) - 1.24% (760)
* FMR. SEN. RICK SANTORUM (PA) - 1.02% (627)
* GOV. JOHN KASICH (OH) - 0.65% (398)
* GOV. MIKE PENCE (IN) - 0.45% (273)
* GOV. NIKKI HALEY (SC) - 0.39% (240)
* GOV. SUSANA MARTINEZ (NM) - 0.31% (187)

It's remarkable to see Ted Cruz and Rand Paul at the top of this list.
When they ran for the Senate, the Washington establishment said they
were bad for the party. Now, they are two of the party's top prospects
for the White House in 2016.

It's a good reminder that we must keep working to elect conservative
leaders who will fight for our principles and help us win the argument
for freedom. [3]

Electing new leaders isn't easy, but we must do it. Change in
Washington will only occur if we change the people we send there.

Best regards,

Matt Hoskins
Executive Director
Senate Conservatives Fund

"U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas): "Off-the-charts brilliant. And you know, liberals make the terrible mistake, including some of my friends and colleagues, of thinking that all conservatives are dumb. And I think one of the reasons that conservatives have been beating liberals in the courts and in public debates is because we underestimate them. Never underestimate Ted Cruz. He is off-the-chart brilliant. I don't agree with his politics.""

Alan Dershowitz

Senate approves bill to ban Iranian diplomat


The Senate passed a bill Monday that would allow President Obama to block Iran�s new United Nations ambassador from entering the United States.

The bill from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) came in reaction to Iran's decision to name Hamid Abutalebi as its new U.N. representative. Cruz said Abutalebi is a member of a militant group that took 52 Americans hostage in Tehran in 1979.


Cruz said it was �deliberately insulting and contemptuous� that Iranian leaders would nominate Abutalebi for the U.N. role.
Abutalebi has applied for a visa to visit the United States in order to work at the U.N. headquarters in New York. But lawmakers have said the U.S. should reject that application based on Abutalebi's background.

The bill amends the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, which already allows the president to deny U.S. entry visas to U.N. representatives found to be engaging in spying against the United States, or who might pose a threat to U.S. national security.

The new legislation would add language saying visas must also be denied to any U.N. representatives who have engaged in terrorist acts against the United States.

The Senate passed the bill through a unanimous consent agreement.

�I thought it was totally inappropriate that Mr. Abutalebi was nominated in the first place," Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. "It may be a case of strange bedfellows, but I�m glad Sen. Cruz and I were able to work out a bill that would prevent this terrorist from stepping foot on American soil. We ought to close the door on him, and others like him, before he even comes to the United States, and that�s exactly what this bill will do.�

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) has a companion measure in the House, H.R. 4357.
.

Ted Cruz on Jeb Bush: �Rule of law matters�



Texas Sen. Ted Cruz says illegal immigrants endure �heartbreaking� conditions, but wouldn�t agree with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush that they aren�t committing a felony.

�We�re a nation of immigrants, we need to celebrate that, but at the same time, rule of law matters,� Cruz said Monday on CNN�s �The Lead.�


The Republican senator, whose name has been included in 2016 speculation, added that the border needs to be secured to deal with the �humanity� of the situation.

�If you come down to Texas, and you see the conditions where you see photographs that are heartbreaking of bodies, of women and children left abandoned in the desert,� Cruz said. �Because they entrust themselves to transnational global criminal cartels who smuggle them in, who assault them, who leave them to die. This is not a humane system and we need to solve the problem.�

Cruz said in addition to securing the border, legal immigration needs to be improved and streamlined.

However, Cruz would not go as far as Bush, who said in an interview with Fox News that aired Sunday that illegal immigration is not a felony.


�Yes, they broke the law, but it�s not a felony,� Bush said. �It�s an act of love, It�s an act of commitment to your family.�

Cruz acknowledged that immigrants come to the U.S. �seeking a better world,� but added that some are �breaking the law to do so.�

Cruz, who said he was a �big fan� of Bush�s, dodged when asked whether the former Floria governor � also seen as a possible 2016 contender � is a strong conservative.

�That�s a question for the voters to say,� Cruz said,

Cruz, who said he likes both Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, also said the GOP establishment wants to pick a nominee for 2016, �who they think won�t rock the boat.�

�I don�t think Washington elites are going to be very effective picking the nominee. It�s going to be, quite rightly, a decision for the grassroots to make,� Cruz said.

Ted Cruz: Dems Pushing Gender Pay Equality As A Way To Pay Off Trial Lawyers


appeared on Fox News Channel today with Neil Cavuto to discuss the latest hot topic swirling around Washington: closing the so-called gender gap when it comes to employee compensation.

Speaking of the bills that Democrats are trying to pass in an effort to guarantee equal pay for equal work, Cruz said: �They�ve written these bills because they know that they won�t pass and they�re doing it just to score political points�. This has nothing to do with equal pay for equal work. That�s been the law for decades.�

�Listen, as someone who is married to a strong, professional woman, as a father of two daughters, I�m very concerned about ensuring that women are protected in the workplace and treated fairly,� he said.

At that point Cavuto asked him if he thinks that women are treated fairly right now.

�Oh, we have a long way to go,� Cruz replied. �I think women suffer a very difficult circumstance in the workplace� but the answer is not to pass a trial lawyer bonanza. This has nothing to do with actually improving the situation with women in the workplace. This has everything to do with a political showboat for the Democrats and paying off the trial lawyers who are among the biggest funders of the Democratic party.�

Now don't get me wrong on this post because for me there is no place on the national stage for another Bush, but.......

Republicans are realizing that Jeb Bush is their only option in 2016 Facing a Hillary Clinton juggernaut, the GOP has no choice but to go back to the Bushes.

http://theweek.com/article/index/25...at-jeb-bush-is-their-only-option-in-2016

Senate miracle: Sen Ted Cruz-backed bill unanimously approved


The Senate unanimously passed a bill sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz Monday night, which would block known terrorists from getting visas to enter the United States as U.N. ambassadors.

He thanked several senators by name on the Senate floor he said were �instrumental in the passage,� including Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Democrat and a very unlikely ally.

Iran�s newest U.N. ambassador, Hamid Aboutalebi, was an active participant in the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, when 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days in Tehran. He was appointed earlier this year by Iranian President Hasan Rouhani.

Shchumer said in a statement reported by The New York Daily News that the nomination was �totally inappropriate.�

�It may be a case of strange bedfellows,� said Schumer, �but I�m glad Senator Cruz and I were able to work out a bill that would prevent this terrorist from stepping foot on American soil.�

�There are no circumstances in which the U.S. should grant such a person a visa,� Cruz said before the Senate. Given the threat represented by Iran�s nuclear ambitions, he said, �this is not the moment for diplomatic niceties.�



The bill will have to pass the House before reaching the President�s desk. Colorado Rep. Doug Lamborn introduced a companion bill last week with 34 cosponsors, which has been referred to committee.

Senator Cruz did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

I'm giving Ted the day off. He and Cornyn had a tough time at Fort Hood yesterday. (While Obama was fundraising.)

I'm giving Ted the day off.
============

Wanna bet?

You gonna bet the guy who's holding all the cards?

I was just happy to hear and read of Cruz's support of Cornyn after his primary win.

It's a good step on the path to the WH.

Had many in the Tea Party throw a fit, though.

Of course. He always supports the best candidate.

=============

I know. Before the midterms, he'll be supporting McConnell, as well.

He is smart,though. It doesn't take reality checks too long to sink in for him.

Hopefully, he'll get closer to my full support.

As he should...if McConnell wins his primary. At that point, he will be the best candidate. At this point, he's not.

Unfortunately, it will be too late for Cruz if he waits that long.

Oh yeah, I win the bet.

Took ole' Ted exactly one week to check in with the boss.

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews....nnell-first-official-overseas-trip.html/

Nah...I gave Ted the day off, not you.

What's not to like?

The Boss went to Israel to reiterate his orders what Netanyahu and his crew are supposed to do between now and the first of the year when the Repubs take over the Senate.

Then Cruz will have new marching orders for them to follow until he and Palin take the White House.

MSNBC....
________


Ted Cruz: Eric Holder deserves impeachment over IRS controversy

Republicans want heads to roll over the Internal Revenue Service controversy. If that doesn�t happen, apparently, Eric Holder is to blame.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on Thursday said the U.S. attorney general deserves to be impeached for not fully investigating the IRS, which acknowledged last year that agents improperly targeted tea party groups for extra scrutiny.

�Among other things, Congress should impeach Eric Holder because Eric Holder is defying Congress and defying rule of law,� Cruz said on Sean Hannity�s radio show.

�Eric Holder has been the most partisan attorney general the U.S. has ever had,� he added.


Holder is used to the name-calling by now. The attorney general strayed from his prepared remarks at the National Action Network convention Wednesday to bash the way congressional Republicans treated him, calling it �ugly and divisive.�

In 2012, House Republicans held Holder in contempt of Congress over the botched gun-running operation �Fast and Furious.� Democrats stormed off the House floor in protest and condemned the move as political theater.

Now, the former IRS official embroiled in the agency�s drama may see a similar fate.

The House Oversight Committee on Thursday green-lit a resolution to hold Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer their questions. Republicans on the committee, led by Republican Chairman Darrell Issa, charge that Lerner waived her right against pleading the Fifth Amendment during the two times she appeared before congressional panels.

One day earlier, a separate House committee voted to refer Lerner to the DOJ to pursue possible criminal charges. The Justice Department is already investigating both Lerner and the agency, but their efforts have not gone far enough, Cruz said Thursday.

�In the eight months that have transpired, not a single person has been indicted. In the eight months that have transpired, most of the victims of wrongful targeting haven�t even been interviewed,� he said.

Impeachment threats are nothing new for Holder. Last year a group of 20 Republicans wanted the attorney general ousted for �systematically deceiving� Congress and �destroying� the DOJ�s credibility. Another Republican said if President Obama didn�t fire his attorney general, Congress would �start the rattles of impeachment on Eric Holder.�

Jesus, is he really the only one who understands?

Sometimes it seems that way�

No, but he is one of the few who understands we are smart enough to understand.

I see no reason why any conservative would oppose Mr Cruz. I can't find a single flaw. Anyone?

Ted Cruz on the issues
http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/Ted_Cruz.htm

My only criticism is that the list of issues you linked is still a bit short. Cruz still needs a bit of seasoning. He has sure hit the ground running and stirred the pot.
The seasoning will come for sure in the next couple of years.
Would love to see him stirring things up in the 2016 debates and primaries.

Ted Cruz for 2015 Senate Majority Leader!

Ted Cruz want new improved gun legislation.
Never get my vote EVER

Maybe he wants the gun control act of 1968 repealed. That would be new and improved. ;-{>8

Ted Cruz. Not Tom Cruise.

Isaiah 44:18.

An increase in Gun control is more gun control, no matter how you spin it.

Why is this year old stuff suddenly hot news? Ted�s alterative gun control bill was endorsed by the NRA.

By Jonathan Easley - 04/17/13
Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) unveiled an alternative gun control bill on Wednesday.

The announcement comes on a day when the Senate appears likely to block further debate on a bipartisan background checks bill.

�Rather than restricting the rights of law-abiding Americans, we should be focusing on keeping guns out of the hands of violent criminals, which this legislation accomplishes,� Cruz said. �While the Obama Administration continues to politicize a terrible tragedy to push its anti-gun agenda, I am proud to stand beside my fellow senators to present common-sense measures that will increase criminal prosecutions of felons who try to buy guns, criminalize straw purchasing and gun trafficking, and address mental health issues.�

Grassley and Cruz, along with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Dan Coats (R-Ind.) introduced the bill at a press conference Wednesday morning, just hours before the Senate will vote on it and other gun control measures.
[...]

The bill criminalizes straw purchasing and trafficking, measures Grassley supported in committee hearings on the gun control bill that will go before the Senate later this month. It also seeks to increase safety at schools, keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, and increases accountability for prosecutions at the executive level by requiring the Department of Justice to submit reports to Congress.

The senators were particularly critical of the Obama administration�s record of prosecuting background check violations, saying it only took up a small portion of such cases.

The bill does not expand background checks, but rather �focuses on making the backgrounds system work better�by encouraging states to report mental health records,� Cruz said.

The National Rifle Association said it supports the bill.

The bill includes provisions making it easier to purchase and transport firearms across state lines.

The bill would allow for the interstate sale of firearms, and for the interstate transportation of firearms providing certain conditions are met. Guns transported across state lines will have to be unloaded, locked in a vehicle or kept in the trunk.

Another pro-gun provision of the bill will allow military members to buy guns in the states where they�re stationed.

Grassley said the bill was the result of �the combined efforts of many members of the Senate,� and called it �a sensible alternative� to Democratic gun control reform efforts that �addresses problems we�ve seen without burdening law abiding citizens.�


Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/...esent-alternative-gun-bill#ixzz2zU9iLFu3

The NRA endorsed the Brady background check system too.
I couldn't disagree more, and am an NRA Life member.

Lets make it real simple.
More gun control is more gun control.

We in the NRA fought the Brady Bill tooth and nail for seven years.

�The National Rifle Association fought the bill with an intense, well-funded lobbying campaign. In the end, the Brady Bill was only able to pass during Thanksgiving break, when a mere three Senators were present to vote on it. All three supported the bill, prompting Vice President Al Gore, then presiding over the Senate, to declare the bill's "unanimous" passing.�
[�]
�Once the Brady Bill was signed into law in 1993 � instituting a five-working-day waiting period and background check for any gun purchase � the NRA funded lawsuits that challenged its constitutionality. In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that forced federal background checks were unconstitutional; these days, background checks are carried out by state and local officials.�


I stand with Ted and the NRA in support of better, fair and more effective means to keep whacko�s and felons from getting firearms.
Those mass shootings headlines do the rest of us no good and harm legal gun owners.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/31/nra-gun-show-loophole_n_2593937.html


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...8e-a875-11e2-8302-3c7e0ea97057_blog.html


http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/nra_once_supported_universal_background_checks/


http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...a-says-nra-used-support-expanded-backgr/


Go read the sticky at the top of this page, Then tell us why you think back ground checks work again.

1968 we were told it was the end to all gun control and now in some parts of this nation we have confiscation happening.

Background checks equal soccer mom feel good, make me safer mentality.

http://www.ontheissues.org/domestic/Ted_Cruz_Gun_Control.htm

I have read that page several times Pat, which leads us right back to what has already been posted about Ted's bill with his "INCREASED" Gun control bill.



http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/...esent-alternative-gun-bill#ixzz2zU87cxFy

Go read the sticky

I stand with Ted and the NRA in support of better, more fair and more effective means to keep whacko�s and felons from getting firearms.
Those mass shootings headlines do the rest of us no good and harm legal gun owners.

People kill people.
Anyone who thinks that making it easier for sick people to kill people needs to do a rethink.

Everyone is in favor of better and more effective mental heath programs to stop at least some of those sick people from killing people.
Very few want to address the problem of keeping guns out of the hands of those sick people.

Lock up the whacko�s and felons away from the guns or lock up the guns away from the whacko�s and felons.

Picking up guns and ammo at the local Walmart on your way to shoot a bunch of kids at the local school would not help our odds of picking up our guns and ammo at the local Walmart on our way to shoot a deer or two.

huh?

You left out this part�

The bill criminalizes straw purchasing and trafficking, measures Grassley supported in committee hearings on the gun control bill that will go before the Senate later this month. It also seeks to increase safety at schools, keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, and increases accountability for prosecutions at the executive level by requiring the Department of Justice to submit reports to Congress.

The senators were particularly critical of the Obama administration�s record of prosecuting background check violations, saying it only took up a small portion of such cases.

The bill does not expand background checks, but rather �focuses on making the backgrounds system work better�by encouraging states to report mental health records,� Cruz said.

The National Rifle Association said it supports the bill.

The bill includes provisions making it easier to purchase and transport firearms across state lines.

The bill would allow for the interstate sale of firearms, and for the interstate transportation of firearms providing certain conditions are met. Guns transported across state lines will have to be unloaded, locked in a vehicle or kept in the trunk.

Another pro-gun provision of the bill will allow military members to buy guns in the states where they�re stationed.

Grassley said the bill was the result of �the combined efforts of many members of the Senate,� and called it �a sensible alternative� to Democratic gun control reform efforts that �addresses problems we�ve seen without burdening law abiding citizens.�

Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/...esent-alternative-gun-bill#ixzz2zU9iLFu3

Yep, here's your wonderful background checks at work.

Sure is refreshing to know we're all safer now, and that no ones rights were trampled on in the process.

Go read the sticky



http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/04/2...n-buyer-in-deadly-kansas-city-shootings/

Maybe you should read something�the whole point of Ted�s bill and supporting statements is that the present background checks are not �wonderful.�
He has said in a dozen different ways, the NRA has said, I have said, that the background checks we are now using have not made us safer nor more free.

His bill must have been doing something right. Dingy Harry killed it in the Senate.

What part of increase don't you understand?
If it saves just one life/child. Who cares whose rights it violates.



Enough!
You like the guy it is OK, I happen to think he is a phonyphuck spin BS politician

Donald Trump: Why I donated to Ted Cruz
By JONATHAN TOPAZ | 4/21/14 Donald Trump isn�t ready to make his presidential endorsement just yet.

The real estate magnate clarified on Monday that a donation he made to Ted Cruz�s political action committee doesn�t mean that he�s supporting Cruz for president in 2016.

Appearing on �Fox and Friends,� Trump praised Cruz, saying, �He�s a nice guy. I get along with him.� But when asked whether his donation signaled his support for Cruz, he said, �No, it doesn�t.�

Last week, it was reported that Trump donated $5,000 to Cruz�s political action committee in January, prompting some to suggest that Trump might be backing the Texas Republican for a possible 2016 White House run.

Explaining the contribution, Trump on Monday also noted that Cruz had spoken at the developer�s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida. At an event in February, Trump called the senator �a very special guy� and joked that he liked Cruz because �he�s not controversial.�

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/donald-trump-ted-cruz-donation-105857.html#ixzz2zXrZ0YSP

Obama Signs Bill Sponsored by Ted Cruz


Tuesday, 22 Apr 2014 02:23 PM

By Michael Reagan

It is said politics makes strange bedfellows and it would be tough to find a stranger couple than President Barack Obama and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. But for a brief, shining moment the two elected officials were united in a �bipartisan� moment as Obama signed a bill sponsored by Cruz.



Even better that this example of bipartisanship was not the usual �bipartisan bill� that means Democrats were forced to agree to spend a tiny bit less money, while Republicans got nothing.



This bill was specifically targeted at Hamid Aboutalebi, an Iranian national who was involved in the 1979 invasion of our embassy in Iran and subsequent capture of U.S. citizens who were held hostage. Aboutalebi was recently appointed as Iran�s U.N. ambassador. The Cruz bill forbids issuing him a U.S. visa and effectively bars him from ever entering the country.



The language of the bill specifically bars terrorists, or others felt to be a national security threat by the White House, from using an appointment to the United Nations as a pretext for sneaking into the country. I know you�re probably thinking: Why does it take federal legislation to keep a terrorist out of the USA? Isn�t using common sense enough? But when a country harbors an institution steeped in anti-Americanism like the United Nations, it often requires legislation to make the U.N. behave.



This marks the first time any legislation proposed by Cruz has actually become law. And in this instance the bill was so popular it passed both the House and the Senate by a unanimous voice vote. As Cruz described it in a Business Insider story, �It is a terrific moment of clarity for this country that Congress can act in a bipartisan manner in unison � voting 535-0 � that we should keep acknowledged terrorists out of this country."



Naturally political reporters looked at the Cruz bill through the prism of presidential politics and speculated that it was �a shrewd move that could bolster any ambitions Cruz has toward running for president in 2016.�



Unfortunately, Obama had to ruin the moment by declaring during the signing ceremony that he will �use discretion in enforcing the law.� This turned quickly turned a love fest back into the usual Washington paranoia party.



When one remembers how the president has used �discretion� in enforcing immigration law, adhering to the Obamacare law, and monitoring IRS enforcement practices, it�s hard to see that statement as a positive development.



Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan. He is president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation and chairman of the League of American Voters. Mike is an in-demand speaker with Premiere. Read more reports from Michael Reagan � Go Here Now.

Hmmm...a Bill, on Foreign Policy no less, passed unanimously and signed into law written by that "far right extremist" that can't work with anybody else. A "duh" no brainer you say? Why didn't somebody else do it?

I believe that Ted has become the leading pointman on most of the immediate, most pressing issues bogged down in the Senate.

And he will do just fine on Second Amendment votes as they came up.

Here be the words of the man himself�a year ago�
Democrats put politics into firearm legislation
May 7, 2013
By Ted Cruz
In the national debate over gun control, emotion and rhetoric often overshadow the facts. Consider what President Barack Obama said in the wake of the tragic murders at Sandy Hook: "If there's even one thing we can do to reduce this violence, if there's even one life that can be saved, then we've got an obligation to try."

Of course he's right; we should do everything we can to stop violent gun crime. But then why did Democrats in the Senate just vote down common-sense legislation that would have made major progress in actually stopping gun crime? The only answer is politics.

There are two basic approaches to gun legislation: We can target violent criminals and those with serious mental illnesses or we can restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens. Obama and U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, favor the latter. But the former is what actually works.

Here are three facts that Obama does not want to address:
The Obama administration has not made it a priority to prosecute felons and fugitives who try to illegally purchase guns. Indeed, in 2010, 48,321 fugitives and felons tried to illegally purchase firearms. The Obama administration prosecuted just 44. Forty-four out of 48,321.

Under Obama, gun crime prosecutions hit a decade low in 2011 - down 30 percent from their record high in 2004.

Obama's budgets have slashed funding for school safety. If the objective were to stop violent gun crime, the approach would be to target felons, gun-crime prosecution and school safety.

And that's exactly what the Grassley-Cruz bill would have done. It allocated $50 million to create a task force to prosecute felons and fugitives trying to illegally purchase guns; it provided $45 million to increase gun-crime prosecution in the 15 most dangerous U.S. cities; and it restored $300 million in school-safety funding that the Obama budget had cut.

The legislation had the most bipartisan support of all the gun proposals; Democrats cast nine of the 52 yes votes. But the remaining Democrats, led by Reid, filibustered and killed the bill.

Why? They wanted instead to pass legislation that would extend the background check system to private sales between law-abiding citizens.
Their bill would not have allocated one penny to prosecuting felons, fugitives or gun crimes. But it was poll-tested. "Universal background checks" are popular, at least until people learn what that entails.


Under current law, every federally licensed firearms dealer must perform a background check on every single gun sale, whether that sale occurs in a store, at a gun show or online. Individual citizens, however, are not required to do the same for private sales.

The bill Obama seeks would turn Americans into felons for simply selling or transferring a firearm without first performing a background check, with fines and penalties up to five years.
A recent national poll of law-enforcement officers showed that they overwhelmingly disagree this would bring down gun crime.

If regulating private sales wouldn't be effective at stopping violent crime, why are the Democrats pushing so hard for it?
For one thing, it would impose a universal Obama "gun tax" on private sales - requiring individual citizens to pay for the new background checks.

Even more ominously, the long-term objective of extending background checks to private citizens is the creation of a national gun registry, a federal government list of every firearm owned by every American.
To be sure, the latest Senate legislation purports to prohibit a gun registry, but the Obama Justice Department has been explicit about its ultimate objective.

In January 2013, Greg Ridgeway, deputy director of DOJ's National Institute for Justice, wrote, "effectiveness (of universal background checks) depends on the ability to reduce straw purchasing, requiring gun registration and an easy gun transfer process."

And gun registration has historically been the predicate for gun confiscation.
Senate Democrats reply that gun confiscation is not their objective. But the record belies that claim.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has said that, "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them (assault weapons) � Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in, I would have done it."

Given those stated objectives, Americans are understandably reluctant to take any steps down a path toward a federal gun registry.
Instead, we should protect the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms for law-abiding citizens.
And we should do what works: targeting felons, fugitives and gun crime and improving school safety.

If we look at the facts, that's how we stop violent crime.

Ted Cruz: John Kerry should step down




Sen. Ted Cruz called for the resignation of Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday afternoon, criticizing Kerry for reportedly telling world leaders that he fears Israel could become an �apartheid state.�

The secretary said in a closed door meeting last week that Israel might transform into an �apartheid state� without a two-state solution to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, according to the Daily Beast. The Texas GOP senator said he read Kerry�s comments with �great sadness� but that those type of remarks are precisely why he voted against the former Massachusetts senator�s nomination last year.


�I was convinced that as Secretary of State John Kerry would place what he considered to be the wishes of the international community above the national security interests of the United States. I fear with these most-recent ill-chosen remarks, Secretary Kerry has proven those concerns well founded,� Cruz said in a floor speech. �Secretary Kerry has thus proven himself unsuitable for his position and that before any further harm is done to our alliance with Israel, he should offer President Obama his resignation and the President should accept it.�


Cruz said that the term �apartheid� is connected too closely to discrimination in South Africa and that it had no place in the debate about Israel and Palestine.

�The term �apartheid� means �apart� � different, isolated � the state of the victims of apartheid with which the Jews are all too familiar. The notion that Israel would go down that path, and so face the same condemnation that met South Africa, is unconscionable,� Cruz said. �The fact that Secretary Kerry sees nothing wrong with making such a statement on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day demonstrates a shocking lack of sensitivity to the incendiary and damaging nature of his rhetoric.�

Kerry has made the Middle East process a priority of his stewardship at State, though any comprehensive compromise continues to elude Israel and Palestine. He said in the closed-door meeting that at some point he may present his own solution and tell leaders of the two parties to �take it or leave it,� according to the Daily Beast report.

I'll donate to your PAC anytime, Pat.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz Says Minimum Wage Act Kills Jobs and American Energy Renaissance Act Will Create Jobs






Last Updated on Thursday, 01 May 2014 07:25 April 29, 2014- WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today introduced his American Energy Renaissance Act (see S. 2170) as an amendment to replace job-killing minimum wage legislation. Sen. Cruz�s American Energy Renaissance Act will spark economic growth and create jobs for American families.

�Those who are being hurt the most in the Obama economy are the most vulnerable among us � young people, Hispanics, African-Americans and single moms,� Sen. Cruz said. �They are the ones paying the price for the great stagnation in which we find ourselves. The undeniable truth is if the president succeeded in raising the minimum wage, it would cost jobs from the most vulnerable.�

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that raising the minimum wage could cause the loss of up to one million jobs. Additionally, in March, more than 500 economists, including 3 Nobel laureates, sent a letter to Congress that said: �The minimum wage is�a poorly targeted anti-poverty measure� and asked federal policymakers to �examine creative, comprehensive policy solutions that truly help address poverty, boost incomes from work, and increase upward mobility by fostering growth in our nation�s economy.�

�The discussion before this chamber is whether to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour,� Sen. Cruz continued. �But, even if it passed, the real Obama minimum wage is zero dollars and zero cents. Far better than the promise of $10.10 an hour, is $46.98 � the wage Americans can earn in the oil and gas industry. We ought to come together with bipartisan unanimity to say we will stand with the American people to bring millions of jobs, raise median income and make it easier for people who are struggling to achieve the American Dream. We should all come together and vote on the American Energy Renaissance Act, to remove government barriers and open up new federal lands and resources to develop high-paying, promising jobs that expand opportunity.�

Sen. Cruz also noted that minimum wage jobs allow people to get their foot on the first rung of the economic ladder, but if the wage increase is passed, many Americans will lose the chance to work altogether.

In his remarks, the Senator noted how Texans are already reaping the benefits of the American Energy Renaissance, and showing the rest of the nation how our energy resources are creating countless job opportunities, helping once-struggling communities thrive, and sparking personal income growth. For example:

�In the 23 counties atop the Eagle Ford shale in South Texas, average wages for all citizens have grown by 14.6 percent annually since 2005.
�The top five counties in the Eagle Ford shale have experienced an average 63 percent annual rate of wage growth.
�According to the Texas Oil and Gas Association, the industry directly employed 416,000 employees in 2013 who averaged $120,000 a year in wages, and producers paid $11.5 billion in royalties to 570,000 families (about $20,000 per household).
�In Texas, the average pay for an entry-level truck driver ranges from $36,000 to $45,000, but rises to $50,000 to $70,000 in the oil field.
�The opportunity to flourish can extend all over America, creating up to 1 million jobs, if Washington will simply get out of the way.
In March, Sen. Cruz introduced the American Energy Renaissance Act to take hold of this potential. This legislation would approve the development of the Keystone pipeline and streamline the approval of other energy infrastructure projects, open up more federal lands for development both onshore and offshore, stop federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing, facilitate the expansion of domestic refining capacity, rein in energy regulations, and expand U.S. energy exports.

I got your back. Just get him national.

He will be. He will survive vetting that the others won't.

As of now Pat, he doesn't have the needed loot. You know what that gets you.

Sure. We may just have to have another Democrat in the Whitehouse. Wallstreet is enjoying the one we have now.

WHAT?

I sent him money for Pete's sake.....

How could I resist?

I'll send money too...if he gets national.

Right now, he's just the center on Pat's basketball team.

I'll send him some more.

He hasn't got a blimp has he?


Or a zeppelin?

The biggest book deal ever is a start.

My God...you are a TMZ fan.

I had to look that up.

Just teasing a buddy.

If he goes national, I'll support him,Pat.

I have a call into Rove.

John Boehner makes Ted Cruz's day by forming select committee on #Benghazi






In what may be the first ever Congressional committee formed exclusively to investigate a hashtag, multiple reporters (Sam Stein, Chuck Todd, and Dana Bash) are saying House Speaker John Boehner has decided to create a House Select Committee to investigate Benghazi. According to the reports, the committee will be chaired by Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, who, among other things, has the most amazing hair in Congress.

As you might expect, shadow House Speaker Ted Cruz is thrilled:




About time! http://t.co/... Let's find out the truth about what happened in #Benghazi!

� @SenTedCruz

Republicans are expected to formally announce the committee later today. As to why they are creating the committee, they will point to a recently released email from White House Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes in which Rhodes listed talking points for then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's Sunday show appearances following the attack in Benghazi. Rhodes' email, which was not exclusively about Benghazi, said Rice should communicate that anti-American activities in the Middle East were a result of a video and not a result of a broader failure of U.S. policy.

Republicans believe that the email is a new piece of evidence proving that the White House doctored talking points in the wake of Benghazi in order to steal the election from Mitt Romney. It's true that the talking points were based on inaccurate information, but as Dave Weigel has pointed out, they were consistent with information coming from the CIA to the White House. Moreover, it's absurd to claim that the Rice's Sunday show appearance was the deciding factor in the 2012 election, especially in light of Mitt Romney's incredible and repeated bungling of Benghazi from a political perspective.



Republicans will also probably cite testimony this week from Brigadier Gen. Robert Lovell who said that he knew instantly the attack in Benghazi was not a result of a protest or video and was unhappy that we did not mobilize a military response to save the lives of the Americans who were killed in Bengahzi. They are highlighting Lovell because they believe he adds credibility to their argument that President Obama (and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton) willfully allowed the Americans to die by refusing to order a mission to save them.



What they won't say is that Lovell was in Germany at the time of the attacks and had no special knowledge about what was going on in Benghazi�and that he also doesn't have any belief that a specific course of action would have saved any lives. As retiring Republican House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon said: "Lovell did not further the investigation or reveal anything new." But the notion that the commander in chief is responsible for the deaths of Americans is too juicy for them to pass up, so they will pursue it for as long as they possibly can.



The new committee will cost taxpayers millions of dollars, adding to the millions that the GOP's probes have already cost.

Now that is good news.

Rove said no.

Bump

Cruz requests vote on his legislation to stop IRS targeting

WASHINGTON, D.C. � U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today requested that the bills he previously introduced, S.2066 and S.2067, that would stop the Internal Revenue Service�s illegal targeting, receive a vote on the floor before giving his consent to pass Sen. Amy Klobuchar�s (D-MN) legislation, S.149.


�It was roughly ten months ago that the Inspector General of the Department of Treasury concluded that the IRS had wrongfully targeted conservative groups, tea party groups, pro-Israel groups, and pro-life groups. The day that news broke, the President said that he was outraged. He said that the American people had a right to be angry. In the ten months that have passed, we have discovered that not a single person has been indicted and many of the victims of this illegal targeting have not even been interviewed by the Department of Justice��

Sen. Cruz continued, �I ask this body to stand with the words of President Obama, if not the actions. And I ask this body to stand with the American people to protect them from being wrongfully singled out by the abuse of power in the IRS.�

In February, Sen. Cruz introduced two amendments in the Senate Judiciary Committee in response to proposed IRS rules that would have further stifled free speech even after its illegal targeting of conservative groups was revealed. Unfortunately, the amendments were defeated on a party-line vote.

Although Sen. Cruz supports S.149, he noted in his remarks that under Majority Leader Harry Reid, Republicans are shut out from having votes on their legislation. He noted that, �It has been the practice under the current Majority Leader to prevent the minority from introducing amendments � so the only avenue for the minority to have a voice is to use tools such as denying consent to try to raise issues that are relevant to the American people.� He later added, �I would note this request is less than what I asked in my unanimous consent. It's not a request that it pass. It's simply a request that there be a vote. �

Sen. Cruz�s first piece of legislation, based off his Committee amendments, would prohibit an IRS employee from intentionally targeting individuals or groups based on their political views. It would make it a crime for an IRS employee to willfully discriminate against groups based solely on the political beliefs or policy statements held, expressed, or published by that organization.

His second piece of legislation, also based off his Committee amendments, would amend the tax code to use the bipartisan, independent Federal Election Commission�s (FEC) definitions to determine whether an organization is engaging in political activity. The IRS should focus on taxation, rather than determining what is political activity.

Ted Cruz defends Rand Paul's NSA lawsuit from 'highly dubious' Justice Department argument



By Joel Gehrke
�Published May 08, 2014�
Washington Examiner

A Justice Department request that a federal judge dismiss the class-action lawsuit filed by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., against the National Security Agency phone records collection program strikes Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, as "highly dubious."

President Obama's attorneys argued that Paul and his co-plaintffs did not offer "sufficient well-pleaded, non-conclusory allegations demonstrating that they have been injured because of the telephony metadata program."


Cruz thought it "curious" that the Justice Department argued that Paul couldn't prove his phone records were collected by the government.

"The factual predicate for DOJ's claim, at least as you've described it, seems to be highly dubious given the repeated public statements of the administration that every American's cell phones' metadata records have been intercepted; and, indeed, the administration has responded to members of Congress by saying 'yes, members of Congress have had their records intercepted just like other citizens,' " Cruz told the Washington Examiner Wednesday afternoon. "So, given their public admissions, that's a curious basis for the department to attempt to litigate the case."

�Look, we saw in Britain, Neville Chamberlain, who told the British people, �Accept the Nazis. Yes, they�ll dominate the continent of Europe but that�s not our problem. Let�s appease them. Why? Because it can�t be done. We can�t possibly stand against them.��

Ted Cruz

Neville Chamberlain:
�My good friends, this is the second time there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Now I recommend you go home, and sleep quietly in your beds.�

Winton Churchill: "England has been offered a choice between war and shame. She has chosen shame, and will get war."

Hitler instructed his generals to prepare for an invasion of Poland: "Our enemies are small worms. I saw them at Munich�

I appreciate you posting these excerpts from Cruz, Lt. Powell


have to admit, I first thought of the Nuge when I saw the daily dose of Ted title and just passed on by.

From what I can glean from these posts, Cruz may indeed be worthy of riding the river

some refreshing language to these old ears from that young man.

You'll love this one. MSMBC host calls Cruz ignorant for not reading the Heller decision. (Cruz argued the case before the Supreme Court on behalf of 31 States.)
______


�Complete, utter ignorance about what the Second Amendment says.� That�s what Joe Scarborough took away from Sen. Ted Cruz�s (R-TX) showdown with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) over the constitutionality of the stricter gun laws she�s been advocating. Questioning what Cruz learned in law school, Scarborough was harsh and blunt in his criticism of the �willfully ignorant� Cruz.


�Did they teach Ted Cruz to read what the Supreme Court said, especially in the landmark, (Heller) decision regarding Second Amendment rights over 200 years was written in 2008?� he asked. Why would he use his seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee to �to put forward a willfully ignorant statement about this bill violating the Second Amendment, because it does not.�

Going on to question what Cruz took away from his Harvard Law School education (while noting, not ironically, �I don�t mean to keep going on and on here�), Scarborough was shocked to see Cruz use his position to �mislead millions of Americans.�

Cruz�s �lecturing� Feinstein on how her bill violates the Second Amendment is �just false.� This is �fact.�

�We�re not really talking about constitutional jurisprudence,� John Heilemann noted, �we�re talking about politics.� (Of course we are.) Cruz is simply staking out his turf �in the sweet spot of the most conservative, most populist, most red-meat Tea Party elements of his party.� (And does so with �disrespect and impudence.)

�I don�t mind people being condescending to me,� Scarborough asserted. �But when you�re condescending and you don�t even have the facts right,� that�s a problem. Noting Feinstein�s reaction to the fiery exchange, Al Sharpton agreed that Cruz was �patronizing.�

The Supreme Court �didn�t say it gave you the constitutional right to have magazines that can shoot a hundred rounds and it didn�t say you can have automatic or semiautomatic weapons, which is what he tried to say in the condescending way,� Sharpton added. You can disagree with the court, the panel agreed, but you can�t just state it as fact.

�I�m getting sick and tired of people telling me what the constitution says when they are ignorant of what the constitution says,� Scarborough argued. �I cut most people slack because they didn�t go to law school�I cut Ted Cruz no slack.�

He may be wrong on the facts, Willie Geist noted, but he�s on the right side of the vote for the time being.

�I would love for him to sit in a room filled with the parents of Newtown and make that stupid argument to them,� Mika Brzezinski asserted. �I feel sorry for people like him because they�re very limited.�

you're known by the company you keep


and by the enemies you make


only serves to make me like Cruz better.


if he's got that pos Scaroborough fleckin spittle, he's on the right track

The Passion Behind Ted Cruz

Fleeing Cuba 58 years ago after being beaten and imprisoned, Rafeal Cruz came to Austin, Texas, as a teenager without parents, without fluency in English, and with only $100 to his name. Believing in the American dream, he worked full time through school and learned English to succeed.

Today, with a pleasing accent and demeanor and at 74 years of age, he has become a motivational speaker in high demand with pastors, citizen groups and tea party gatherings. As requests for TX Senator Ted Cruz to speak pour in from across the country, Cruz�s father plays a surrogate speaker to his son. Pleasantly surprised, Pastor Cruz finds standing room-only crowds cheering at his authentic and inspiring defense of America�s greatness.

Reflecting on his own hard scrabble life, Rafeal Cruz�s emotion overtook him as he watched his son�s emerging national role. He told us, �I remember almost 2 years ago, when I sat in the Senate chambers, seeing my son being sworn in as U.S. Senator. I couldn�t contain the tears from my eyes and all I could think is, �Only In America!� When I thought 55 years before, I came (to America) with nothing. That is the greatness of America. Horatio Alger stories are a dime a dozen. They are all over the country. People that have achieved their greatest dreams, started with nothing.�

Pastor Cruz rejects the allure of dependency or identification by ethnicity, as he watched Castro bring such policies to Cuba through false rhetoric of �hope and change.� Asked about Hispanic outreach and policy preferences, Cruz says, �I don�t want to get involved with all this hyphenated Americans; we are all Americans!�

He rejects the notion that Hispanics, as a group, are �victims� needing government handouts, as he believes the Administration uses groups to preserve their power base by encouraging government dependency that saps individual achievement and hard work.

Instead, he says, �We don�t get people out of poverty by giving them handouts; we get people out of poverty by empowering them to get out of poverty, by teaching them and helping them to achieve the American Dream.�

Asked about the push back many conservatives don�t even see when the President�s political allies smear and besmirch him and his son, Cruz says, �When truth comes forth, darkness hates the light.�


�I consider it a badge of honor that MSNBC has had two 15 minute tirades about me. If we are not being persecuted, maybe we�re not making a difference,� Cruz continued. �So, actually, I don�t mind the attacks. I don�t think my son minds the attacks. They energize me; I think they energize him too, because it shows we are making a difference. We are shaking their foundations.�

OK, then Pops Cruz for President. I am good with it. ;-{>8

Ted Cruz�s 10 Questions on Benghazi



Senate Democrats on Monday blocked a request from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to approve a resolution supporting the creation of a select committee to investigate Benghazi.

Cruz took to the Senate floor just days after the House approved its own select committee, and said the Senate needs to support a committee because the Obama administration has still failed to answer 10 key questions about the 2012 attack against the U.S. consulate. Cruz also said that while Democrats claim the Obama administration will not rest until the attackers are brought to justice, there has not been any apparent progress.

�Here we are eight months later,� he said. �The perpetrators still have not been caught and the confusion about what occurred on September 11, 2012, in Benghazi has only gotten worse.�

After listing out his unanswered questions, Cruz asked for unanimous consent that the Senate immediately pass the resolution. But Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) blocked it and said the request was politically motivated.

�This request is, in my view, without merit,� Menendez said. �It�s an effort to follow the footsteps of the unfortunate, politically motivated creation of just such a special committee by the House of Representatives just in time for mid-term elections.�

Cruz disputed Menendez�s claim that his request was political, and said Democrats opposed his request for a select committee on Benghazi 18 months ago, well before the 2014 mid-term elections.

Menendez then argued that some of Cruz�s unanswered questions are political in nature, such as whether President Barack Obama slept the night of the attack that left four Americans dead. Menendez said a better question might be whether Obama was even told about the attack that night.

.
�I don�t know,� Menendez said. �The bottom line is� would that have saved anyone. I don�t know that either.�

Cruz pounced on that statement as an example of why a select committee is needed.

�The Democratic senator from New Jersey, the chairman of the Foreign Relations COmmittee, just told this body that he has no idea if President Obama was even told four Americans were under terrorist attack,� Cruz said. �He doesn�t know what if anything the President could have done to save them.

�I would suggest that�s exactly the reason we need this committee.�

Menendez said the Senate would be better served passing a bill to boost funding for embassy security. But when Cruz said he would support that bill if Menendez stopped blocking the Benghazi resolution, Menendez indicated that he would not make such a trade because the committee would be political in nature.

Below are Cruz�s 10 questions that he said need to be answered by further investigation into the Benghazi attack, and the Obama administration�s handling of that attack:

1) Why was the State Department unwilling to provide the requested level of security to Benghazi in the summer of 2012?

2) Do President Obama�s daily intelligence briefings in the run-up to September 11, 2012, support the assertion that there was no credible threat of a coordinated terrorist attack on Benghazi during the time? And do the daily intelligence briefings following that date support the claim the administration made that the cause was an Internet video? And why hasn�t the White House declassified and released those briefings, just like President George W. Bush did with his pre-September 11, 2001 briefings?

3) Why did we not anticipate the need to have military assets at the ready in the region on the anniversary of September 11, of all days?

4) Did President Obama sleep the night of September 11, 2012? Did Secretary Clinton? Neither has answered that very simple question � were they awake or asleep while Americans were under fire? When was President Obama told about the murder of our Ambassador?

5) If the Secretary of Defense thought there was �no question that this was a coordinated attack,� why did Ambassador Susan Rice, Secretary Clinton and President Obama all tell the American people that the cause was a spontaneous demonstration about an Internet video?

6) Why did former deputy CIA Director Mike Morrell edit the intelligence community talking points to delete the references to Islamic extremists and Al Qaeda?

7) Why did the FBI not release pictures of the militants taken the day of the attack until eight months after the fact? Why not immediately, as proved so effective in the Boston bombing?

8) Why was Secretary Clinton not interviewed for the A.R.B. [Accountability Review Board] report? And if all the relevant questions were answered in the A.R.B. report� why did the State Department�s own Inspector General office open a probe into the methods of that very report?

9) Why have none of the terrorists who attacked in Benghazi been captured or killed?

10) What additional evidence that the White House engaged in a partisan political campaign to blame the Benghazi attack on the Internet video is contained in the additional emails requested by Judicial Watch but withheld by the White House on the grounds that it would put a �chill on internal deliberations?�

Cruz looking to blunt FCC authority

05/13/14 08:11 PM EDT





Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is looking to strip the Federal Communications Commission of its ability to write new net neutrality rules.

The senator is currently circulating draft legislation that would undercut the commission�s legal authority to write new regulations governing the way that Internet service providers treat different streams of traffic online.

Cruz �has serious concerns about the course the FCC is pursuing on net neutrality and on the questionable authority on which it�s relying,� spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said in an email to The Hill. �He is exploring legislative options to preserve the freedom of the Internet to remain an engine for jobs, growth and opportunity, and we have been in touch with other offices to that end.�

A federal appeals court earlier this year ruled that the FCC�s existing net neutrality rules were not justified under current law. At the same time, the court opened the door for the commission to write new rules under Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act, which gives it the power to encourage and regulate broadband infrastructure.
A draft version of Cruz�s bill obtained by The Hill would eliminate from current law provisions that allow the FCC to �promote competition in the local telecommunications market� and remove �barriers to infrastructure investment...�

Instead, the law would be changed to focus on �pursuing regulatory forbearance.�

The effort comes as the FCC is considering a controversial proposal that would ensure Internet service providers allow a baseline level of access to all websites but also permit deals with certain companies to boost their users� Web speeds.

The proposal from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has come under fire from lawmakers and critics on both sides of the aisle. While Democrats have worried that it would create a �two-tiered� Internet with different levels of service, Republicans object to the notion of government intrusion on the Web.

On Tuesday evening, Sens. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said that Congress, not the FCC, should take the lead on regulating the Net.

�The FCC should respect its regulatory limits and Congress should do its job to address these concerns,� the two said in a joint statement. �In the meantime, any policy adopted by the FCC should continue to respect the �light touch� regime that has led to industry investment and a thriving Internet ecosystem.�

In addition to the Section 706 authority, Wheeler is also considering reclassifying the Internet so that it could be regulated like a telephone company.

Reclassifying broadband service would be a radical step and congressional Republicans on Tuesday sent letters warning the commission not to go that far.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other GOP Senate leaders told Wheeler in a letter that reclassifying broadband Internet would �create tremendous legal and marketplace uncertainty and would undermine your ability to effectively lead the FCC.�

Republican leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee issued a similar warning in a separate letter.
.

This is the way you do it.
__________


Cruz in control as his Tea Party candidates win primaries in Nebraska and position him as November kingmaker

Ted Cruz has only been a Senator for a year and a half, but already he's seen as a Tea Party leader and a national political player

If Cruz is able to add more Republicans to the Senate who share his way of thinking, last fall's government shutdown could be the first of a more heavy handed approach by the GOP to halt the presidents agenda

ByFrancesca Chambers

Published: 17:09 EST, 14 May 2014 | Updated: 07:42 EST, 15 May 2014








Tea Party Senator Ted Cruz claimed his first victory in the battle to control the Republican Party on Tuesday night when his two candidates in Nebraska won their primary elections.

Cruz endorsed gubernatorial candidate Pete Ricketts and Senate candidate Ben Sasse won their respective primary races, positioning Cruz as kingmaker in November.

'Ben Sasse�s decisive victory in Nebraska tonight is a clear indication that the grassroots are rising up to Make DC Listen. They�re rising up to take our country back,' Cruz posted to his Facebook.

Cruz won his own Senate primary in 2012 after being endorsed by then-Senator Jim DeMint, the upper chamber's resident kingmaker at the time.


DeMint left the Senate to run conservative non-profit The Heritage Foundation just as Cruz was taking office, and Cruz has since sought to fill his mentor's shoes.

The former Texas solicitor general is only in his second year as a U.S. Senator, yet he is already considered a Tea Party leader and a likely 2016 presidential candidate.


After making his maiden speech on the Senate floor during frenemie Rand Paul's filibuster of the Obama administration's drone policy in March 2013, Cruz held a talkathon of his own in October over Obamacare.


During the 21-hour speech that resulted in a 16 day government shutdown, Cruz quoted Ayn Rand, Ashton Kutcher, Dr. Seuss, Duck Dynasty, Toby Keith and tried to 'make DC listen' to the problems Obamacare has caused average Americans.


The speech, while not technically a filibuster, was the fourth longest speech in U.S. Senate history, and it propelled him to the finalist list for Time Magazine's Person of the Year.


Cruz ended up losing the award to Pope Francis, but his selection for the short-list showed that not only was DC listening to him, the whole country was.


In a CNN presidential poll released last week, Cruz landed in the middle of the pack, trailing Paul by six points and beating fellow Tea Party Senator Marco Rubio by only a single digit.


So far Cruz has farer better than Paul in the endorsement race, however. Paul's Senate candidate in North Carolina lost to House Speaker Thom Tillis in last week's GOP primary. Rubio has not made any endorsements this election cycle.

In Nebraska, Cruz's Senate candidate Ben Sasse, a university president, sailed to victory, winning 49 percent of the vote and beating out establishment candidate and former state treasurer Shane Osborn as well as self-funder and Pinnicle Bank president Sid Dinsdale.

Sasse is the favorite to win the general election against Democratic candidate David Domina,a trial attorney. A Magellen Strategies poll taken last week had Sasse beating Domina by double digits - and that was with Osborn still on the ballot.

'We urgently need conservative reinforcements in the Senate like Ben who will stand with the American people, not the Washington establishment,' Cruz said of Sasse after his win on Tuesday.


'Ben is a constitutional conservative who will not just �check the box� and vote the right way. He�ll affirmatively fight to advance the conservative agenda, repeal Obamacare, and defend the Constitution.'

Cruz's gubernatorial candidate Pete Ricketts pulled out a close win over over Attorney General Jon Bruning with 26.3 percent of the vote to Bruning's 25.6 percent.


Ricketts is the son of Chicago Cubs owner and TD Ameritrade founder Joseph Ricketts. Rickets will square off against Democratic candidate Chuck Hassebrook in November and is expected to win.


'Pete Ricketts is not a career politician � he�s an outsider who fights for conservative values,' Cruz wrote on his Facebook, adding that Ricketts understands that without onerous government regulations, 'individual spirit will flourish.'


Cruz's success rate at hand picking winners and losers will have little effect on his presidential aspirations. It will affect how much power he has withing the Republican caucus on the Hill, however.


If Cruz - the vice chair of the Senate Republicans' political arm - is able to build up the number of Senators who share his way of thinking, it will be more difficult for others in the Republican caucus who disagree with his approach to government to stand in his way.

Last fall's government shutdown could be the first of many heavy handed tactics Republicans use in the Senate to fight Democrats' agenda if Cruz takes the reins.

Cruz faces his next test in the form of Oklahoma Senate candidate T.W. Shannon.

Shannon, who is of Native American and African-American descent, is a representative in Oklahoma's state house. He is hoping to replace retiring Republican Senator Tom Coburn in the U.S. Senate.


'T.W. Shannon is a strong Constitutional conservative who will fight for individual liberty and help turn our country around,' Cruz said in a statement endorsing Shannon in April. 'T.W. embodies the American dream.'

'I�m proud to offer T.W. my enthusiastic endorsement because not only will he vote the right way, but he�ll stand up and fight with us in the Senate to stop President Obama�s assault on our liberties and defend America�s founding principles.'

Shannon faces Congressman James Lankford in the June 24 primary.


Polls show Lankford, who is in his second term in the House of Representatives, leading Shannon by a large margin.

Just a damn minute here�
Cruz was not the only Tea Party leader endorsing in Nebraska.
Cruz, Lee and Palin were all on hand to do the heavy lifting.

Cruz, Lee and Palin; I see a team building here, could be very interesting.

�Ricketts Wins Nebraska Gubernatorial Primary, Palin Endorse Success: 50%�

yesterday's mail

Poll: Only Mike Huckabee is more conservative than Ted Cruz

By Paul Bedard | May 25, 2014 | 5:21 pm



He's been a senator for only 16 months, but Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has created such a sensation among conservatives, Tea Party members and strict Constitutionalists that he is now poised to be among the top of 2016 GOP presidential candidates, according to a new poll.

The engaging senator �could have an edge in the primaries as he is seen as one of the most conservative GOP politicians around,� said the Economist/YouGov.com poll. He is also viewed as honest and outspoken.


And in a sign of his growing popularity among conservatives, 36 percent of Republicans want him to run for president. And 42 percent of Tea Party members want Cruz in the race. But when all Americans are considered, just 19 percent said he should run, while 38 percent don�t.

If he decides to jump in, and he is clearly considering it, Cruz would compete with Sens. Rand Paul and Marco Rubio and Rep. Paul Ryan for the Tea Party vote. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is also a favorite of the conservative-libertarian wing of the GOP and leads in the early caucus state of Iowa.

But Cruz is coming on strong, based mostly on the view among Republicans that he is a true conservative, said the poll. �Cruz�s ideology is a big plus for those who like him. In fact more than half of Republicans � 57 percent � describe Cruz as a conservative. That is a higher percentage from the mostly conservative party identifiers than they give any of the other GOP possibilities with the exception of Mike Huckabee. Last month, nearly two-thirds of Republicans thought of Huckabee as a conservative,� said the poll posted online.

One big problem, found the poll, was that he isn't yet seen as more qualified to be president than much of the rest of the 2016 presidential class.

I certainly agree that Democrats are the problem......but Republicans are most certainly not the answer! Skroo-em

You got two choices. Which one do you want to reform?

Breitbart News: Breitbart TV
http://www.breitbart.com/breitbart-tv
5/27/14


Senator Ted Crux (R-TX) was in Israel Monday. The Senator from Texas spoke of the need to stand with Israel against the many Islamist entities that seek their destruction.

Cruz did not buy into the mutual culpability argument that both sides are to blame for the lack of peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. He said it was the Palestinian leadership�s failure to denounce acts of terror, along with their refusal to recognize Israel�s right to exist as the lone Jewish state in the world.

The Senator is on a two day trip to Israel. He will then fly to Poland, Ukraine, and Estonia, thought of as a solidarity trip with the East European nations that are dealing with aggression from Russia.

Cruz said of the Palestinian leadership, �The principal impediment to peace is that, to date, the Palestinians have refused to recognize Israel�s right to exist as a Jewish state and have refused to renounce terror.� The Senator continued, �Unless and until the Palestinians can agree on those very basic starting blocks, no lasting peace solution is likely.�

Cruz was highly critical of the Obama administration�s policies in the Middle East. He described the administration�s stance on the Middle East peace talks as �to criticize and harangue and pressure the Israeli government.�

When Secretary of State John Kerry used the term �apartheid� to describe what would happen if the �peace talks� failed, Cruz immediately called for Kerry�s resignation. While in Israel, Cruz reiterated his stance against Kerry�s inflammatory rhetoric, again calling for the Secretary of State to resign. �For the secretary of state to use a loaded term like �apartheid� with regard to Israel was grotesquely inaccurate and deeply harmful,� said Cruz. He worried terrorist groups now have the rhetorical ammunition to continue to wage their disinformation campaign against Israel. �Those words will be repeated by the enemies of Israel, by Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran,� he said.

Cruz firmly believes that the United States does not need to be an intermediary in the peace talks. �Terms of peace should not be dictated by outsiders,� said Cruz.

It is not the United States� business dictating Israel�s settlement policy in the disputed West Bank region, explained Cruz. He said the settlements are a �question for the government of Israel.� Its not �America�s role to try to impose a policy about where Israeli settlements are located and where they�re not."

I guess he just lost the Klan vote. Oh well, you can't be everything to everybody.

Now the only question is,..can he lose his home state and still win the primary.

No worries.
_____



Tea party dominates Texas runoffs


The victories by conservatives over established politicians return some luster to a movement lagging elsewhere


May 28, 20143:14AM ET




Texas Republicans aligned with conservative tea party favorite U.S. Senator Ted Cruz won primary runoffs on Tuesday for two of the state's most powerful posts, while U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall, 91, was ousted by a challenger about half his age.

Conservative talk radio host Dan Patrick, the tea party caucus founder in the Texas Legislature, ousted long-time incumbent David Dewhurst to claim the Republican nomination for the powerful office of lieutenant governor.

State Senator Ken Paxton, also aligned with Cruz, defeated Dan Branch, a state representative since 2002, in the race for attorney general.

The tea party victories over established politicians boosts the stature of Cruz, a possible 2016 Republican presidential contender, and returns some luster to the tea party movement. Establishment-backed conservatives have turned back tea party challengers in Republican primaries in Kentucky, North Carolina and other states as GOP party leaders have made it a priority to avoid the presence of candidates on the ballot this fall who are seen as too conservative or unsteady �- or both � to prevail in winnable races.

But there were few such fears in Texas where Republicans have dominated statewide races for more than two decades. Tea party challengers kept winning as the polls closed in Tuesday's primary election runoffs, signaling a further move to the right in the largest conservative U.S. state. It wasn't a total sweep for anti-establishment Republicans, but they won enough key races to put Texas on track to veer even further right on abortion, gun rights and spending come 2015.

The Texas runoffs were for races where no single candidate crossed the 50 percent threshold in the March 4 primary. In the race for governor in the state with a $1.4 trillion annual economy, current attorney general, Greg Abbott, easily won the March Republican primary and will face Democrat Wendy Davis, who also won in March.

Hall, the oldest serving member of the House of Representatives, lost in a Republican primary runoff election to tea party-backed challenger, John Ratcliffe, a former U.S. attorney. Ratcliffe painted Hall as too cozy with the Republican establishment after 34 years in office

Hall, a World War Two veteran, was first elected to the U.S. House in 1980 from congressional District 4, an area to the northeast of Dallas. He was seeking his 18th term. No Democrat is running in the district that stretches from suburban Dallas east to Louisiana and north to Oklahoma � meaning Ratcliffe will be headed to Washington after the November general election.

In an unexpected Democratic runoff, Kesha Rogers, who's allied with frequent presidential candidate and conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche, lost to Dallas dental mogul David Alameel. The Texas Democratic Party had urged voters to nominate Alameel to be its underdog to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in the November election.

Dewhurst crashing in a ball of flames, again, does the heart good. Not sure what all Dan Patrick is all about, he does sound pretty good, but bitchslapping Dewhurst is a great start, no doubt.

Right? Who loses by 30 points?
_____

After runoffs, Texas tea party stronger than ever


Posted: Wednesday, May 28, 2014 7:45 am

Associated Press |




AUSTIN � Losing ground elsewhere in the U.S., the tea party emerged from Texas' primary runoffs mightier than ever in the nation's biggest conservative stronghold, sacking Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and ousting a 91-year-old congressman who was seeking one final term.


But Congressman Ralph Hall, the oldest-ever member of the U.S. House, was swept away by the latest wave of Republican insurgency that is now poised to have the muscle in the Legislature to make good on promises to push the state even further to the right on immigration, abortion, gun rights and spending.

The tea party's keystone victory was state Sen. Dan Patrick, a fiery conservative radio talk show host, who denied Dewhurst a fourth term by a 2-to-1 margin and then began his general election candidacy by unabashedly pledging to shove aside outnumbered Democrats come 2015.

"Some Democrats said they want me to be the nominee. Well they got me, and I'm coming," Patrick told supporters at his victory party in Houston.

He added: "Salute the tea party of Texas!"

Dewhurst, a multimillionaire energy businessman who has been lieutenant governor since 2003, saw his once-powerful political career in Texas end after losing to an outspent tea party underdog for the second time in as many years. He began his concession speech by noting rainy weather across the state that he said impacted turnout.

Dewhurst had said this would be his final campaign. But just like his collapse against Ted Cruz for the U.S. Senate nomination in 2012, spending millions from his own fortune couldn't convince GOP voters that he was anything other than a mainstream Republican who had grown too entrenched.

Hall also promised voters that he wanted just one last term. But former U.S. Attorney John Ratcliffe, who was backed by top tea party groups, denied Hall an 18th term representing the sprawling district that stretches from suburban Dallas to the Texas-Louisiana border.

Hall, who has served 34 years in Congress, met his defeat by greeting a room in Rockwall full of family and supporters, many of whom he had known for decades. He smiled for pictures and thanked reporters for allowing him to express his gratitude to voters.

"I just got whipped and got beat, and my folks are sad, but they know that I'm not sad," said Hall, who lost by fewer than 3,000 votes. "I'm pleased to have had the opportunity."

Tuesday's Republican runoffs settled nominations for four major offices and nearly a dozen statehouse seats. In the GOP campaign for attorney general between two state legislators, tea party-backed Ken Paxton beat Dan Branch, who is a member of the House leadership team.

Sid Miller won the nod for agriculture commissioner over his former colleague in the Legislature, Tommy Merritt, whom he accused of being too moderate.

But Patrick scored the tea party's biggest win in Texas since Cruz.

The lieutenant governor presides over the state Senate. Patrick, who founded the Legislature's tea party caucus, had criticized Dewhurst as too cozy with Democrats and for not preventing Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis' filibuster of a 2013 measure restricting abortion, which drew national attention and launched her run for governor.

Patrick advances to the November general election against Democrat Leticia Van de Putte, a state senator from San Antonio.

Democrats welcomed the dominating tea party victories.

"The days of a pragmatic Texas Republican Party are over," said Manny Garcia, spokesman for the Texas Democratic Party. "U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Dan Patrick have driven their party so far off the ideological cliff there is no balance and common sense."

Tim Shell of the Woodlands, a 48-year-old self-employed online education businessman, said he voted for Patrick over Dewhurst.

"Dewhurst is of the old party that's been in there so long and we need change," Shell said. "It's time for patriots to stand up and say we're not going to put up with it."

Funny, he blames it on "Rainy weather", what a puzzy.. Who knew RINOs can't swim. We need to remember that.

Sen. Ted Cruz goes abroad

From Poland, the latest stop on his overseas trip, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who has forcefully tried to distance himself from potential 2016 rival Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) when it comes to foreign policy, rebuked the administration for the �consistent pattern� of �retreating from the world� as well as the �tendency to alienate and abandon our allies,� during a conference call Wednesday afternoon. Cruz spent two days in Israel, then traveled to Ukraine and Poland. He will end the trip in Estonia.

Asked the purpose of the trip, he replied that as part of his job as a senator on the Armed Services Committee, �I need to do my best to understand our national security threats. There is no substitute for meeting with leaders and seeing the situation on the ground.� The comment had the benefit of being true and also laying down a marker by which other 2016 rivals might be judged. His opening remarks were largely dictated by his itinerary, focusing on Israel, Iran and Russia.

As for Russia, Cruz said, �I have to give Putin credit. Putin has been very explicit.� He reminded the media that for Putin �the demise of the Soviet Union is the greatest geo-political disaster of the modern era.� He spoke in admiring tones about the new Ukrainian government and the students who stood up for freedom. Asked if they felt let down by the United States, Cruz diplomatically replied, �Their leaders are looking for help and solidarity wherever they can find it.� He stressed that Ukraine needs help to defend itself and that it gave up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for promises the United States would defend it. He stated that the goals of U.S. policy should be to help Ukraine defend itself and lessen its dependence on Russian gas and oil, and also to enact �meaningful costs, meaningful deterrence� to respond to Russian aggression. In that regard, Cruz urged we increase our export of LNG and that the Obama administration move along on 22 pending applications. Pressed by a Texas reporter whether that would include blocking Exon-Mobile energy development, he twice replied that this was something we should �look very closely at,� and he then stressed his preference for providing basic military gear and using our energy production to both aid Ukraine and undermine Putin.

This was a very subdued and serious Cruz (it was late in his day in Europe), one who was careful not to overstep his bounds by speaking for the Ukrainians but not shy about blasting the president. In aligning himself with a robust U.S. foreign policy and support for free people, he plainly was creating space between his views and Paul�s.

When it came to Israel, Cruz was emphatic about the administration�s failings. I asked if it was a mistake to give the president �room for diplomacy� with Iran and whether the Senate should act on sanctions. He responded, �Absolutely yes, and yes.� He then explained, �Perhaps the most striking aspect of my entire trip was the unanimity and was the gravity [in viewing] the Iranian threat and the insufficiency of the U.S. approach.� He continued, �Every single leader I met with� viewed the prospects of a nuclear Iran �as the gravest threat that is facing Israel and that is facing the U.S.� He declined (as he did with Ukraine) to characterize any misgivings the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have expressed about the U.S. in their meeting (good move, there) and instead referred to the prime minister�s public comments that the interim deal was �a very, very bad deal, an historic mistake.�

As for sanctions Cruz said, �We should have voted months ago. . . . There is one reason and one reason only [a sanctions bill] hasn�t passed � Harry Reid won�t allow a vote.� He called that a �serious mistake,� although he said he would go further than the Kirk-Menendez bill. He joined in that effort, he said, because he thought it was important to get bipartisan support for disapproval of the interim deal, but he would prefer to �re-impose sanctions immediately, strengthen these and lay out a clear path� for disarming Iran that would include �dismantling centrifuges and handing over its enriched uranium.� He opined that the situation was beginning to resemble North Korea, and the chief negotiator for that failed attempt to prevent a new nuclear-ready state was running the Iran negotiations (Wendy Sherman). However, he said it would be far worse if Iran got the bomb since its regime is �driven by a radical religion� and that the danger of it using a bomb was �unacceptably high.� He explained, �The best case scenario, the best case scenario� is that it would �put Iran in a position to dominate the Middle East� and set off an arms race. He was especially critical of the interim agreement�s failure to require Iran to �dismantle anything� and to permit it to continue with its IBM program. He warned that �the only purpose is to project force, to threaten us.�

On other topics regarding Israel, he declined the invitation to assert Israelis are concerned about American isolationism. He did relate at some length his visit to an IDF hospital in the Golan Heights where Israel doctors treat wounded Syrian civilians. �It is illustrative of the values that define the nation of Israel,� he observed. And on the peace process he rapped the president and secretary of state, stating that they had consistently �berated, criticized and attacked Israel while not placing blame for the refusal of the Palestinian leadership� for not engaging in good faith negotiations. He pointed out, �No one wants peace more than Israel, but there will not be lasting peace, unless and until the Palestinians recognize Israel�s right to exist as a Jewish state and renounce terrorism.�



Cruz has yet to delve deeply into stickier topics such as what precisely he finds objectionable about the president�s Syria policy or whether he would have left troops in Iraq. But if he runs for the White House, he�ll have time to craft a position on those topics. He is, however, accomplishing something few in the 2016 field of potential candidates have done: Demonstrate a real grasp of details, align himself forcefully with the GOP tradition as the pro-defense, pro-liberty party and show some deft restraint. Both in tone and in avoiding invitations to characterize other governments� privately stated views and requests, he demonstrated self-discipline, something not always associated with Cruz but, if he keeps it up, will impress voters who care about a commander in chief capable of cleaning up the mess President Obama is going to leave behind.

Ted Cruz's Clout Climbs After Big Tea Party Wins In Texas


In Texas�s GOP primary runoff election this week, there was a winner whose name wasn�t on the ballot � U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

Cruz�s influence was prevalent in the runoff primary, where Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Rep. Ralph Hall, at 91 the oldest-ever member of the U.S. House, lost to more conservative candidates.

The only candidate he officially endorsed, conservative Konni Burton, beat former state Rep. Mark Shelton with some 60 percent of the vote in the race for a state Senate seat.

Political observers are calling the smooth victory by conservatives over more so-called �establishment Republicans� in Texas a testament of Cruz�s clout, according to The Hill. Tea party candidates have not fared as well in GOP primaries in other states.

State Sen. Daniel Patrick, who will face Democrat Leticia Van de Putte in the November election for lieutenant governor, is being described as another potential Ted Cruz in terms of his unyielding conservative views and willingness to rattle political cages.

Patrick wears the Cruz crown proudly.

�The people of Texas have given us a mandate tonight,� Patrick said in his victory speech. �Tea Party folks love America. They love the Constitution. They love free markets. And they love the Second Amendment. And they love Texas. And they love the liberty that is granted to them by God and not government.�

JoAnn Fleming, executive director of Grassroots America � We the People, a conservative activist group based in East Texas, said: "Dan Patrick, he's going to make people in both parties very unhappy, just like we've seen with Senator Cruz."

Democrats are hoping to use the Cruz conservative tilt of the GOP in Texas to their advantage by portraying them as overzealous and out of touch.

�The days of a pragmatic Texas Republican Party are over,� Texas Democratic Party Communications Director Emmanuel Garcia said, according to The Hill. �U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Dan Patrick have driven their party so far off the ideological cliff there is no room balance and common-sense.�

Republican strategists, meanwhile, are looking at Cruz as a leader who is showing a new way to win elections.

�[Cruz] provided a playbook for conservative candidates to overcome the establishment,� said Texas-based GOP strategist Matt Mackowiak, who advised John Ratcliffe�s campaign, who beat Hall. �In every race, there was a Cruz dynamic.�

�He showed that if you raise enough money to be competitive, and if you run a good campaign and really mobilize the conservative base in Texas, that it can be done.�

Rep. Peter King fears Ted Cruz, Rand Paul stronger



Rep. Peter King on Wednesday said the Republican Party cannot allow Ted Cruz and Rand Paul to take over following House Majority Leader Eric Cantor�s defeat.

�We can�t allow Eric�s defeat last night allow the Ted Cruzes and the Rand Pauls to take over the party, or their disciples to take over the party,� the moderate New York Republican said on MSNBC. �Because this is not conservatism to me. Shutting down the government is not being conservative.�


King has long been harshly critical of the tea party and two of the movement�s major icons, Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky. On Wednesday, he was responding to a potential party leadership vacuum following economics professor Dave Brat�s stunning victory over Cantor in the Republican primary for Virginia�s 7th Congressional District, a result some are calling a sign of a tea party takeover of the GOP.

When asked whether immigration reform is now dead in the House following Cantor�s defeat, King responded: �My concern is that a lot of things are going to be dead and pushed to the side. I�m concerned that, for instance, that the Ted Cruz supporters, the Rand Paul supporters, are going to use this as an excuse to basically stop the government from functioning. I mean, thank God there�s no debt ceiling vote coming up.�

King said that with the defeat, Congress will likely take up very little legislation until the midterm elections in November.

He added that the government shutdown in October 2013, advocated by many in the tea party, including Cruz, was very hurtful to the party. �It alienated the country, which makes it very difficult to us to win in 2016 and for us to be a governing party,� he said.

King, who has served in Congress for more than 20 years, called Cantor a �friend.� But he said that the House majority leader was likely more removed from his constituents due to his national party obligations and that he largely ran his campaign from Washington.

He would not comment as to whether the defeated congressman would stay on as majority leader until November, but noted that he received texts and emails from members of the party who were interested in taking his place.

As for who takes over for Cantor, either before or after November, King said: �I hope it�s not the Ted Cruz types.�


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/...-paul-ted-cruz-107710.html#ixzz34KcycePO

Ted Cruz celebrates Eric Cantor loss



Ted Cruz celebrated Eric Cantor�s primary loss on Tuesday night, arguing it�s a reminder that the �conservative base is alive and well� in American politics.

�Eric Cantor is a good man, but last night, voters in Virginia made D.C. listen loud and clear. This election should be a reminder to all in Congress � Republicans and Democrats alike � that the conservative base is alive and well, and the American people will hold us all accountable. Each of us needs to do what we said we would do and tell the truth,� Cruz said.

He then pledged to work with Dave Brat, who defeated Cantor, if he makes it to the House and cooperate �to pull back from the fiscal and economic cliff we are facing, and to bring back jobs, growth, and freedom in America.�

While Cruz�s criticisms of the GOP leadership have repeatedly rankled many Republicans, he has shied away from endorsing incumbents� primary challengers. He refused to comment when asked this week whether he would endorse state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) in his runoff against vulnerable GOP Sen. Thad Cochran in Mississippi, which many believe is conservatives next opportunity to knock off a sitting Republican lawmaker.

Cruz�s disdain for what he called Cantor�s legislative �chicanery� was essentially the spark that led to last year�s 16-day government shutdown. When Cantor and House Speaker John Boehner pitched a plan to have the House vote on two separate bills � one to fund the government, the other to defund Obamacare � Cruz and House and Senate conservatives rebelled against a legislative maneuver that would have allowed Senate Democrats to ignore the attack.

Ultimately, Cruz was able to lead House conservatives to oppose Cantor and Boehner�s plan and convince Republican leaders to pass a spending bill that defunded Obamacare. Senate Democrats repeatedly stripped out the House�s attacks on Obamacare � leading to the historic government shutdown and accentuating the divide between rock-ribbed conservatives like Cruz and a more business-friendly Cantor.

Long read, so I'll just post the link, but pretty good if you GAF.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/06/30/140630fa_fact_toobin

"Cruz�s sincerity in these goals is beyond question. When he was solicitor general of Texas, he had a piece of advice for the lawyers on his staff. �I tried to stress to every lawyer in the office that if any lawyer from the S.G.�s office stands in front of the judge and says, �The law is X and the facts are Y,� then that judge would always, always trust that we are levelling with them and telling the truth.� He�s approached politics the same way. �Since I became a senator, a year and a half ago, I�ve kept two promises to the people of Texas,� he said. �I have endeavored to do what I said I was going to do and I have always told the truth. It says something about Washington that those are perceived as radical acts.� "

That New Yorker article is worth your time to read.

"In just over six years, Cruz argued nine cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, more than any other Texas lawyer during this period and more than all but a few lawyers in the country. In addition, he filed dozens of briefs in federal and state appeals courts. In his arguments before the high court, Cruz won five cases and lost four, but that understates the magnitude of his success. The cases he lost were rather minor; in one of them he appeared as a friend of the court. The cases he won had more drama and importance. The most notable, from 2008, began, as Cruz recounted to me, when �two teen-age girls who were walking home one night stumbled into a gang initiation and were horribly gang-raped and murdered. One of the most brutal crimes that shocked the conscience of the city of Houston. Ernesto Medell�n was one of the leaders of the gang, and he was apprehended several days later, and he confessed to it right away. His confession was one of the most chilling documents I�ve ever read, handwritten, where he describes bragging about raping these little girls. He describes showing off his bloodstained clothes. He describes keeping, as a trophy of the night, one of the little girls� Mickey Mouse watches. This was an unrepentant murderer. He was convicted, he was sentenced to death, and then the case took a strange turn.�

The World Court, which is the judicial arm of the United Nations, issued a directive to the United States to reopen the cases of Medell�n, who was Mexican, and fifty other Mexican nationals who were on death row. After their arrests, none of the defendants had been offered the consular services of the Mexican government, a right that the United States was treaty-bound to honor. In a crucial twist, the Administration of George W. Bush agreed with the World Court judgment. The Justice Department asserted that the cases, including Medell�n�s, should be reopened, because the defendants had not been granted their rights under the treaty. As both a legal and a political matter, Texas�s position looked weak. How could Abbott (and Cruz) take on a President of the United States who also happened to be a fellow-Republican and fellow-Texan? And how, in any event, could the state of Texas overrule a judgment of both the United States government and the World Court?

�In both law and politics, I think the essential battle is the meta-battle of framing the narrative,� Cruz told me. �As Sun Tzu said, Every battle is won before it�s fought. It�s won by choosing the terrain on which it will be fought. So in litigation I tried to ask, What�s this case about? When the judge goes home and speaks to his or her grandchild, who�s in kindergarten, and the child says, �Paw-Paw, what did you do today?� And if you own those two sentences that come out of the judge�s mouth, you win the case.

�So let�s take Medell�n as an example of that,� Cruz went on. �The other side�s narrative in Medell�n was very simple and easy to understand. �Can the state of Texas flout U.S. treaty obligations, international law, the President of the United States, and the world? And, by the way, you know how those Texans are about the death penalty anyway!� That�s their narrative. That�s what the case is about. When Justice Kennedy comes home and he tells his grandson, �This case is about whether a state can ignore U.S. treaty obligations,� we lose.

�So I spent a lot of time thinking about, What�s a different narrative to explain this case? Because, as you know, just about every observer in the media and in the academy thought we didn�t have a prayer. This is a hopeless case.�

Cruz decided to change the narrative into one about the separation of powers. He refashioned the case from a fight between Texas and the United States to one between the executive branch and the legislative branch of the federal government, with Texas advocating for Congress. He argued that the President could not order Texas to reopen the cases without the specific authorization of Congress. Cruz duelled with Stephen Breyer and other skeptical Justices for well over the allotted thirty minutes. Breyer ribbed Cruz: �As I read the Constitution, it says all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every state�I guess it means including Texas��the audience laughed��shall be bound thereby.�

�Certainly, Justice Breyer,� Cruz answered. �Texas, of course, does not dispute that the Constitution, laws, and treaties are the supreme law of the land.� But, he went on, the President�s order, in this case, was none of these. The questioning of Cruz became so raucous that, at one point, Justice John Paul Stevens felt compelled to interject, �You said there are six reasons. . . . I really would like to hear what those reasons are without interruption from all of my colleagues.� Cruz won the case, six-to-three, with Stevens joining the Court�s conservatives. In another case, a major challenge to Texas�s 2003 electoral redistricting on the ground that it discriminated against minorities, the number of plaintiffs before the Court was so large that Cruz was allowed to file a hundred-and-twenty-three-page brief in response, well above the usual page limit. He won that case as well."

Ted Cruz: Eric Holder Should Appoint IRS Special Prosecutor or Be Impeached


June 26, 2014 2:15 PM


Attorney General Eric Holder should be impeached if he refuses to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the targeting of tea party groups by the IRS, according to Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas).

With the IRS claiming to have lost two years of former official Lois Lerner�s emails, Cruz is headed to the floor to introduce a resolution calling for the special prosecutor.

�He�s going to say, if Attorney General Holder does not appoint a special prosecutor, he should be impeached,� a Cruz aide told National Review Online. �Eric Holder has been at the center of every big scandal in this administration . . . If he doesn�t act on this issue, it�s perfectly appropriate for him to be impeached.�

Cruz believes that Holder�s failure to appoint a special prosecutor would rise to the level of �high crimes and misdemeanors,� the constitutional standard for impeachment.

Senate Democrats, of course, are very likely to block the resolution. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) articulated the party line last week when she was asked if she was suspicious of the hard drive crash that the IRS says eradicated Lerner�s emails.

�What it convinces me [of] is that they need a new technology system at the IRS,� Pelosi told reporters. �They need to upgrade their technology, get it right, so that there�s no suspicion about what agenda anyone may have on that.�

Cruz suggested that Holder should be impeached in April, but the news that Lerner suggested that the IRS examine a speaking invitation for Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) gave rise to the latest proposal.

If weren�t for Ted Cruz and Darrell Issa, Barack Obama and Eric Holder would have buried the IRS scandal


Sun, 06/29/2014 - 11:11am | posted by Jason Pye




Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) ruffled some feathers this week when he suggested that Attorney General Eric Holder should be impeached if the Justice Department didn�t appoint a special prosecutor to lead the IRS scandal investigation.

During a panel discussion on Friday�s edition of CNN Newsroom, John Avlon, editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast, took a shot at Cruz and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) by saying that the two are turning the IRS investigation into a �partisan hackathon.�

�I�m not sure Ted Cruz is often accused of having good ideas when it comes to impartial inquiries. I think probably special prosecutor is at this moment, not necessary as is calling for the impeachment of the Attorney General of the U.S.,� said Avlon. �What is necessary, though, is for the White House and Democrats to start taking this scandal seriously, and for us to try to depoliticize it.�

�Whenever Ted Cruz or Darrell Issa walks into these matters,� he continued, �it immediately turns it into a �Partisan Hackathon� as opposed to a search for the truth.�



Cruz spoke on the Senate floor on Thursday about the IRS scandal, urging the upper chamber to pass a resolution calling for the appointment of a special prosecutor to launch an impartial investigation.

�Americans need a guarantee that the IRS will never be used again to target an Administration�s political enemies. It saddens me that there is not one Democrat in this body who has had the courage to stand up to his or her own party and say that using the IRS to target citizens for their political beliefs is wrong,� said Cruz in a 41-minute speech. �We need a special prosecutor with meaningful independence to make sure justice is served and our constitutional rights to free speech, assembly, and privacy are protected.�

Cruz explained that the Obama administration�s investigation into the improper targeting of conservative groups is politicized, pointing out that the person the Justice Department appointed to lead the inquiry has donated to President Obama and the Democratic National Committee.

�If Attorney General Eric Holder does not appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS, the House should use its power to impeach him. Impeding justice is intolerable and he should not be permitted to refuse the American people a true investigation into the actions of those who used the machinery of government to target, intimate, and silence them for politically driven reasons,� he added.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) objected to the resolution, killing it. The Senate Finance Committee chairman claimed that �[t]here is nothing of value that a special prosecutor would bring to the table,� suggesting that there is no evidence of wrongdoing inside the IRS.

Will Cain of TheBlaze defended Cruz and Issa, explaining that �the only thing pushing us towards the truth in the story is partisanship,� adding that �[t]he only thing revealing the evidence is the fact there are Republicans pushing for this information.� He explained that the IRS has been less than forthcoming about the scandal, going back on its promise to cooperate with congressional investigations.

Avlon, however, suggested that the IRS, arguably the most power agency in the federal government, doesn�t have enough regulatory power. �[P]art of the problem,� he said, �is that the IRS hasn�t had the regulatory authority to deal with people who are trying to hijack non-profit status to pursue for-profit partisan aims with organizations that are supposed to be dedicated towards social welfare.�

Though Avlon said that Democrats should take the IRS scandal seriously, the notion he put forward � that the tax agency needs more power to regulate nonprofit groups � is absurd. These groups have a stated goal of educating Americans on public policy issues, running issue-based ads to accomplish that end, and hold elected officials accountable. Keeping the public informed is social welfare.

If weren�t for Republicans, including Cruz and Issa, keeping this egregious abuse of power in the spotlight, the Obama administration would have happily buried it � after all, President Obama himself has called it a �phony scandal� � and moved on.

Cruz: �Fahrenheit 451� Democrats are playing with fire

July 10, 2014 11:04 AM



By Ted Cruz

I have three questions for my Democratic colleagues in the Senate: Should Congress be able to ban books? Should Congress be able to ban films? Should Congress be able to ban groups such as the NAACP, the National Rifle Association and the Sierra Club from speaking?


Cruz

The answer to all three questions should, unequivocally, be �no.� But, sadly, 46 Democrats in the U.S. Senate are supporting a constitutional amendment to repeal the free-speech provisions of the First Amendment and give Congress carte blanche power to regulate political speech.

It�s all because a group of conservative filmmakers made a documentary film in 2008 about then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton that did not speak favorably about her record. Forty-five Senate Democrats are now supporting a constitutional amendment from Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico to stop Americans from showing movies like the one Citizens United created during the 2008 election.

Forty-six Senate Democrats are willing to rewrite the Constitution to take away the right of Americans to speak or create art that is critical of politicians.

Forty-six Senate Democrats are actively working to silence political criticism ahead of the next presidential election.

They are the �Fahrenheit 451� Democrats.

Never before has Congress tampered with the First Amendment.

When a similar proposal was considered in 1997, the famed liberal lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, reminded his colleagues that never before had the Bill of Rights been amended and �now is no time to start.�

I agree with Ted Kennedy. Where are the Democrats who agree with him today? Not a single one has spoken out against this. Groupthink has taken over their party.

The American Civil Liberties Union, however, has sounded the alarm. The ACLU says the Democrats� amendment would �severely limit the First Amendment and lead directly to government censorship of political speech.�

Floyd Abrams, perhaps the leading First Amendment litigator in the country and an outspoken Democrat, has, as well. He said the amendment �would limit speech that is at the heart of our First Amendment.�

Senate Democrats would like to pretend they could draw the line between what they think is �reasonable� political speech and �unreasonable� political speech. To hear the Democrats tell it, all they want to do is stop �corporate influences� from unfairly influencing the political debate.

However, The New York Times is a corporation. Should they stop penning editorials? NBC is a corporation. Should it quit airing �Saturday Night Live�?

After all, wasn�t Tina Fey influencing voters when she took on an Alaskan accent and declared �I can see Russia from my house� � something Sarah Palin never even said?

Didn�t Will Ferrell�s hilarious portrayals of President George W. Bush as childlike and confused change public opinion of our 43rd president? Wasn�t Seth Green swaying voters when he impersonated Vice President Al Gore as a dry, droning bore? Wasn�t Darrell Hammond enforcing a certain kind of perception of Bill Clinton when he presented the president as a lusty, smirking cad?

The answer is yes, yes, yes and yes. That�s what free speech gives Americans the power to do � mock, provoke, challenge and persuade. �Saturday Night Live� has a constitutional right to do so, but the Democrats� amendment would allow Congress to ban the show.

The hard-line liberal partisans who want to rewrite the Constitution to give their party a political advantage certainly do not have the same interests in mind as James Madison and Alexander Hamilton.

We should keep our faith in the Bill of Rights, rather than in politicians intent on preserving their power.

There will always be political speakers who someone disagrees with. Democrats should be free to disagree with films made by Citizens United, just as many Republicans disagree with films made by Mr. Gore and Michael Moore.

That�s a sign of a healthy and vibrant society. Banning films is not.

In Ray Bradbury�s novel �Fahrenheit 451,� � the temperature at which �book paper� auto-ignites � Capt. Beatty, who is the chief book burner, said, �If you don�t want a man unhappy politically, don�t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.�

That same sentiment was expressed by the Obama administration, which told the Supreme Court in Citizens United that, in its view, Congress could ban books.

When Justice Anthony Kennedy asked the Department of Justice if the Obama administration was truly arguing that, according to the Constitution, book sales could be prohibited, the Justice official replied, yes, �if the book contained the functional equivalent of express advocacy.�

That was a shocking exchange. The government made an unabashed argument for the government being able to stop a book from being sold.

As the ACLU observed, under the Democrats� proposed amendment, Congress could ban Mrs. Clinton�s new book, �Hard Choices.�

It could ban anti-Hillary movies and pro-Hillary books alike. What then would become of our political debates? We would have only that which Congress would allow.

The Democrats, by working to shut down political speech, want to eliminate different sides of our most important questions, just as Capt. Beatty said.

Soon, Senate Democrats will hold their vote on a constitutional amendment to repeal our free-speech protections.

They are playing with fire. �Fahrenheit 451� is coming to life, and tragically, the Democrats are playing the role of the firemen who want to burn our books and silence the citizenry.

http://www.breitbart.com/ 7/11/14
Ted Cruz Calls for Impeachment of Attorney General Eric Holder
Thursday on Fox News Channel's "The Real Story With Gretchen Carlson," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said, "The Department of Justice investigation of this has been woefully negligent" as he called for impeachment of Attorney General Eric Holder if he continues to ignores calls to appoint a special prosecutor to look into the IRS scandal targeting conservative group for extra scrutiny and the subsequent loss of emails requested in the congressional investigation.

�Just a couple of weeks ago I publicly called on the Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor with meaningful independence to investigate the abuse of power, he added. "And if the Attorney General doesn�t do that in my view the House of Representatives should begin impeachment proceedings against the Attorney General. We cannot have the chief law enforcement officer of the United States openly mocking and disregarding the law in refusing to investigate the Obama administration simply for partisan reasons.�

Refreshing to see a Senator take their job seriously. And not be "wishy-washy" on the subject at hand.

Cruz is the closest to a modern-day Patrick Henry we'll likely ever see.

Seems to me that Ted Cruz,Mike Lee,Sarah Palin are making the right people mad and I'm "cool" with that.

I believe that be the new team in town.

The "A-Team" Bowsinger.

This will make the Rino supporters/Mrs. Palin Haters,as well as the Jew haters,who claim that everyone except little Ronnie Paul is a neo-con,heads explode.LOL.

It is good for them to clear their heads out. Don't know if it will help much.

http://www.breitbart.com/
by Tony Lee 18 Jul 2014
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) will join Glenn Beck this weekend at the U.S.-Mexico border on what Beck describes as a humanitarian mission.
The Tea Party Senator will join the radio talk show host and his followers in his effort to bring soccer balls and teddy bears to illegal immigrant children.
Cruz, who told Breitbart News that the event is a statement against President Barack Obama's non-enforcement of immigration laws, said he will be doling out medical supplies.

A Cruz spokesperson announced�to�The Blaze Thursday�that Cruz would be "glad to join Glenn Beck" in McAllen, Texas to "provide some relief from the suffering this administration is causing."

Cruz's spokesperson, Catherine Frazier, reiterated to Breitbart News that "from day one, Sen. Cruz has been leading the charge to stop President Obama's lawlessness, which is the direct cause of this humanitarian crisis."
She said Cruz argues that, at the same time, "these young children are very real victims of the President's promise of amnesty�because of it, they have been subjected to horrific physical and sexual abuse from international drug cartels smuggling them into the country."

"Private charities and churches are stepping up to provide food, medicine, and toys for these young children, which is a compassionate response that embodies American values," she continued. "But the most compassionate response�which Senator Cruz is leading the fight to accomplish�is to end the President's amnesty and to humanely and expeditiously reunite these children with their families back home."

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) dropped out of the trip, saying a scheduling conflict prevented him from attending.�Sources close to Sen. Lee confirmed to Breitbart News that Lee would not be attending Beck's event.

Beck, who announced that Lee would be present, apologized to the senator on his radio show Thursday for trumpeting his appearance before their schedules were set. Lee did say that religious organizations and charities can often help children in need better and more effectively than the federal government.

Ted Cruz vows to take on Obama if GOP wins Senate


By Cheryl K. Chumley - The Washington Times - Monday, November 3, 2014


Sen. Ted Cruz � never one to stand shyly in the political corner in the first place � has vowed to don boxing gloves, rally his GOP colleagues and take on President Obama and his progressive politics directly if the Senate goes Republican this Tuesday.

At the same time, Mr. Cruz said to The Washington Post that he wasn�t promising he would support Mitch McConnell in any rise from Minority Leader to Majority Leader.

But front and center would be �looking at the abuse of power, the executive abuse, the regulatory abuse, the lawlessness that sadly has pervaded this administration� under Mr. Obama, he said, Newsmax reported.

Mr. Cruz also hasn�t forgotten about Obamacare and vowed that he would press his Senate colleagues to repeal the health care law � just as the House has tried more than 50 times. Mr. Cruz also said he�d be amenable to a piecemeal approach to dissect Obamacare, if the repeal plan wasn�t palatable to his Senate mates, Newsmax reported.

The tough-talking Texan also said the time has come for Republicans to quit going moderate.

�At some point, after Gerald Ford and Bob Dole and John McCain and Mitt Romney � we shouldn�t keep making the same mistakes over and over again,� he said, The Post reported.


Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/3/ted-cruz-vows-to-take-on-obama-if-gop-wins-senate/#!#ixzz3I0wmESVF
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

GO TED!!!!

You love to stalk us on this. Why don't you support your liberal talking points with some real information? Are you still mad about the Federal Government getting shut down for a couple of days?

As long as he isn't spilling Republican blood during the 2016 primaries. We've BTDT, and I don't ever want to see it again.

How is ONE R candidate to distinguish himself from ANOTHER R candidate?

Is it "spilling blood" to point out that Christie is an Obama hugging liberal?

Yes, and Christie will spill blood in return.

Once the Republican candidates go down that road, they will all be damaged and the Democratic candidates will have had much of their dirty work done for them.

I disagree. Not properly vetting these candidates is what has put us in the bind we're in today...both our scumbag President and the lame squishes that Wall Street propped up to run against him.

I've got an idea. Let's support a candidate that doesn't have a closet full of skeletons.

A BIG part of the �A team� spent this past weekend in Alaska.

Sebastian Payne with The Washington Post
11.2.14
ANCHORAGE � Sen. Ted Cruz spent the final weekend of the midterms on the far edge of the country trying to help fellow Republican Dan Sullivan win a race the GOP is counting on in its effort to retake the Senate.
It�s a team-player role the tea party firebrand from Texas has filled a handful of times this fall � but one he plans to abandon if Republicans win control of both congressional chambers.
In an interview at the Hotel Captain Cook here between campaign stops for Sullivan, Cruz made it clear he would push hard for a Republican-led Senate to be as conservative and confron�tational as the Republican-led House.

Piggybacking on what House leaders have done, Cruz said the first order of business should be a series of hearings on President Obama, �looking at the abuse of power, the executive abuse, the regulatory abuse, the lawlessness that sadly has pervaded this administration.�

Cruz also would like the Senate to be as aggressive in trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act as the House, which has voted more than 50 times to get rid of the law.

Republicans should �pursue every means possible to repeal Obamacare,� Cruz said, including forcing a vote through parliamentary procedures that would get around a possible filibuster by Democrats. If that leads to a veto by Obama, Cruz said, Republicans should then vote on provisions of the health law �one at a time.�

And when asked whether he would back Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky for Republican leader, Cruz would not pledge his support � an indication that there are limits to how much of a partner he�s willing to be.

At the heart of Cruz�s shift from the insular approach that defined his first year in office is a belief that he can use his popularity with conservatives to expand his influence in the Senate and improve his standing as he considers a 2016 presidential campaign.
[�]
Cruz declined to say whether he�s going to run for president, but was dismissive of moderates in his party, particularly those who may challenge him for the 2016 Republican nomination. Of Jeb Bush, for instance, Cruz said he likes and respects him, �but I think we have seen election after election that when Republicans fail to draw a clear distinction with the Democrats, when we run to the mushy middle, we lose.�

�At some point,� Cruz continued, �after Gerald Ford and Bob Dole and John McCain and Mitt Romney . . . we shouldn�t keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

�One of the reasons Republicans have lost elections recently is that we have failed to engage in a meaningful way on the great issues of the day,� Cruz said. �We�ve played a prevent defense. You don�t win elections that way.�


Breitbart News.by Tony Lee 2 Nov 2014
On Sunday, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin said Mitt Romney is in "never never land" on amnesty, blasting the establishment Republican for declaring two days before the midterm elections that Republicans would pass an amnesty bill if they win back Congress.
"Where the heck have these GOP establishment types been during this election season? GOP Senate candidates are promising to do everything in their power to stop Obama's lawlessness, including his unjust amnesty that Americans do not support," Palin exclusively told Breitbart News.

"Governor Romney is busy promoting some decent policies; perhaps that's why he clearly hasn't followed today's races because every Republican is campaigning against amnesty and every Democrat gunning for the Senate is campaigning for it. With all due respect, Governor Romney is in 'never never land' on this one."

Palin, who has championed American workers against the bipartisan permanent political class that has always wanted massive amnesty legislation, added that "every�Senate Democrat candidate who voted for or supports Obama's amnesty, which will erase America's middle class, must answer for it in Tuesday's election."

"Voters have one chance to stop them. Don't let them get away with their complicity to Obama's lawlessness," Palin told Breitbart News.
"Obama's unconstitutional executive amnesty will radically erode American sovereignty, and Harry Reid and his lemmings are determined to protect Obama's amnesty anyway.
We can't block funding for Obama's failed policies including amnesty unless we dispatch Harry Reid.

This is precisely why constitutional conservatives must win on Tuesday, meaning no votes for U.S. Senate or House candidates of the duped and dense Democrat persuasion."

Now, boys, I'm not saying that Cruz shouldn't publicly point out that Christie is a liberal.

When I say "bloodletting", I'm not talking about pointing out differences in philosophy and approaches to government.

When I say "bloodletting" I am talking about the 3-4 top Republican candidates - including Cruz and Christie - more or less calling each other out in public as lying PsOS who cheated former employees, sent jobs overseas and hunted with .270s.

We've seen this movie before, and while a surprising number of conservatives were pleased that Romney exhausted himself in the primaries before Obama bitch-slapped him in the 2012 election, I don't want to see this kind of thing happening again.

If Cruz goes after Christie with a knife in public, Christie is going to pull his own knife, and by the time it's over, Hilary will be bitch-slapping an exhausted Cruz (or whoever else it's going to be).

Do you guys really want to see this movie again?

Ever read what bills he has introduced?
It is a lot of nothing, things the courts will shoot down, or more "improved" gun law, anything to get his name in print.
I would agree with most of it outside of the liberal feel good gun laws, if it wasn't just a facade to promote Ted, which is what most of his bills or spin speak amounts to.

Ted's introduced legistation

Being PC isn't all its cracked up to be

more of Teds legislation


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/18/dems-block-cruz-strip-citizenship-isis-defectors/

Here is Hilary Clinton in an interview on 60 Minutes just a couple of weeks before the 2016 presidential election:

"I'm not saying that Ted Cruz is worthless POS. Other Republicans - in his own party - have said he is a worthless POS."

Nice idea if would/could happen as it should have 40 some years ago to Hanoi Jane.
Bottom line it is a get our name in lights, do nothing, promote Ted, waste of time, energy, and money.

Pretty sure a democrat pardoned those folks.

As opposed to "Mitt is a great guy, but President Obama already gave us the Affordable Care Act, and that was all Governor Romney really ever did for Massachusetts."?

Is there anybody here that doesn't believe that some of the Republicans are as bad, or worse, than any Democrat?

Thanks for the fine list of what Ted Cruz stands for.

He is only a freshman Senator, but Ted sure hit the ground running.

Just wait until next year and Harry Reid is demoted.

Yeah...some BS bils for sure.

S.2066 : A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the intentional discrimination of a person or organization by an employee of the Internal Revenue Service.

In 2016, I would vote for a bad Republican over a ...

Well, I was going to say a good Democrat, but there aren't any.

And yeah, I would willingly have endured 8 years of Mitt Romney over what we've had.

Here's what I want to see happen: Christie trailing in the polls during the Republican primary debates.

Here's what I don't want to see happen: Christie going medieval on the front runners in a desperate attempt to get a ratings boost.

Whoever the Republican winner is - and I don't think it will be Christie - we all need to have Christie be on board as a loyal party member.

In 2008, Hilary took a knee and kissed Obama's ring. Obama won the general election. In 2016, Christie has to take a knee and kiss Cruz's (or somebody's) ring. There has to be harmony because the Democrats learned to our cost that party disunity can lose national elections.

To keep Christie in line, everybody - including Cruz - on the runup to the Republican convention needs to act like [bleep] gentlemen. And that includes being nice to the [bleep] from New Jersey.

I do,they are called the "Establishment" and should be run out of Washington D.C.

Some are worse because you don't really know where they stand.
Like your boy Ted will spout "No!" to gun control, then stab you in the back as he introduces new unneeded and unnecessary gun control laws.

Do you have a link?

Sherp?

already given

Do some home work, it ain't hard to find.

This is getting very confusing. Are you guys now saying cristy will be running WITH hillary? I thought that she had announced a while back that she didn't want him (or any other radical left wing fringe kook) on her team? If I'm not mistaken she said she would like to run with someone as conservative as herself.

Edit: quick reply, not aimed at 700lh, just the conversation in general.

BS...He introduces legislation that his constituents are behind.

BS again put up specifically or shut up...

Just for you.

First go read S.729 and S.730, most if not all is already illegal.


Then,


LInk

There is no Federal law that prohibits crossing state lines with a firearm, loaded or not. This is nothing more than increased gun control at it's finest.


Military can already purchase, all that is needed is a drivers license from the state were stationed, real simple.

Hey Ted, your such an outspoken advocate for us gun owners, hows about a bill decreasing or doing away with guns law, not new and improved.

Who do you want him to listen to? Crafting bills that the NRA wants is probably about as much as you can ask from a Politician.

Link

Thankfully the NRA saw the error if their ways and changed their mind. Although a excellent organization, They are not infallible.

Oh my, they never even made it out of committee

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s730

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s729

Strengthening gun laws all ready on the books, especially those obama and the democrats refuse to prosecute because of budget cuts, is laughable at best.

Nice try though

This is the man that brought Heller before the SC, remember? You really need to find something else to support your agenda. By the way...what exactly IS your agenda?

Shhhh; he's currently quoting obama

A rebel without a pause.

Yet Ted introduced and supported them, didn't he?

Golly gee, supporting gun laws already on the books, go figure

No comment on what your agenda is, huh?

That doesn't care much for politicians that attempt to take away my god given freedoms.

So...you're a felon?

This is why Cruz still carries his NRA �A+� rating:
Ted Cruz On The Issues 6.13.14 By RepublicanViews.org
�Cruz worked in law as part of a private practice in Houston, and spent 5 years as a partner in one of America�s greatest law firm. He led the firm�s U.S. Supreme Court and national Appellate Litigation practice, and was part of successfully defending the U.S. sovereignty against the UN and the World Court in Medellin v. Texas, the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, the constitutionality of the Texas Ten Commandments monument, the constitutionality of the words �under God� in the Pledge of Allegiance, the constitutionality of the Texas Sexually Violent Predator Civil Commitment law, and
 the Texas congressional redistricting plan.�

Ted Cruz on Gun Control
Cruz stands in defense of the Second Amendment, and in the right of Americans to bear arms. He authored a brief on behalf of 31 states, supporting these rights and the Second Amendment. In 2008, when a resolution was passed by the National Board of the NRA, Cruz was personally thanked for leading the States before the Supreme Court in a DC gun case. It was stated that his �efforts made this victory for the American people possible.� He voted against the banning of magazines over 10 bullets, and opposes all restrictions on the Second Amendment.

You got that right, for sure.

not this cowboy


if you sent to prison or hung them from lamposts all the degenerate individuals in DC


there'd be a lotta empty seats on both sides of the aisle


and not many folks employed in lots of buildings in DC


the new "ruling" class those in gov't and that work for the gov't and then there's we the people.

Cruz was just up here, talking to a lady today that her son spent a fair amount of time with him.



he might be just one of the exceptions.


hard to say, they're all great at whispering in our ears

The Cruz record is based on what he has done, not just talk. Walked the walk...
Ted Cruz On The Issues 6.13.14 By RepublicanViews.org
�Cruz worked in law as part of a private practice in Houston, and spent 5 years as a partner in one of America�s greatest law firm. He led the firm�s U.S. Supreme Court and national Appellate Litigation practice, and was part of successfully defending the U.S. sovereignty against the UN and the World Court in Medellin v. Texas,

the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms,

the constitutionality of the Texas Ten Commandments monument, the constitutionality of the words �under God� in the Pledge of Allegiance,
the constitutionality of the Texas Sexually Violent Predator Civil Commitment law,
and
 the Texas congressional redistricting plan.�

Jack Welch to GOP: Run a real conservative in 2016


Republicans need to run a presidential candidate in 2016 like a Ted Cruz or a Rand Paul, not a Jeb Bush or a Chris Christie, management guru Jack Welch told CNBC on Monday.

Bush and Christie are "too middle of the road" to win the country, the conservative-leaning Welch said in a "Squawk Box" interview�a day before the 2014 midterm election in which Republicans hope to take control of the Senate.


"We have to give a hard look to [Sens.] Rand Paul and Ted Cruz," the former General Electric chief continued. "I saw Ted Cruz on your show the other morning. I thought he was fabulous."

Last week, Cruz, a tea party favorite from Texas, told CNBC the only way the GOP can win the White House in 2016 is to run a strong, conservative candidate. Otherwise, he said, presumptive Democrat Hillary Clinton will win. Cruz has been mentioned in political circles as a possible Republican contender in 2016, though he did not address the issue during his "Squawk Box" appearance on Thursday.


Welch agreed with Cruz, saying that playing to the middle has been losing strategy as evidenced by the losing campaigns of Sen. John McCain and former Gov. Mitt Romney.

"You got to give up on New York. You got to give up on California. Those are gone," he said. "Screw New York. You're going to lose New York. Forget it. Go to the country, this wonderful country, and present your ideas with an optimistic view."

"Ronald Reagan was attacked for the same things Ted Cruz is being attacked for," Welch said. "I would love to see the Republicans run somebody that they stand for."

HOUSTON, Texas -- Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) demanded that Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch answer questions as to whether she approves of President Obama�s plans to issue executive amnesty to illegal immigrants in this country. The comments came in response to the nomination of U.S. Attorney Lynch by President Obama to be the next Attorney General of the United States.

�President Obama�s Attorney General nominee deserves fair and full consideration of the United States Senate,� the Senators wrote in a statement obtained by Breitbart Texas, �which is precisely why she should not be confirmed in the lame duck session of Congress by senators who just lost their seats and are no longer accountable to the voters.�

�The Attorney General is the President's chief law enforcement officer,� they continued. �As such, the nominee must demonstrate full and complete commitment to the law. Loretta Lynch deserves the opportunity to demonstrate those qualities, beginning with a statement whether or not she believes the President�s executive amnesty plans are constitutional and legal.�

President Obama reiterated his threat to take executive action on illegal immigration after Congressional leaders met with him on Friday. The President responded to warning from Republicans about taking unilateral action by saying he has waited two years for congressional action on immigration and that his decision to take this action should not upend chances for cooperation on other matters before the nation according to the Washington Post.

I would have liked to been a fly on the kitchen wall this day...
11.4.14
In Alaska, even the moose help with "Get Out The Vote" efforts. This little guy has been door-knocking since summer!

Even our friend Senator Ted Cruz got to see him in the yard this weekend when the Senator stopped by for a bowl of moose chili (I assured him he wasn't eating this adorable ungulate's kin!).

All over the political spectrum it's so important we all exercise our right to vote. Our democracy is the envy of the world, and to protect it our country's bravest have sacrificed more than most of us will ever know. To honor their service, please vote.
- Sarah Palin (6 moose photos on her Facebook page)

Net neutrality 'puts the government in charge of determining Internet pricing, terms of service, and what types of products and services can be delivered, leading to fewer choices, fewer opportunities, and higher prices for consumers,' Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz wrote on Facebook.

'"Net Neutrality" is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government,' he added on Twitter.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-net-neutrality-rules.html#ixzz3IjPoZ0p3
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Can Mitch McConnell keep his �No government shutdowns� promise?


An executive order on immigration could provide an opening for conservative Republicans to again oppose funding the government

Standing just feet from the Senate chamber Thursday, Sen. Ted Cruz made a declaration that should give Majority Leader-elect Mitch McConnell pause.


"The only people who have ever threatened a government shutdown have been President Obama and [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid,� said Cruz, the Texas Republican who is widely regarded as the mastermind of the GOP�s 2013 government-shutdown strategy. �They forced a government shutdown last year. Nobody on the Republican side wants to see a government shutdown,� he said.

Moments after Cruz spoke, McConnell held a press conference on the other side of the chamber to celebrate his election as leader. �We will not be shutting the government down or threatening to default on the federal debt,� he declared, repeating a promise he�d made at his victory press conference after his re-election.

McConnell�s promise, however, is easier said than kept. And Cruz�s remarks underscore why.

Cruz had made exactly the same argument in 2013, just hours before provoking the first shutdown of the U.S. government since the 1990s, a closure that lasted 16 days and came with a $24 billion pricetag. �Let me be very, very clear. I do not believe we should shut down the federal government. The only reason we might shut down the federal government is if President Obama and Majority Leader Harry Reid decide they want to force a government shutdown,� Cruz said in September 2013.

Now Republicans on the Hill say they are anxious for Cruz or like-minded House conservatives to again take up the charge as they stand up to what they see as Democratic abuse of the levers of power in a two-party system.

Whereas the 2013 shutdown came on the heels of Republican opposition to the president over funding the Affordable Care Act�which passed Congress in 2010 with only Democratic support�congressional conservatives today are itching for a fight over Obama�s expected executive order on immigration, which could delay or prevent the deportation of up to 5 million undocumented people.

Cruz has already vowed to do anything in his power to stop Obama from carrying out his plan, and told Yahoo News that the party should aim to �get past the lame duck and into the next session� before passing a long-term spending bill so that ousted senators are not setting the long-term agenda.

Meanwhile, a growing group of House conservatives who oppose immigration changes, like Steve King of Iowa and Virginia�s Dave Brat�whose ads against �amnesty� helped him defeat former Majority Leader Eric Cantor�are now telling reporters that they would support a shutdown strategy in an attempt to force Obama to face broad national consequences if he issues an executive order on deportations.

Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said that Republicans will fight �tooth and nail� against such an executive order. Like McConnell, Boehner says he�d prefer to avoid another shutdown. But unlike McConnell, he has not taken shutdown off the table.

And while Republican leaders remember the tumult that the shutdown caused for the party � GOP favorability plummeted to 28 percent � conservatives point to the 2014 midterms as proof the effort did not hurt Republicans in the least.

The shutdown threats have thrown more moderate Republican aides into a tizzy.

�Everyone saw what a disaster it was,� said one senior Senate Republican aide. �There�s got to be a better way to succeed than shutting down the government. We have to be smarter than that.�

Republican aides approached for this story � especially on the Senate side, where GOP leaders are still high on their takeover of the majority � say the effort to fund the government will likely be �messy� and �difficult� if Obama issues the executive order before they can move on a spending bill of some kind.

Congress needs to approve some sort of spending bill before Dec. 11, when the current government-funding bill is set to expire.

Those Republicans who want to keep the government open disagree over the best way to do so.

Republicans could pass a short-term continuing resolution, a stopgap measure that maintains current spending levels, to keep the government open until the new year, when the new GOP Senate majority would have a greater say on how government money is appropriated. Before the threat of executive action, this was the prevailing position of conservatives who want more immediate influence on spending issues.

But establishment GOP leaders argue that approving a longer-term spending bill through the end of the fiscal year would not diminish the influence of the 2015 Republican majority. They have told members that approving this medium-term bill could help them restore the appropriations process by allowing the GOP-led Senate Appropriations Committee to write the sort of full, individual spending bills that were once the annual congressional norm.

That argument, however, has left some conservatives unsettled and worried that it means Republicans would be shirking their responsibility to take set spending levels and slash government spending as soon as they can. If unhappy conservatives decide en bloc not to vote for a long-term bill, and there�s no short-term alternative already worked up, a shutdown would ensue.

Confronting a shutdown even before taking up his post as majority leader would not be an ideal scenario for McConnell, given that Republicans are still going to need to experiment with how they will find the required 60 votes to break a filibuster on any bill. A spending bill that attracts a Cruz might not be able to pick off the moderate Democrats McConnell would need to get a bill through to the president�s desk.

At the same time, Democrats could gain politically in the short term if the Republicans deepen their rifts even before they�ve assumed the majority, or if they fail to find enough votes for any spending bill.

Democrats could benefit in other ways if Obama issues an immigration executive order before the government is funded in the lame-duck session. His move would help restore bonds with Latinos and advocacy groups who expected the order to be issued before the election. And it would force Republicans to put up or shut up on the shutdown threats, grinding the gears of government to a halt over what Democrats will surely paint as a last-ditch effort to keep Latino families together in the face of Republican opposition to immigration reform.

Reid, who will be minority leader in 2015, is backing Obama�s potential executive action.

�I strongly support the president�s use of his well-established authority to provide relief to families who continue to suffer under our broken immigration system. The President can and should act to provide this relief,� the Nevada Democrat said in a statement last week. �It is incumbent on responsible leaders within the Republican Party to work with Democrats and complete the business of keeping the government open in the coming weeks, regardless of when the President acts to provide relief to families.�


http://news.yahoo.com/can-mitch-mcconnell-keep-his--no-government-shutdowns--promise-203900896.html

Like taking candy from a baby. Almost as funny as those who post on here giving constitutional advice to Cruz who has stood in front of the Supreme Court.
on Breitbart TV 17 Nov 2014
On Sunday�s �State of the Union� on CNN, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) criticized his Republican colleague, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for his stance on the net neutrality issue.

�[Cruz] has it completely wrong and he just doesn't understand what this issue is,� Franken said. �We have had net neutrality the entire history of the Internet. So when he says this is the ObamaCare, ObamaCare was a government program that fixed something, that changed things. This is about reclassifying something so it stays the same. This would keep things exactly the same that they've been. And the pricing happens by the value of something."

Cruz�s office insists Franken missed the junior Texas senator�s earlier point in his criticism of the net neutrality proposal put forth by President Barack Obama. In a statement provided to Breitbart News from Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier, putting regulation in the hands of the government bureaucracy, specifically the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), would be a �radical and extreme� measure.

"In his remarks in Austin on Friday, Senator Cruz criticized net neutrality for the precise reason it would keep the Internet 'the same' as Senator Franken said,� the statement explained. �Allowing the government to regulate the Internet as a public utility would freeze innovation and prevent progress. It's radical and extreme to put the future of the Internet in the hands of a 5-member FCC panel influenced by lobbyists and politicians and unaccountable to regular, working Americans."

During that speech in Austin, Cruz illustrated the rationale behind that statement, by pointing out the differences in regulation of the Internet, currently under Title I of the Telecommunications Act, and Title II, which would allow for stricter FCC controls.

�This,� Cruz explained, pointing to an old landline telephone, �is regulated by Title II.�
�This is not,� he continued, holding up a smartphone. �Your smartphone, the Internet, the apps � all of this is outside of Title II.
The innovation is happening without having to go to government regulators and say, �Mother, May I?��

Senate Blocks Keystone XL Pipeline, NSA Reform Bills






11/19/2014 10:23 AM ET



In a sign of continued gridlock in Washington in the lame-duck session, the Senate voted Tuesday to block two separate bills approving construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and reforming the nation's domestic surveillance programs.

The Senate voted 59 to 41 in favor of a bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, falling one vote short of the 60 needed for passage.

All forty-five Senate Republicans voted to approve construction of the pipeline, joined by fourteen Senate Democrats.

Facing a tough runoff election next month, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., had been looking to build support for the bill but was unable to get fourteen other Democrats on board.

Republicans generally support construction of the pipeline, while the issue has divided Democrats amid concerns about the environmental impact and potential oil spills.

President Barack Obama stopped short of threatening to veto the bill but called on Congress to allow the State Department to complete its review of the project.

The pipeline is projected to ship up to 830,000 barrels of crude oil per day from Canada and Montana to Cushing, Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast area.

The project is expected to create about 2,000 jobs during a two-year construction period but only about 50 permanent jobs.

Earlier in the week, the Republican-controlled House voted 252 to 161 in favor of a bill to approve the pipeline. Just thirty-one Democrats joined with nearly all of the chamber's Republicans to pass the legislation.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ken., expressed disappointment in the Senate's failure to pass the bill but noted that the legislation will be brought back up when Republicans control the chamber next year.








Meanwhile, the Senate also fell short of the 60 votes needed to begin debate on a bill reforming the National Security Agency's bulk collection of phone records.

The Senate voted 58 to 42 to begin debate on the NSA reform bill, with the vote largely coming down along party lines.

Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., Dean Heller, R-Nev., Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Ak., were the only Republicans to vote in favor of the motion.

The bill, known as the USA Freedom Act, would prohibit the government from directly collecting bulk telephone metadata.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who introduced the bill, said, "Tonight, Senate Republicans have failed to answer the call of the American people who elected them, and all of us, to stand up and to work across the aisle."

"Once again, they reverted to scare tactics rather than to working productively to protect Americans' basic privacy rights and our national security," he added.

Earlier this year, House voted 303 to 121 in favor of a watered down version of the NSA reform bill, with 179 Republicans joining with 124 Democrats in voting to approve the legislation.

Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., Dean Heller, R-Nev., Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Ak., were the only Republicans to vote in favor of the motion



Good for them.

Ted Cruz says Obama will �threaten a shutdown�



GOP Sen. Ted Cruz said Wednesday that President Obama will "no doubt threaten a shutdown" with his upcoming executive action on immigration.

"[T]hat seems to be the one card he repeatedly plays � but Congress can authorize funding for agencies of government one at a time," Cruz (R-Texas) wrote in an op-ed published in Politico Magazine. "If the President is unwilling to accepting [sic] funding for, say, the Department of Homeland Security without his being able to unilaterally defy the law, he alone will be responsible for the consequences."

Cruz, who is widely considered to have been one of the primary actors in last year's shutdown, has frequently accused Democrats of causing the debacle. At the time, Cruz and various tea party conservatives refused to vote for a continuing resolution to fund the government unless the Affordable Care Act was defunded.

"Congress, representing the voice of the People, should use every tool available to prevent the President from subverting the rule of law," Cruz wrote. "If the President announces executive amnesty, the new Senate Majority Leader who takes over in January should announce that the 114th Congress will not confirm a single nominee�executive or judicial�outside of vital national security positions, so long as the illegal amnesty persists"

Congressional leaders have indicated they are averse to a shutdown, and incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has explicitly promising to avoid one.

�Let me make it clear: There will be no government shutdowns and no default on the national debt,� McConnell said on Nov. 5, the day after Republicans won control of the upper chamber.

The White House has also dismissed the possibility of a shutdown over the immigration action but has said the responsibility for avoiding such an action rests with Congress.

"I don't anticipate, based on the comments by Sen. McConnell and others, that there will be a government shutdown as a result of this," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said during Wednesday's press briefing.

Ted Cruz Calls On GOP To Answer Amnesty By Blocking All Obama Nominees

"...it becomes all the more imperative for Congress to act.�


B. Christopher Agee� November 20, 2014


As the countdown to Barack Obama�s amnesty announcement continues, many legislators opposed to the use of executive action on the issue are planning a response. As for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, he explained in a recent Politico article that his branch has several arrows in its quiver.

He cautioned that it would be up to congressional leaders in the new GOP-controlled session to pursue a specific course of action.


�When the president usurps the legislative power and defies the limits of his authority,� Cruz wrote, �it becomes all the more imperative for Congress to act.�

Unless it takes advantage of the remedies enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, he warned, the legislative branch will �lose its authority.�

The first step, Cruz wrote, should be blocking any and all nominees Obama sends to Congress during the final two years of his presidency.

�If the president announces executive amnesty,� he said, �the new Senate majority leader who takes over in January should announce that the 114th Congress will not confirm a single nominee�executive or judicial�outside of vital national security positions, so long as the illegal amnesty persists.�


Beyond this �significant deterrent to a lawless president,� Cruz explained that legislators can also use their fiscal authority to put an end to any amnesty order Obama decides to unilaterally enact.

He wrote that �the new Congress should exercise the power of the purse by passing individual appropriations bills authorizing critical functions of government and attaching riders to strip the authority from the president to grant amnesty.�

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest responded to a question regarding Cruz�s call to block Obama nominees by insisting the president has learned a lesson from the recent midterm election.

He said Obama is interested in �trying to find common ground and putting the interest of the nation ahead of partisan political ambition,� adding �we hope that Democrats and Republicans do the same.�

For many who want to see a secure border and the enforcement of the nation�s immigration laws, however, there is little hope for common ground. For that reason, Cruz has received significant support from conservatives across the U.S.

Read more at http://www.westernjournalism.com/te...king-obama-nominees/#ycpeKJ0zUotfqcbR.99

NRO: Ted Cruz Suggests Romney and Christie Will Run In 2016
By Joel Gehrke
11.25.14

Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) won�t be surprised if Mitt Romney runs for president against the� Chris Christie, the New Jersey Republican who angered conservatives with his embrace of President Obama when Hurricane Sandy struck just days before the 2012 election.

�There�s one bucket that, for lack of a better word, I�ll call the �moderate establishment� bucket. It�ll be some combination of Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney,� Cruz told a group of potential donors, according to the New York Observer. �My guess is two of the three will run. And my view is whoever�s in that bucket will raise tons of money. A lot of donors will rush to write them checks.

And yet if the nominee comes from that bucket, the same voters who stayed home in 2008 and 2012 will stay home again and Hillary�s the winner.�

Cruz�s prediction that �two of the three will run� seems to be the behind-closed-doors conventional wisdom in Republican circles, with the secondary premise that if Jeb Bush runs, Romney will stay out of the race. Christie is less of a deterrent, in this scenario.

Cruz has not been caught in a lie yet. Why do you think almost everybody in Washington hates him?

Columnist Pat Buchanan predicted that either Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) or Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) would be in the "finals" for the GOP nomination in 2016 on Friday's "McLaughlin Group."

"If you want to get the nomination, you don't worry about independents in a general election, you excite the base, the Tea Party, the conservatives, the activists, the libertarians, and this is exactly what Cruz is doing. And I think it's a correct strategy as a nomination strategy, it's risky in a general election" he stated.

Buchanan continued, "the guy that's going to do well, the individual, I think he's got to show some real passion and fire and energy and ability to communicate, and there's no doubt I would put Cruz in the top level there and the second one I would put behind him for rolling that route is Rand Paul. One of those two, I think, is going to get to the finals."

So say8ing "no new gun control" then introducing bills that do just that, is not a lie?

You mean the one the NRA wanted? I can't argue with an alternate reality.

Uh Oh!!!!

I wouldn't want to be you when Pat see's this.





Oops,,, too late.

I ain't BOWSINGER and Cruz ain't got boobs.

Neither did Sarah until she quit her job and sold a book.

GOP Colleagues Slam Cruz As Senate Averts Government Shutdown





As the Senate on Saturday passed a short-term spending bill to fund the government through Wednesday, many Republicans targeted Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for forcing lawmakers into an all-day session that left the timing of the $1.1 trillion spending bill�s completion in doubt.

Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate have reached an agreement to hold a vote Saturday night on the spending bill. A Senate Democratic leadership aide said the first of three votes related to the measure could come within the hour.

But passage of the bill was thrown into doubt after Cruz challenged the measure on Friday night. That led swiftly to the unraveling of an informal bipartisan agreement to give the Senate the weekend off, with a vote on final passage of the bill deferred until early this coming week.

That, in turn led Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to call an all-day Senate session to be devoted almost exclusively to beginning the time-consuming work on confirmation for as many as nine judicial appointees and an unknown number of nominees to administration posts.

The procedural move to delay a vote immediately drew ire from both sides.

Democrats accused Cruz of a publicity stunt. Republicans said the move was counterproductive as it won�t stop a vote on the spending bill and will expedite votes on several of President Barack Obama�s nominations.

As reporters tried to interview Cruz as he entered the Senate chamber in the Capitol, Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill shouted: "Quit giving him so much attention, that's exactly what's causing the problem!"

But the sharpest criticism came from Cruz's fellow Senate Republicans.

"I've seen this movie before, and I wouldn't pay money to see it again," Georgia GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson said between seemingly endless roll calls.

Asked if Cruz had created an opening for the Democrats, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch said, "I wish you hadn't pointed that out."

"You should have an end goal in sight if you�re going to do these type of things," Hatch added, "and I don�t see an end goal other than just irritating a lot of people."

Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake said the strategy doesn�t bode well for the new Republican-controlled Congress. "I fail to see what conservative ends were achieved," he told reporters.

But Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, praised Cruz for his opposition to a provision in the bill that would fund the executive orders Obama announced last month.

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions and Utah Sen. Mike Lee also opposed the Senate bill on those grounds.

"We strongly support Sens. Sessions, Cruz, and Lee as they fight to insure that the Congress does not appropriate funds for an unlawful, unconstitutional order," Martin said on Saturday. "We urge their colleagues to join them in that fight.

"This is not a fight about amnesty; this is a fight over whether or not America will remain a constitutional republic," she said.

During floor debate on Friday and later on Facebook, Cruz blamed Reid for the budget drama.

He said that the Nevada Democrat's "last act as majority leader is to, once again, act as an enabler" for the president by blocking a vote on Obama's policy that envisions work visas and deferred deportation for as many as 6 million immigrants living in the country illegally.





Cruz, a potential presidential candidate in 2016, charged that Reid was "going to an embarrassing length to tie up the floor to obstruct debate and a vote on this issue because he knows amnesty is unpopular with the American people, and he doesn't want the Democrats on the record as supporting it."

Democrats lost control of the Senate in November.

The legislative process remains in flux as the Senate was holding as many as 40 procedural votes on nominations on Saturday because the two parties couldn�t reach a deal on holding a vote on the budget bill.

"The other concern I have here now is the nominations that are going to get through that otherwise wouldn't," Hoeven said.

The list included Carolyn Colvin to head the Social Security Administration, Vivek Murthy to become surgeon general, Sarah Saldana as head of Customs and Immigration Enforcement, and Antony Blinken to the No. 2 position at the State Department.

Democrats did not provide a complete list, saying it might change. More than a dozen judicial nominations remained on the Senate's calendar, and dozens of appointees to administration positions.

Appearing irritated, some Republicans spoke with Cruz on the Senate floor about his actions. At another point, Cruz huddled in the rear of the chamber with Lee, who had supported him on Friday evening, and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, another tea party-backed lawmaker who said that he would not vote for the measure over the immigration issue.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told Fox News Saturday morning that he was surprised that both Cruz and Lee had gone over his head, but otherwise made no comments on the events.

Cruz suggested on the Senate floor that McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner should not be entirely trusted to keep their pledge to challenge Obama's immigration policy in the new Congress.

"We will learn soon enough if those statements are genuine and sincere," Cruz said.
It was not the first time Cruz has interrupted the parliamentary process to make clear his opposition to legislation. Last year, he led the drive to defund Obamacare that resulted in a 16-day partial government shutdown that cost American taxpayers $1.4 billion.

The $1.1 trillion spending bill provides funds for nearly the entire government through the Sept. 30 end of the current budget year.

The exception is the Department of Homeland Security, which is financed only until Feb. 27.

Republicans intend to try then to force the president to roll back his immigration orders that he announced in a Nov. 20 a prime-time speech on national cable television.

The events in the Senate quickly overshadowed developments in the House earlier in the week, when Democratic divisions were on display over the spending bill.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California opposed the bill, and publicly chastised Obama for giving it his support.

"I'm enormously disappointed that the White House feels that the only way to they can get a bill is to go along with this," she said during debate on the House floor on Thursday.

Ted Cruz's Strategy: To Hell With Independents


To hell with the independents. That�s not usually the animating principle of a presidential campaign, but for Ted Cruz�s, it just might be.

His strategists aren�t planning to make a big play for so-called independent voters in the general election if Cruz wins the Republican nomination. According to several of the senator�s top advisers, Cruz sees a path to victory that relies instead on increasing conservative turnout; attracting votes from groups � including Jews, Hispanics, and Millennials � that have tended to favor Democrats; and, in the words of one Cruz strategist, �not getting killed with independents.�

Twenty-three months from the presidential election, it seems all but a given that the freshman senator, who has been in Congress just two years, will mount a bid for the White House. �He�s looking at the race very seriously,� says a senior adviser, who confirms that Cruz�s campaign headquarters would be based in Houston. Cruz strategists see a way to win both the nomination and the general election. They are assiduously cultivating the party�s top-dollar donors, almost all of whom remain uncommitted. Internally, the senator has shaken up his staff to address problems and to set the stage for a presidential bid. All that�s left, it seems, is an official announcement.

[quote=ltppowell

I ain't BOWSINGER and Cruz ain't got boobs. [/quote]


Just for you....Babe...
http://www.palin-cruz.org/
Join our campaign! Palin-Cruz the Winning Ticket for 2016!!
The logical opponent for Hillary Clinton is Sarah Palin with a Ted Cruz chaser�� And if we want to take our country back and win in 2016, it is time to start pressuring Reince Priebus at the RNC to look at the obvious.
[�]
The left knew how much of a threat Sarah Palin was, and is, and colluded to demonize her using their progressive minions in the mainstream media with instructions to use any and every dirty trick in their bag of Alinsky tricks� already knowing that they would be running Hillary Clinton in 2016 and that Sarah Palin another tough woman but younger, prettier, principled and by then tested by the fire created by them, who had real accomplishments both personal and professional would be the Republican�s best shot to beat her� that is if common sense could get past the GOP party establishment that strangled the party in 2008 and 2012.

The Progressives organized a group of jour�no�lists including CFR operative Katie Couric to go after Palin and a created what is commonly know as Palin Derangement Syndrome� which still continues.� And it really is time that we re-exam it and are prepared to address those falsehoods with the truth and facts.

It is time that we, Republicans, Conservatives, Independents, Libertarians... Patriots of all stripes, arm ourselves with the truth, use common sense and start supporting Sarah Palin, a woman who has been vetted and tested and has a history of accomplishments, of being a fighter and what it takes to beat Hillary Clinton.. a women with an endless record of lies, scandals and very weak or questionable accomplishments.
[...]
And why Ted Cruz for VP?
The Key' for the GOP to both beat Hillary in 2016 and nullify the carrot of 'electing the first female president', is running Sarah Palin at the top of the ticket!!�
She is tough, charismatic, loved by average Americans, vetted and already tested like no candidate before her.�
Plus Palin's circle of supporters and influence is growing, while many of her detractors have had to publicly admit they were wrong about her and admit that she has been right about a long list of things, including Fannie and Freddie, death panels in ObamaCare, Putin invading the Ukraine and even about President Obama himself.

And there is a good crop of possible GOP VP choices for 2016 including Rand Paul, Allen West, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz.� So why Ted?

When you watch the reaction and reception for Ted Cruz virtually everywhere he goes, except in Washington D.C. and add his Cuban heritage as well as his understanding of the immigrant experience through his father; plus he and Palin being friends and simpatico politically you have a real winner for the GOP and for America and the American people!�

In his CPAC introduction of Sarah Palin in 2013, Ted Cruz credited his election to Sarah Palin, as do many she has endorsed and fought for.

Cruz and Palin were the bookends for CPAC 2014 and rocked the house!

Sarah Palin (consistently) tops the poll of women that Americans want to run for President.� Palin has highest favorability rating among GOP primary voters in poll after poll.
The Election of 2016 will be the battle for America�s soul and future. More and more people are saying, �Wouldn�t that be an amazing race� two women, Sarah verses Hillary running for President of the United States?� Yes it would be! Two women... two paths... polar opposites.� And it would be the first time in a long time that the American people had a clear choice as well as an interesting race!

And why Cruz for the number 2 spot... because for over a year now Palin and Cruz have vied for top spot on the GOP ticket in virtually every Straw Poll.�
Cruz is brilliant, brings in the Hispanic vote, understands what it is to be an immigrant through his father and is a fighter.�
Plus he and Palin are simpatico and agree on almost all issues.
Cruz credits Palin for his election to the Senate and calls her the Kingmaker and they appear together on behalf of candidates and at events regularly.

In our view, the fact that Palin, Cruz and Paul consistently hold down the top of the list of preferred candidates, in the polls with limited government constitutional conservatives like Senator Mike Lee, Dr. Ben Carson and Col. Allen West right behind, shows that the voters are searching for authenticity and real change and that it will be the determining factor in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. (We could support a Palin ticket with Paul, Lee, Carson or Allen in the number 2 spot, but as mentioned above, there are good reasons why a Palin-Cruz ticket is a winner!)...

White House Fears �President Cruz� Will Overturn Exec Amnesty



White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer conceded that he fears a President Ted Cruz will overturn President Barack Obama�s executive amnesty, perhaps signaling that Cruz represents the greatest threat to the progressive left.

�Our first 100 days we spent a lot of time signing executive orders undoing what [President George W.] Bush did, and I would like not to be sitting on a beach somewhere reading about President [Ted] Cruz doing that to us, so it�s very important to us,� Pfeiffer told the Wall Street Journal on Friday.

Earlier in the day, Pfeiffer declared that Obama�s executive amnesty was one of the reasons that made 2014 a �year of great progress� for the �progressive agenda.� He told the Journal that from the �perspective of advancing our agenda through our pen and our phone, this has been a tremendously successful year.�

Cruz, a potential 2016 heavyweight, would run as a bold conservative. And the conservative Texas Senator has not been ambivalent in the least about wanting to repeal Obamacare and reverse Obama�s executive amnesty.

Cruz has also, with his actions, made it clear that he isn�t the type of politician who campaigns as a conservative and then turns his back on the base as soon as he is elected. That, more than anything, is why the bipartisan permanent political class and Washington insiders despise him.

Despite his fears, though, Pfeiffer, according to the Journal, ultimately �predicted Obama�s administrative actions on immigration and Cuba will stand no matter who sits in the White House in 2017.�

From Bloomberg?
____


The Delayed-Reaction Victories of Ted Cruz


The Texas senator knows what he's doing.




As Republicans left Washington, the 113th Congress getting happily smaller in the rear-view, they were at war over a meme. Namely: Conservatives were pushing back, hard, against the idea that Texas Senator Ted Cruz staged a pointless fight and enabled the confirmation of some of Barack Obama's least confirmable nominees. The weekend before the recess, Cruz made a procedural objection -- a protest of the November "executive amnesty," which the spending agreement would not defund -- and senators who expected to skip down were forced to stay. That let Reid start the clock on a crew of Obama nominees, and set them up for weekday votes.

Many Republicans trashed Cruz, on the record. Many more Democrats thanked him. Cruz lost 20 Republicans on his procedural vote, which was read as a protest of his protest. And the Obama administration echoed the departing Democratic leadership of the Senate:

This fit so snugly, so Lego-like, into the standing narrative of Cruz that it took until mid-week for conservatives to craft their comebacks. Cruz's office was very satisfied with a take from Byron York, the well-sourced Washington Examiner reporter, who among other things recalled what Harry Reid had said at the start of the prior week. "Maybe we'll have to work the weekend and maybe even work next week," warned Reid. "We have a number of nominations we're going to do."

York took that seriously, because Reid had never shirked a vote just because it required Congress staying in session until the holiday. Any Capitol Hill reporter who arrived when Barack Obama won the presidency had covered Christmas Eve health care votes and a New Year's Eve showdown over the fiscal cliff. "If Cruz had not acted," York asked, "would Reid have said, 'Well, it looks like we would have to work all the way until Dec. 18 to finish these nominations, so let's just put them aside and go home and have a nice time, even though it's our party's last chance to pass them?' Does anyone believe Reid would have done that?"

Democrats scoffed at this. It was one thing to ask them to stay around for a generation-defining health care vote, and another to ask them to approve Vivek Murphy. But Cruz's office insisted that the reporters writing "GOP in disarray" stories had been hoodwinked. The weekend votes had moved up Reid's calendar; they hadn't given him any special powers. At most, they allowed him to release his senators two days early.

"Everyone knows Harry Reid planned to jam forward as many nominees as he could after the omnibus passed," wrote Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier in an email. "He made this clear to members last week, and his spokesperson confirmed so publicly. Unfortunately, there are many on both sides of the aisle who want to distract from the more important debate over the president�s unilateral action to grant amnesty. (Also it is na�ve to think that Harry Reid would end his tenure as majority leader, as President Obama�s No. 1 enabler, without pushing through everything he can)."

As ever, conservatives sided with the Cruz protest (as ever, a doomed and grasping protest) over the gripes of most Republicans. On talk radio, the senators who blamed Cruz for the Obama confirmations were obliterated.

"You sound like a bunch of munchkins,� said Mark Levin, one of the most influential talkers on the right. �Backbenchers. Immature! Stupid! Childish comments. I don�t know what this is going to add up to. I don�t know why we�re here. I�ve seen this movie before, and you�re so ineffective. You�re so impotent."

After Jeb Bush announced his presidential explorations, Rush Limbaugh offered that "a lot of this talk about the Jeb candidacy is an attempt to see if they can actually, once and for all, in a primary setting, relegate the Tea Party and members of it who are elected, such as Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, impotent. And I think that's the objective that they have. You look at the way they went after Ted Cruz when he stood up and tried to get a vote on whether or not what Obama was doing is unconstitutional."

Cruz could have predicted those reactions. He'd gotten them before�when he (and Utah Senator Mike Lee, his Sancho Panza) threatened to prevent a debate on post-Newtown gun bills, when he demanded that the 2013 spending packages defund the ACA. Every time, he was covered as Washington's least popular man; every time, he was welcomed home a hero. In speeches, his lonely campaigns became examples of how he challenged the establishment for a victory that only historians would understand. And so it would be with the great nomination jam of 2014.

Why Liberals Fear Ted Cruz


Cruz is different � a Princeton and Harvard man who not only matriculated at those fine institutions but excelled at them. Champion debater at Princeton. Magna cum laude graduate at Harvard. Supreme Court clerkship, on the way to Texas solicitor general and dozens of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Cruz is from the intellectual elite, but not of it, a tea party conservative whose politics are considered gauche at best at the storied universities where he studied. He is, to borrow the words of the 2009 H.W. Brands biography of FDR, a traitor to his class.

And his classmates. A Daily Beast piece the other day quoted fellow Princetonians who apparently can�t believe he turned out this way, �a man of calcified thinking, dangerously impervious to facts.�

Democrats and liberal pundits would surely dislike Cruz no matter where he went to school, but his pedigree adds an extra element of shocked disbelief to the disdain. �Princeton and Harvard should be disgraced,� former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell exclaimed on MSNBC, as if graduating a constitutionalist conservative who rises to national prominence is a violation of the schools� mission statements.

It almost is. Princeton and Harvard aren�t quite the �cole Nationale d�Administration, the French school that trains that country�s political class, but they are close.

In a Washington Post column a year ago, Dana Milbank noted Cruz�s schooling and concluded almost entirely on that basis that his tea party politics must be a put-on, that he is, underneath it all, an �intellectually curious, liberal-arts conservative.� Note the insulting assumption that an interest in books and ideas automatically immunizes someone from a certain kind of conservative politics.

One of the left�s deepest prejudices is that its opponents are stupid, and Cruz tramples on it. Chris Hayes of MSNBC actually says he fears Cruz�s brilliance. So should congressional witnesses. At hearings, Cruz has the prosecutorial instincts of a � Harvard-trained lawyer. Watching Attorney General Eric Holder try to fend off Cruz�s questioning on the administration�s drone policy a few months ago was like seeing a mouse cornered by a very large cat.

Cruz hasn�t played by the Senate rules that freshmen should initially be seen and not heard. In fact, he joined the upper chamber with all the subtlety of a SWAT team knocking down a drug suspect�s front door.

For people who care about such things � almost all of them are senators � this is an unforgivable offense. At another hearing, this one on guns, as Cruz says the highest commitment of senators should be to the Constitution, another senator can be heard muttering that he doesn�t like being lectured. Chairman Pat Leahy (probably the mutterer) eventually cuts him off and informs him he hasn�t been in the Senate very long.

Cruz lacks all defensiveness about his positions, another source of annoyance to his opponents, who are used to donning the mantle of both intellectual and moral superiority.

None of this is to endorse all of Cruz�s tactical judgments or to deny he can irk his own side of the aisle at times.

His push to defund Obamacare this fall is a grass roots-pleasing slogan in search of a realistic path to legislative fruition. Cruz never explains how a government shutdown fight would bring about the desired end. The strategy seems tantamount to believing that if Republican politicians clicked their wing tips together and wished it so, President Barack Obama would collapse in a heap and surrender on his party�s most cherished accomplishment.

It is no secret that Cruz, soon to be an erstwhile Canadian citizen, has presidential aspirations. Even if he ascends no higher, though, he will be a force in the Senate. He could spend decades making liberals recoil at what Princeton and Harvard hath wrought.

I know this will frost our local Nazi's balls, but found it worth mentioning.
_____


According to Politico, hawkish Texas senator is being billed as speaker in high-end getaways catering to religious Jews.



Wealthy American Jews planning their Passover vacation this spring will have a chance to hear one of Israel�s most ardent supporters � and, by extension, one of US President Barack Obama�s fiercest critics � in a resort near you.

Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas who is considering a run for the presidency, is listed as a speaker in a number of high-end vacation getaways that cater to religious Jews in the United States, according to the online magazine Politico.

The appearances by Cruz and a number of prominent rabbis are being promoted by Prime Hospitality Group.

According to Politico, the speeches have been booked by resorts in Aspen; Westlake Village, California; Monarch Beach, California; and Vieques Island, Puerto Rico.

The Westlake Village event is being billed as �intimate and personal and will feature the inspiring Rabbi Eli Mansour, Rabbi Daniel Mechanic, Rabbi Shlomo Einhorn, Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis, Malcolm Hoenlein and Senator Ted Cruz, surpassing all expectations.�

Cruz has been outspoken in his support of the Israeli government while denouncing the Obama administration for its policies toward Iran.

Earlier this year, he said America has no business dictating terms on issues of vital national security to Israel.

He placed the blame on the Palestinians for the recent failure of peace talks, saying �the principal impediment to peace is that, to date, the Palestinians have refused to recognize Israel�s right to exist as a Jewish state and have refused to renounce terror.

�Unless and until the Palestinians can agree on those very basic starting blocks, no lasting peace solution is likely,� he stated.

Cruz described Obama�s approach to Israeli-Palestinian talks as �to criticize and harangue and pressure the Israeli government.�

�The US should stand with Israel,� the senator said.

Consider Ted in their "Pocket"...

Let's hope. Better than Hollywood or Wall Street.

Ted Cruz's Best Idea Yet: Reform Taxes And Abolish IRS
28 Comments



Tax Reform: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2016, might have hit on the most important fiscal issue facing the U.S.: the need for major tax reform. But he takes it a step further.

Speaking Monday, the senator from Texas threw another thunderbolt: Republicans should use their control of Congress to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service.

"We need to pass fundamental tax reform making our tax code simpler, flatter, fairer," he told a crowd at a Heritage Foundation event. "And I'll tell you, the single most important tax reform, we should abolish the IRS."

It's not as radical as it sounds.

In recent years, the IRS has become overtly political, or "weaponized," as Cruz puts it. The IRS scandal, in which it "slow-walked" applications by Tea Party and other conservative groups to deny them nontax status during the 2012 presidential race, is but one example.

Its 110,000-person workforce has become a silent army working on behalf of progressive causes.

That, in itself, is bad enough. But as the Americans for Tax Reform point out in a recent blog post on their website, unless his agency gets more money, "IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has threatened delayed refunds, long call-wait times, the specter of identity theft, and now, no-show days for IRS employees."

In short, it's a dysfunctional agency that's lost its way.

The easiest way to get rid of the IRS, as Cruz suggests, is fundamental tax reform. But there are many other great reasons for reforming the code.

For one, the U.S. tax code has become so unfair, so complex, so burdensome and so costly that we have nothing to lose by changing it radically.

In a report to Congress in 2013, National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson told Congress that America's tax code now runs to well over 70,000 pages, with more than 30 million words � about 38 times larger than the King James Bible.

Individual taxpayers and businesses spend 6.1 billion hours each year filling out their taxes and complying with its laws � the equivalent of three million full-time employees working for a year.

Since 2001, there have been nearly 5,000 changes in the tax code � about one a day. No individual can keep up with it all. And all that complexity isn't free: It costs us $170 billion annually to fill out our taxes. Enough.

We've said before: we support a flatter, fairer tax, with lower taxes for all, paid for by spending cuts � not new taxes like the recent "bipartisan" gasoline tax hike.

Even basic tax reform, say economists, would be a winner. Just this week, a new study by the National Association of Manufacturers estimated that if tax reform were passed, over 10 years "the economy would grow by more than $12 trillion relative to Congressional Budget Office projections, investment would increase by more than $3.3 trillion and the economy would add 6.5 million jobs." Other studies find similarly large gains.

Today, our tax code resembles more a Rube Goldberg device than an efficient system for raising money to fund the necessary operations of our government. By all means, we should reform it. And while we're at it, as Cruz suggests, why not get rid of the IRS?


Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-edito...-by-getting-rid-of-irs.htm#ixzz3OzengQtd
Follow us: @IBDinvestors on Twitter | InvestorsBusinessDaily on Facebook

I sure like the sound of that !

Ted I can vote for and not hold my nose.

Great idea, but not exactly a new idea.

You're right, but if Cruz has shown nothing else...he does what he says he is going to do.

If the Republicans would actually get behind this, it might actually get done given the recent scandals and the continuing debacle of Obamacare.

The Establishment has way too much invested in "How to use the tax code for your benefit" to allow it to go away.

All they want is for the Corporate rate to be lowered.

They can BUY all the other changes they need.

We should also start a Daily Dose Of Reality, thread.

So... IN REALITY...... the big banks and Wall St. are both hossin' for the flat tax?

Cruz hires former Gingrich aide as political operation builds


HOUSTON — The political operation of potential 2016 presidential candidate Ted Cruz continued to beef up Monday as a top aide to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich signed onto the senator’s team.

Rick Tyler, Gingrich’s longtime spokesman who served as a top strategist to a super PAC that supported Gingrich’s 2012 presidential campaign, will join Cruz’s campaign-in-waiting to serve as a senior communications adviser.

“I am honored to come on board with Sen. Cruz and join the effort to make D.C. listen to the American people,” Tyler said in a statement. “I believe he will emerge as the conservative leader of the next generation because he understands that it is not ‘we the bureaucrats,’ but ‘we the people’ who make this nation exceptional.”

Tyler is the latest addition to the slowly-building political shop that would serve as the backbone of a likely Houston-based presidential campaign. Last fall, Cruz hired three other strategists to join the existing team that masterminded his 2012 upset victory over David Dewhurst: Jeff Roe, a Kansas-City based direct-mail strategist expected to play a top organizational role; Jason Miller, a communications adviser; and Laura Lofstrom, a national fundraising consultant.

Cruz has not yet announced aides who will advise him in the key early-primary states, but he has visited those states early and often ever since winning election to the Senate. Last month, Cruz spoke at gatherings in South Carolina and Iowa, and he will return to the Iowa and New Hampshire next month.

Later this month, on Feb. 20., Cruz will headline a GOP fundraising dinner in Florida.

Shame on you! And they holler at me for all my Palin posts...
You are coming up on your first year anniversary.

Might as well shoot for the moon. What they gonna do...make me were a tee shirt?

I found your T-shirt...

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is just over two weeks away. Senator Ted Cruz speaks on February 26th, and he wants you to join him there!
If you sign up to attend CPAC with Sen. Cruz today, you will have access to discounted tickets and hotel rooms, a free #CruzCrew t-shirt and a photo line with Sen. Cruz.  o don't wait -- sign up today and stay tuned for other exciting opportunities!

Student Ticket: $25 (Save $55)
Single Day Ticket: $62.50 (Save $62.50)

Please join Sen. Ted Cruz and thousands of other conservative activists, leading conservative organizations, educational institutions, elected officials, thought leaders and conservative media from across the country at CPAC. We hope to see you there!

It will match my bumper sticker. You writing off Ted because Bob's betting against him?

No I am not writing off Ted.
But
It is just not fair that you have this long thread and a bumper sticker and now a Ted T-shirt.

I'm a gonna make good on my threat to start Your Daily Dose of Sarah.
Perfect timing as today is her birthday.

No problem. There are several good candidates out there. I just like Ted best and have sworn to do what little I can to educate people about him. I have no misconceptions about his chances of being POTUS, but I want everybody to know that his biggest disadvantage in Washington is honesty.

+1

2/14/15
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) urged members of the public not to believe promises of “if you like your Internet, you can keep your Internet” in a speech on Thursday.

Cruz declared “don’t mess with the Internet.” And asked “which has greater innovation, the United States Post Office or Facebook and Twitter? Which has greater innovation, taxi commissions in local cities or Lyft and Uber? Every time you put unelected bureaucrats in charge of a market, they stifle innovation and what they also do is they favor the big boys. If you think for a minute that the FCC is going to listen to small start-ups, than you’re ignoring the history of every other instance of regulation.”

He continued, “If the FCC turns the Internet into a regulated public utility, the innovation, the creativity that has characterized the Internet from its dawn, will inevitably be stifled. Now Title II by the way, gives all sorts of authority to regulate pricing and terms of service, and one of the implications if the Internet is regulated under Title II is 11 billion dollars a year in new taxes…I would encourage each of you, do not accept the promise of Washington politicians who are telling all of us, ‘if you like your Internet, you can keep your Internet.’ That promise cannot be trusted, and I hope that we all stand together defending freedom on the Internet in every respect.”

Cruz also added “here’s where the FCC says, ‘no don’t worry, we won’t collect those taxes, we’re going to exercise forbearance,’ I don’t know if you’ve heard the ancient fable about the frog who gives the scorpion a ride across the river, and half way across the river the scorpion stabs the frog and they both sink under the water and as they’re going under, the frog says, ‘why, now we both will die’, and the scorpion tells the frog, ‘because it is my nature.’ I promise you, it is the nature of the government regulators, if they have it, they will use it, 100 percent of the time, it will grow, the taxes will come.”
(h/t The Right Scoop)

Is it any wonder why Washington hates him?

2/17/15 Sen. Ted Cruz has hailed a court ruling that slams the brakes on President Barack Obama's immigration actions, calling it a "turning point" in the GOP's fight against amnesty.

In an interview with conservative radio host Mark Levin on Tuesday, the Texas Republican noted the "major victory for the rule of law" also could call into question the constitutionality of the immigration actions.

"The president has put Senate Democrats in an impossible position politically," Cruz pointed out, according to The Hill, setting them up "to force implementation of conduct by the president that the federal court has concluded is illegal."

"I think that appeal will work its way through the system," Cruz told Levin, according to The Hill. "In the Senate, it will come down to the Democrats and [whether they are] willing to blink."

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.Newsmax.com/Newsfront/te...ling/2015/02/17/id/625364/#ixzz3S6s3yWmd
Urgent: Rate Obama on His Job Performance. Vote Here Now!

Breitbart TV 2/17/15
On Tuesday’s “Mark Levin Show,” Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that President Obama’s “feckless and naive” foreign policy makes Jimmy Carter’s look “resolute.”

“We are seeing the manifest disaster of the Obama/Clinton/Kerry foreign policy. Leading from behind doesn’t work. And you know one person in this country thrilled at the job Barack Obama’s doing is Jimmy Carter.  Because suddenly Carter’s foreign policy seems resolute compared to the absolutely feckless and naive lack of leadership from this administration” he stated.

Cruz continued, “the president consistently refuses to utter the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism,’ he will not say it, we saw the president say with regard to the horrific terrorist attack in Paris that it was a quote ‘random’ act of violence.
It was not a random act of violence when radical Islamists went into a kosher deli to murder Jews because of their Jewish faith, that was not random, it was anti-Semitic religious bigotry and zealotry and we need a president who stops this politically correct doublespeak and simply speaks the truth.”

Ted talks a lot but he doesn't seem to get much done.
Talks cheap

What's he supposed to be doing that he's not?

_____


S. 435: A bill to amend chapter 1 of title 1, United States Code, with regard to the definition of “marriage” and “spouse” for Federal purposes and to ensure respect for State regulation of marriage.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Feb 10, 2015

Referred to Committee: Feb 10, 2015


S. 336: ObamaCare Repeal Act

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Feb 2, 2015

Referred to Committee: Feb 2, 2015


S. 339: ObamaCare Repeal Act

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Feb 2, 2015

Reported by Committee: Feb 3, 2015


S. 274: A bill to prohibit the Department of the Treasury from assigning tax statuses to organizations based on their political beliefs and activities.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jan 28, 2015

Referred to Committee: Jan 28, 2015


S. 273: A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the intentional discrimination of a person or organization by an employee of the Internal Revenue Service.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jan 28, 2015

Referred to Committee: Jan 28, 2015


S. 247: Expatriate Terrorist Act

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jan 22, 2015

Referred to Committee: Jan 22, 2015


S. 249: Operation United Assistance Tax Exclusion Act of 2015

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jan 22, 2015

Referred to Committee: Jan 22, 2015


S. 2965: Operation United Assistance Tax Exclusion Act of 2014

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Nov 20, 2014

Referred to Committee: Nov 20, 2014


S. 2779: Expatriate Terrorists Act

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Sep 8, 2014

Reported by Committee: Sep 9, 2014


S. 2672: Sanction Iran, Safeguard America Act of 2014

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jul 28, 2014

Referred to Committee: Jul 28, 2014


S.Con.Res. 41: A concurrent resolution denouncing the use of civilians as human shields by Hamas and other terrorist organizations in violation of international humanitarian law.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jul 24, 2014

Referred to Committee: Jul 24, 2014


S. 2666: Protect Children and Families Through the Rule of Law Act

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jul 24, 2014

Reported by Committee: Jul 28, 2014


S. 2631: A bill to prevent the expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program unlawfully created by Executive memorandum on August 15, 2012.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jul 17, 2014

Reported by Committee: Jul 21, 2014


S. 2579: A bill to require the Secretary of State to offer rewards totaling up to $5,000,000 for information on the kidnapping and murder of Naftali Fraenkel, a dual United States-Israeli citizen, that began on June 12, 2014.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jul 9, 2014

Reported by Committee: Jul 10, 2014


S. 2577: A bill to require the Secretary of State to offer rewards totaling up to $5,000,000 for information on the kidnapping and murder of Naftali Fraenkel, a dual United States-Israeli citizen, that began on June 12, 2014.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jul 9, 2014

Passed Senate: Jul 29, 2014


S.Res. 487: A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. should appoint a special counsel or prosecutor to investigate the targeting of conservative nonprofit groups by the Internal Revenue Service.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jun 26, 2014

Referred to Committee: Jun 26, 2014


S.Res. 482: A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that the area between the intersections of International Drive, Northwest Van Ness Street, Northwest International Drive, Northwest and International Place, Northwest in Washington, District of C

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jun 24, 2014

Referred to Committee: Jun 24, 2014


S. 2510: Guantanamo Bay Detainee Transfer Suspension Act of 2014

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jun 19, 2014

Referred to Committee: Jun 19, 2014


S. 2415: SuperPAC Elimination Act of 2014

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jun 3, 2014

Referred to Committee: Jun 3, 2014


S. 2416: Free All Speech Act of 2014

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jun 3, 2014

Referred to Committee: Jun 3, 2014


S. 2195: A bill to deny admission to the United States to any representative to the United Nations who has been found to have been engaged in espionage activities or a terrorist activity against the United States and poses a threat to United States nation

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Apr 1, 2014

Enacted — Signed by the President: Apr 18, 2014


S. 2170: American Energy Renaissance Act of 2014

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Mar 27, 2014

Referred to Committee: Mar 27, 2014


S. 2073: A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the intentional discrimination of a person or organization by an employee of the Internal Revenue Service.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Feb 27, 2014

Referred to Committee: Feb 27, 2014


S. 2072: A bill to prohibit the Department of the Treasury from assigning tax statuses to organizations based on their political beliefs and activities.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Feb 27, 2014

Referred to Committee: Feb 27, 2014


S. 2067: A bill to prohibit the Department of the Treasury from assigning tax statuses to organizations based on their political beliefs and activities.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Feb 27, 2014

Reported by Committee: Mar 3, 2014


S. 2066: A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the intentional discrimination of a person or organization by an employee of the Internal Revenue Service.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Feb 27, 2014

Reported by Committee: Mar 3, 2014


S. 2024: State Marriage Defense Act of 2014

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Feb 12, 2014

Reported by Committee: Feb 24, 2014


S.Res. 328: A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate on steps the Government of Iran must take before further bilateral negotiations between the Government of Iran and the United States Government occur.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jan 6, 2014

Referred to Committee: Jan 6, 2014


S. 1661: A bill to require the Secretary of State to offer rewards of up to $5,000,000 for information regarding the attacks on the United States diplomatic mission at Benghazi, Libya that began on September 11, 2012.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Nov 7, 2013

Reported by Committee: Nov 12, 2013


S. 1594: A bill to designate the United States courthouse located at 101 East Pecan Street in Sherman, Texas, as the Paul Brown United States Courthouse.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Oct 29, 2013

Referred to Committee: Oct 29, 2013


S.J.Res. 23: A joint resolution making continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Oct 2, 2013

Referred to Committee: Oct 2, 2013


S.Res. 252: A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate on steps the Government of Iran must take before President Obama meets with the President of Iran.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Sep 24, 2013

Referred to Committee: Sep 24, 2013


S.Res. 225: A resolution to express the sense of the Senate that Congress should establish a joint select committee to investigate and report on the attack on the United States diplomatic facility and American personnel in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Sep 12, 2013

Referred to Committee: Sep 12, 2013


S. 1336: A bill to amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to permit States to require proof of citizenship for registration to vote in elections for Federal office.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jul 18, 2013

Reported by Committee: Jul 18, 2013


S. 1292: Defund Obamacare Act of 2013

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jul 11, 2013

Reported by Committee: Jul 16, 2013


S. 729: Disarm Criminals and Protect Communities Act

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Apr 15, 2013

Reported by Committee: Apr 16, 2013


S. 730: Firearm Straw Purchasing and Trafficking Prevention Act

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Apr 15, 2013

Reported by Committee: Apr 16, 2013


S. 505: A bill to prohibit the use of drones to kill citizens of the United States within the United States.

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Mar 7, 2013

Reported by Committee: Mar 11, 2013


S. 177: ObamaCare Repeal Act

Sponsor: Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]

Introduced: Jan 29, 2013

Reported by Committee: Jan 30, 2013

Cruz has authored 70 United States Supreme Court briefs and presented 43 oral arguments, including nine before the United States Supreme Court. Cruz's record of having argued before the Supreme Court nine times is more than any practicing lawyer in Texas or any current member of Congress. Cruz has commented on his nine cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court: "We ended up year after year arguing some of the biggest cases in the country. There was a degree of serendipity in that, but there was also a concerted effort to seek out and lead conservative fights."

In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz drafted the amicus brief signed by attorneys general of 31 states, which said that the D.C. handgun ban should be struck down as infringing upon the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Cruz also presented oral argument for the amici states in the companion case to Heller before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

In addition to his success in Heller, Cruz has successfully defended the constitutionality of the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds before the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court, winning 5-4 in Van Orden v. Perry.

In 2004, Cruz was involved in the high-profile case, Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, in which Cruz wrote a U.S. Supreme Court brief on behalf of all 50 states. The Supreme Court upheld the position of Cruz’s brief.

Cruz served as lead counsel for the state and successfully defended the multiple litigation challenges to the 2003 Texas congressional redistricting plan in state and federal district courts and before the U.S. Supreme Court, which was decided 5-4 in his favor in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry.

Cruz also successfully defended, in Medellin v. Texas, the State of Texas against an attempt by the International Court of Justice to re-open the cases of 51 Mexican nationals, all of whom were convicted of murder in the United States and were on death row. With the support of the George W. Bush Administration, the International Court of Justice argued that the United States had violated a treaty by failing to notify the convicted nationals of their opportunity to receive legal aid from the Mexican consulate. Texas won the case in a 6-3 decision.

some of these guys have no clue Pat....

It is hard to tally potential presidential candidate numbers when they do not include the lady who just said she was ready for Hillary.

Your WSJ link listed over 404,000 followers for Cruz on Twitter and 2.83M for Hillary. I looked up Palin at 1.13M.

On Facebook, Cruz has over 2M followers, Hillary is not on Facebook, Palin is at 4.53M.

Exactly, lots of talk, IE referred or reported to committee, not much accomplished in congress.

So how is that the fault of Ted Cruz? He is in the Senate doing what Texas sent him there to do.

He is a Senator, not a Dictator.

Ted Cruz just compared Obama to Richard Nixon


Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is not a fan of his Democratic colleagues' "disturbing" unwillingness to criticize President Barack Obama's executive actions that protected undocumented immigrants from deportation.

"It's very interesting. Democratic senators privately will admit all sorts of things," Cruz mused during a Newsmax TV interview published Monday. "But it's really disturbing: Democratic senators have been unwilling to stand up to this president, really on almost anything."

Cruz, a likely 2016 presidential contender, compared this alleged slavishness to Obama to how Republicans reacted when one of their own, former President Richard Nixon, was in the middle of the 1972 Watergate scandal.

"We've had presidents in the past who have abused power. But when that has happened: When Richard Nixon abused power, Republican senators stood up to him and said, 'Mr. President, you've gone too far.' In fact, it was Republican senators who went to the Oval Office, … and said, 'Mr. President, it's time for you to resign,'" Cruz recalled. "What is strikingly missing are Democratic senators who have more commitment to the Constitution and rule of law than they do to their party."

Newsmax anchor John Bachman pointed out to Cruz that Democratic senators today would likely say Obama's controversies are not on the same scale as Watergate, which featured a massive White House cover-up and a burglary at the Democratic Party's national headquarters.

"Perhaps," Cruz responded.

Cruz then quickly shifted the discussion to the Obama's administration's IRS controversy, in which conservative-leaning groups were subjected to more tax scrutiny.

"But the point is when the IRS targeted citizens' groups for their political views, Democrats circled ranks around the president," Cruz said. "To be honest, Nixon tried to use the IRS to target his political enemies; President Obama's administration succeeded."


http://www.businessinsider.com/ted-cruz-just-compared-obama-to-richard-nixon-2015-2#ixzz3SfX5AIYu

Ted Cruz surges ahead of Rick Perry in Texas poll
By Nick Gass 2/23/15
Sen. Ted Cruz leads a crowded field for the Republican presidential nomination in Texas, according to a University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll released on Monday.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker grabbed 2 percent of the vote in the last such poll in October, but he has surged to a close second. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whom 14 percent of Republican voters would have chosen in October, fell to fifth place in a wide-open field.

Twenty percent of those surveyed went for Cruz with Walker pulling in 19 percent. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and neurosurgeon Ben Carson followed, each with 9 percent, and Perry at 8 percent.

Next, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 5 percent, Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida at 4 percent, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at 3 percent, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 2 percent. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and former business executive Carly Fiorina each drew 1 percent. Thirteen percent of those surveyed replied that they hadn’t thought about it enough to form an opinion.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton surged to 62 percent in the Lone Star State, 50 percentage points in front of second-place Elizabeth Warren, who has repeatedly said she will not seek the nomination.

The online poll was conducted between February 6-15 and included 1,200 registered voters. It has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points, and the Republican sample polling 547 voters carries a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points. The Democratic sample polling of 401 voters has a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/ted-cruz-rick-perry-texas-poll-115418.html#ixzz3ScUFC9eK

Walker and Cruz are cut from the same cloth. I like 'em.

Iowa Ag Summit Applauds Ted Cruz Even When He Opposes Their Interests

Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) managed to turn a disagreement with a crowd of Iowa businesses and farmers into an applause line at the Iowa Agriculture Summit. Cruz reiterated his opposition to the Renewable Fuels Standard, a popular policy in Iowa that presents a thorny problem for many Republicans who campaign against crony capitalism but want to win the GOP presidential nomination. “I recognize that this is a gathering of a lot of folks where the answer you’d like me to give is ‘I’m for the RFS, darnit;’ that’d be the easy thing to do,” he said. “But I’ll tell you, people are pretty fed up, I think, with politicians who run around and tell one group one thing, tell another group another thing, and then they go to Washington and they don’t do anything that they said they would do. And I think that’s a big part of the reason we have the problems we have in Washington, is there have been career politicians in both parties that aren’t listening to the American people and aren’t doing what they said they would do.”

And the crowd applauded, giving Cruz the warmest welcome so far in a day that has already featured Jeb Bush, Governor Chris Christie (R., N.J.) — who stated his support for the RFS — former Governor Mike Huckabee (R., Ark.), and former Governor Rick Perry (R., Texas). They interrupted to clap at times throughout his discussion of immigration policy, as well. The audience welcomed Cruz’s statement that “we’ve got to finally get serious about securing the border and stopping the problem of illegal immigration.” That’s the first aspect of a two-part immigration bill that he thinks would easily pass Congress. “If we focused on the areas of bipartisan agreement, if we focused on securing the borders and improving legal immigration, we could craft legislation that would sail through Congress,” Cruz said, before saying that Obama is holding up those issues for partisan reasons. The Texas freshman didn’t say what policy he would support with respect to illegal immigrants already in the country, except to say that “amnesty is wrong” and emphasize that “there has been no one more vigorous in fighting President Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty than I’ve been.”

The show of support contrasted with the silence that met Jeb Bush’s summary of his preferred immigration policy, even among a crowd of “business Republicans” who might be presumed to back Bush more readily than Tea Party conservatives. Bush, earlier in the day, gave a detailed summary of his immigration position. On the issues that they both addressed, Cruz and Bush seem to agree; but Bush took it one step further. “Immigrants that are here need to have a path to legalized status,” Bush told the staid crowd. “What we need to do is to make sure people pay fines, that they learn English, that they work, that they don’t receive government assistance, that they earn legalized status over the long haul, that they come out from the shadows so that they can be productive with a provisional work permit. This is the only serious, thoughtful way, I think, to deal with this.”

Cruz received another round of applause when he returned to the honesty theme. “When I tell you that I will fight with every breath in my body to stop the government regulation that is strangling farms and ranches; that is strangling small businesses; that is killing job growth; when I tell you I’ll fight the EPA from expanding [the definition of] waters of the United States; when I tell you that I’ll fight to stop Obamacare or executive amnesty, then you know you can count on that, that I’m going to do what I said I would do, and I’m going to tell you the truth.”

This is why Washington hates Cruz and why he will win the Presidency by landslide if he can survive the onslaught.

I hope he does.

Don’t dismiss Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz is being called a Republican Obama, but he has not exactly gotten an Obama-like reception from the mainstream media.

Liberal commentators have, predictably, beclowned themselves in the wake of Cruz’s presidential announcement. Chris Matthews (the guy who “felt a thrill going up his leg” when Barack Obama spoke during the 2008 campaign) compared Cruz to Sen. Joe McCarthy, even showing pictures of McCarthy and Cruz in the same pose. Ebony magazine Senior Editor Jamilah Lemieux told MSNBC that Cruz likes country music because “nothing says ‘let’s go kill some Muslims’ like country music.” On “Morning Joe,” Donny Deutsch said, “I think he’s scary, I think he’s dangerous, I think he’s slimy.”

What the left does not seem to understand is that all of these attacks help Cruz. As one Cruz associate told me, “America hates Washington. Washington hates Cruz.” Not bad.

It’s not just the liberal commentariat that is attacking Cruz. Here is how the New York Times “reported” Cruz’s announcement on its front page: “Mr. Cruz’s tenure in Washington has been marked by accusations of demagogy. He sometimes deploys the soaring diction of a preacher while staking out uncompromising and rigid conservative positions, often playing the role of political flamethrower.” That’s not an editorial; that’s a news story.

Contrast that with how the Times reported then-Sen. Obama’s presidential announcement in 2007. Obama, the Times declared, was launching “a journey rich with historic possibilities and symbolism . . . Speaking smoothly and comfortably, Mr. Obama offered a generational call to arms, portraying his campaign less as a candidacy and more as a movement.” You can almost hear the strains of “Hail to the Chief” in the background.


NBC News, for its part, called Obama in 2007 “the ‘rock star’ of the Democratic Party.” No rock star analogies for Cruz – even though Cruz got a rock star’s welcome in a stadium before thousands of cheering Liberty University students. (Okay, maybe he’s a Christian rock star).

But the one criticism that does seem to get under Cruz’s skin is the comparison with Obama. “There have been a lot of folks throwing that attack,” Cruz told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly. “In his time in the Senate, he was basically a backbencher. . . . In my time in the Senate, there are a lot of faults I’ve had, but nobody would accuse me of being a backbencher.”

Perhaps Cruz should not be so quick to dismiss the analogy. Both men are constitutional lawyers with Harvard degrees and inspiring personal stories, who rose to national prominence on the basis of their immense talent as political orators (though Cruz seems to be far less dependent on a teleprompter than Obama is). Both appeal to the base of their parties – Obama the anti-war left, Cruz the tea party right. Both have challenged their party’s establishment candidates – in Obama’s case, a Clinton; in Cruz’s case, a Bush. And both launched historic candidacies with the promise of presidencies that would break down racial barriers – Obama as the first black president, Cruz the first Hispanic to hold the office. Nothing there at which to take offense.

Unlike Obama in 2007, however, Cruz has taken some friendly fire from his own side. The Wall Street Journal called him “polarizing” and an “opportunist.” Charles Krauthammer noted that Cruz has a “liquid tongue” but few accomplishments, and that “we already tried a first-term senator.” The fact is, Cruz makes some on the right uneasy – not for ideological but for tactical reasons. The government shutdown over Obamacare, which launched Cruz into the conservative stratosphere, was a strategic disaster, and a foreseeable one at that. The rap on Cruz is that he knew the fight was unwinnable, but he did it anyway – because while it hurt the GOP, it helped Ted Cruz.

Cruz has made this uncompromising approach his calling card, appealing to the conservative base as a fighter who does not back down, so these are legitimate questions for debate. But while the left (and some on the right) may hate Cruz, it would be a mistake to underestimate him. He’s whip smart, preternaturally articulate and an accomplished lawyer with a fervent base of supporters. He is a legitimate candidate who resonates with a base that is sick of settling for candidates like Mitt Romney and John McCain.

Those who dismiss Cruz as a “Republican Obama” should not forget what we call Obama today: Mr. President.

http://www.washingtonpost.com

Exclusive: New Ted Cruz Super-PACs Take in Record Haul


The Texas senator's supporters throw down a marker in the fundraising sweepstakes—$31 million raised in less than a week.

Ted Cruz’s presidential effort is getting into the shock-and-awe fundraising business.

An associate of the Texas senator, a recently announced presidential candidate, tells Bloomberg that a cluster of affiliated super-political action committees was formed only this week, and among them they are expected to have $31 million in the bank by Friday.

Even in the context of a presidential campaign cycle in which the major party nominees are expected to raise more than $1.5 billion, Cruz’s haul is eye-popping, one that instantly raises the stakes in the Republican fundraising contest.

“Our goal is to guarantee Senator Cruz can compete against any candidate. ”


Although super-PACs have radically changed the pace at which committees backing presidential candidates can raise money, the Cruz haul is remarkable. There are no known cases in which an operation backing a White House hopeful has collected this much money in less than a week.

Those involved in the Cruz super-PACS say many of his biggest financial backers haven’t yet made contributions to the new organizations and are expected to do so in the coming months. By law, super-PACS can accept unlimited contributions from individuals.

From his time as a Senate candidate in 2012, Cruz has been one of the country’s most aggressive and successful super-PAC fundraisers. His political team has calculated from the start of their planning for a presidential campaign that his overall operation would be able to keep pace with rivals in part because of a robust super-PAC operation. They have talked among themselves about the names of numerous wealthy Cruz backers who they fully expect will contribute several million dollars each.

Still, even some Cruz supporters, and many others who have been skeptical that his candidacy could draw significant financial support, are certain to be stunned by this initial round of contributions.

While former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is universally expected to easily lead all other Republican presidential candidates in financial backing, a hotly debated topic in political circles has been who would finish second to Bush in money raised by the end of 2015. This week’s apparent lightning strike could help Cruz claim that spot, possibly besting other leading prospects such as Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, former Texas Governor Rick Perry, and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

Cruz’s campaign is also expected to raise money competitively at the grassroots level through the Internet and small-dollar contributions, as well as through traditional bundling of so-called hard dollar checks, which are subject to limits of $2,700 per election per individual. Either of those methods, of course, would require significantly more than a week to generate $31 million.

According to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, the treasurer for the cluster of new super-PACS is Dathan Voelter, an Austin, Texas, attorney who is a longtime friend and financial backer of Cruz. All three PACS have a variant of the name “Keep the Promise.”

A document prepared by the super-PAC organizers says they “are committed to raising the resources necessary to promote Senator Cruz in his efforts to win the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.” The document quotes Voelter as saying, “We’re just getting started … Our goal is to guarantee Senator Cruz can compete against any candidate. Supporters of the Senator now have a powerful vehicle with the resources necessary to aid in his effort to secure the Republican nomination and win back the White House.” The document describes those “leading the financial charge” as “a group of close, personal friends of Senator Cruz, who share his conservative vision for America.”

According to the source close to Cruz, more than $20 million of the $31 million is expected by Wednesday, with the rest due in by the end of the week. Those cash figures could not be independently confirmed by Bloomberg, and sources declined to provide financial documents to support the claim.

The group does not plan to reveal the names or number of donors until they are legally required to do so, at the end of the FEC reporting period on July 15.

According to a person familiar with the workings and financing of the new super-PACs, many of the donors are former backers of George W. Bush and Perry. Bush’s brother, of course, and Perry himself, are seeking the White House now, which makes Cruz’s coup that much more impressive. A Houston-area associate of Cruz’s has led the effort to pull together the donors, many of whom are Texans and New Yorkers.

The PAC names are “Keep the Promise,” “Keep the Promise II,” and “Keep the Promise III.” An internal document describing the groups’ intentions says, “Every PAC in the Keep the Promise network will fully comply with all disclosure and recordkeeping obligations set forth in federal law. The use of multiple PACS, however, will allow Keep the Promise to uniquely and flexibly tailor its activities in support of Senator Cruz and afford donors greater control over PAC operations.”

In a cover letter dated April 6, sent to the FEC along with the formal filings for the three super-PAC entities, Voelter says that the trio “are affiliated with one another for legal and regulatory purposes.” It lists an Austin post office box as their shared address, and the Fifth Third Bank in Atlanta as the place where funds are being deposited.

The document from the group says that “Keep the Promise can provide the ‘appropriate air cover’ in the battle against Senator Cruz’s opponents in the Washington establishment and on the political left. We plan to support the effort of millions of courageous conservatives who believe 2016 is our last opportunity to ‘keep the promise’ of America for future generations.”

Looks like Ted grabbed the brass ring after all.

http://blogs.forward.com/forward-thinking/217569/is-ted-cruz-leading-in-sheldon-adelson-primary/?

You'd rather Bush get that money? It's going to somebody.

It's all just a soap opera to me.

A representative of the government will be elected and they'll do what they're told to do,....which is what they've been doing for a long, long time.

Shock-And-Awe fundraising. Let's hope he's a bush/RINO kller. He may be the only hope.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/a...-ted-cruz-super-pacs-take-in-record-haul

poor walt.

Ted took the day off to let Rand block a little.

An associate of the Texas senator, a recently announced presidential candidate, tells Bloomberg that a cluster of affiliated super-political action committees was formed only this week, and among them they are expected to have $31 million in the bank by Friday.

Who are these people and what is their agenda?

This much I *do* know.

Ain't nobody contributing $31 million dollars to a candidate's campaign because they want to help out the common man.

When you see super PACs dumping multi millions of dollars into a campaign fund, they're purchasing the government to use for their own benefit.

Government in the U.S.A. is for sale to the high bidder.

Ain't nobody on this forum gonna be the high bidder.

Cruz PACS contributors do not have to be named until July. The main four in this group are loosely grouped under the name Keep the Promise.

Cruz has also demonstrated in the past the ability to raise a lot of small donations.

In other words, you don't know.

I donated to one of them. Got a bumper sticker too.

It's mildly amusing that you've reached the age you have and are shocked, shocked to find that people give money to other people because they want something in return.

I damn sure am.

yeah, yeah,...shalom to you too.

most everyone wants bang for their buck


but there's folks on both sides of the aisle that believe they know what makes this country great and will put money behind it being that way.

but yep, someone's gonna expect a ROI on 30 million

but any candidate that runs and has a chance to win, has to have that kind of loot behind them

Apparently, this guy figures in.

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/the-mystery-moneymen-behind-ted-cruzs-super-pacs-116037797361.html

Projected price of running this election is $1.5 billion. Somehow, I don't think a couple of million people buying "Ted Cruz" 2016 bumper stickers is too much to worry about.

If I donate a hundred bucks to Cruz, I want him to vote my way on the 1st and 2nd Amendments, put an end to illegal immigration and do a few other things.

For my $100, I want that as my return on investment. It has value to me. Liberals - and strangely, certain folks on this forum - would say I was buying him.

If I donate a half-million to Cruz, I'm going to want something more. Only a child would imagine there was something unusual about this. Unsavory, perhaps, but JFHC, was there ever a moment in the history of the United States ...

Birdy, help us out if you're logged in.

... was there ever a moment in the entire history of the United States, when donors with deep pockets weren't giving money to presidential candidates with the intention of making some big money on the back end?

Was there some Golden Age of America - some bright and shining Camelot moment - when this never happened, and is this what Bristoe is longing for a return to, with all his heart? No, there wasn't.

We're damn lucky in this country in that our politicians are only willing to be bought so far and - for the most part - no further. There's a limit to greed and corruption in the US that is barely existent in other countries and in some, not at all.

We're lucky that there is enough honesty and integrity in some politicians to act as a kind of counterweight to those politicians who have none. Things are not as politically rotten here as they could be. Not by a long way.

But an America where people don't try to buy favors from the government with their campaign donations? That America never existed. Ever. Not once. And it's not going to change now.

Most here understand this, I think, but it's surprising how many still act surprised.

There is nothing corrupt about buying influence that will help the entire country.

good post tim, and yes even some of the wealthy want a similar roi as you do.

they made their fortunes in the greatest nation this planet has ever seen.

and many of them probably want it to retain some semblance of what got us there.

Folks,...when politicians start posing for photo ops like this, they have no shame whatsoever. Vote for him if you want to,..but this dude is creepy.

"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full."

I've never sent money to a politician in my life. I did last week when I saw a thread for Mr. Cruz. Probably not much to him, but 100 is a bunch to me. I can't imagine money better spent, whether he gets the nomination or not. He'll make some "moderate" republicans look like [bleep] during the debates.

mog75,

I did the same thing and plan to do it again next month. $31 mill is not a lot but it is enough to encourage him to carry on. It was sure enough to shake up the left.

We all know that you believe that there is only one God (Ron Paul), he has a son, and all others are sinners.

"We're damn lucky in this country in that our politicians are only willing to be bought so far and - for the most part - no further. There's a limit to greed and corruption in the US that is barely existent in other countries and in some, not at all."

That "limit" is expanded in proportion to how close the politician is to you. The blatant "pay to play" going on at the County and City level makes Statehouses and D.C. appear as bastions of righteousness.

My Congressman is the Father of Bristoe's "mystery man". He took Charles Stenholm's old seat after the R's gerrymandered the District.

Deadly accurate Bristoe...!

Whose the lady on the right?

Finding anyone with the good of the ENTIRE COUNTRY as a reason to run is nowhere to be found.

A " Daily dose of Ted" is a bitter pill to swallow

Nope.

And finding anyone with the ability to buy influence for the good of the entire country, especially the common man, is even more so nowhere to be found.

So what are you guys doing about it? (Except making sure somebody like Jeb Bush gets the Republican nomination.)

Two factions constitute the GOP today.

The libertarian faction and the "more war" faction. The "more war" faction has the big money boys in its pocket (*cough* Israel *cough*)

Rand Paul, for all of his warts, is the only representative of the libertarian faction running for the GOP nomination.

Ted Cruz is vying for the "more war" money, but he's trying to expand his base by pandering to the libertarian faction.

Rand Paul is aligned with the libertarian faction but he's trying to keep the "more war" people off his back by giving lip service to them every now and then.

If it wasn't for "more war" Ted Cruz getting in the way, we might have a candidate who represents genuine conservatism for the GOP in the 2016 general election,....and he might even win.

But Ted and his oversized ego don't givva chit about any of that.

Ted will serve only to split the opposition to the "more war" faction and allow "more war, big government" Jeb Bush to get the nomination.

The "more war" faction Republican will then lose to the Democrat candidate.

The Democrat candidate will also be a "more war" candidate,...but Democrat voters are as dumb as those who think that Ted Cruz is a conservative,..

,..so it'll be business as usual.

Live for today.

Don't know but her photo-op piety extends to what looks like a cell call.

I get it. You mean those people who are WAY more conservative than the Tea Party people are. I told you, and I'll say it again. I think Rand would make a great president. I would be happy to vote for him if given the chance.

He needs to do two things. Get rid of the nutjobs that think his father is God and start turning rainbows into money.