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Post by Old Badger on Mar 11, 2016 9:53:57 GMT -5
Ted Cruz finally gets an endorsement from a fellow GOP senator: "CORAL GABLES, Fla., March 10 (UPI) -- Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah has endorsed his colleague Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in the GOP presidential primary, his first endorsement from a sitting senator in the race...It is also another body blow for Sen. Marco Rubio, who is friendly with Lee. The announcement came in Coral Gables, Fla., the site of Thursday's Republican debate and Rubio's home state where must-win primary for him will be held on Tuesday. Lee was asked whether Rubio should exit the race before facing a potentially humiliating defeat that could damage his future political aspirations. Lee said he 'would encourage him -- and I do encourage him -- to get behind Ted Cruz.' Lee said Cruz is the party's best hope to deny Donald Trump the presidential nomination." linkThis slowly is rounding into a two-candidate race between Trump and Cruz. A loss in Florida effectively ends Rubio's run, same for Kasich in Ohio. But even if they win their home states it's hard to see how either of them becomes the nominee.
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Post by muddydove on Mar 11, 2016 12:21:51 GMT -5
Ted Cruz finally gets an endorsement from a fellow GOP senator: "CORAL GABLES, Fla., March 10 (UPI) -- Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah has endorsed his colleague Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in the GOP presidential primary, his first endorsement from a sitting senator in the race...It is also another body blow for Sen. Marco Rubio, who is friendly with Lee. The announcement came in Coral Gables, Fla., the site of Thursday's Republican debate and Rubio's home state where must-win primary for him will be held on Tuesday. Lee was asked whether Rubio should exit the race before facing a potentially humiliating defeat that could damage his future political aspirations. Lee said he 'would encourage him -- and I do encourage him -- to get behind Ted Cruz.' Lee said Cruz is the party's best hope to deny Donald Trump the presidential nomination." linkThis slowly is rounding into a two-candidate race between Trump and Cruz. A loss in Florida effectively ends Rubio's run, same for Kasich in Ohio. But even if they win their home states it's hard to see how either of them becomes the nominee.They're hoping that a brokered convention will turn to them ............................. kinda like Hitler hoped, on April 29, 1945, this his four reserve armies would finally break through and clear the Russians out of Berlin.
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 16, 2016 21:46:03 GMT -5
"One day after Sen. Marco Rubio suspended his presidential campaign, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said “my hope and my prayer” is that Ted Cruz wins the GOP nomination, according to The Post and Courier newspaper. Haley, who endorsed Rubio prior to the South Carolina primary last month, remained reluctant to say whether she would support Donald Trump if he becomes the GOP’s nominee, according to the Courier." linkUnfortunately for Cruz, the SC primary was last month, so Haley can't help him directly. Not that her endorsement did Rubio much good in that state, either.
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Post by muddydove on Mar 16, 2016 23:59:04 GMT -5
"One day after Sen. Marco Rubio suspended his presidential campaign, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said “ my hope and my prayer” is that Ted Cruz wins the GOP nomination, according to The Post and Courier newspaper. Haley, who endorsed Rubio prior to the South Carolina primary last month, remained reluctant to say whether she would support Donald Trump if he becomes the GOP’s nominee, according to the Courier." linkUnfortunately for Cruz, the SC primary was last month, so Haley can't help him directly. Not that her endorsement did Rubio much good in that state, either. I'm guessing that God does not back any particular GOP candidates -- just the party in general.
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 17, 2016 18:51:09 GMT -5
Cruz picks up an endorsement...though it's hardly a ringing one: "Sen. Lindsey Graham is jumping into the presidential election once again, announcing that he will host a fundraiser for Sen. Ted Cruz in an effort to derail Donald Trump from clinching the Republican nomination. In an interview with CNN, Graham said that while he has condemned Cruz's tactics and behaviors in the past, he is strategically the best alternative to stop Trump. 'He's certainly not my preference, Sen. Cruz is not. But he is a reliable Republican conservative which I've had many differences with,' Graham said. 'I doubt Donald Trump's conservative and I think he'd be a disaster for the party.'" linkYeah, but what do you REALLY think of him, Senator? LOL!
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Post by buckybasser on Mar 18, 2016 0:50:36 GMT -5
I cannot believe I have to correct a man who was actually paid to indoctrinate youth with this political babble.
Here is your post about Graham in the real world...
"Ted Cruz broadened his base today with an endorsement from liberal Senator Lindsey Graham (D) South Carolina. Most thinking Americans classify Graham as a radical extremist because of his views on amnesty for illegal aliens & the confirmation of activist judges who cannot read the plain language of the U.S. Constitution. Graham is considered the 'boy toy' of fellow leftist John McCain (D) Arizona who calls Lindsey his own 'illegitimate son'. McCain is a well-renowned expert on 'Hobbits from Middle Earth' after likening Constitutional Conservatives like Cruz to these characters. However, political observers would be wise not to underestimate the impact of an endorsement from a radical like Graham during a year that might produce a contested GOP convention."
>O
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 18, 2016 9:02:30 GMT -5
Here is your post about Graham in the real world...
Yes, your grasp on the "real world" being what it is, lol.
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Post by bigapplebucky on Mar 21, 2016 14:59:12 GMT -5
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Post by muddydove on Mar 21, 2016 16:21:48 GMT -5
Years from now, this 2016 election cycle will be considered as being absolutely great -- it will be the year that both Trump and Cruz got permanently flushed out of the electoral culture.
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 22, 2016 16:25:38 GMT -5
Ted Cruz is just as dangerous as Donald Trump. Here's how we know: "Hours after terrorist explosions in Brussels killed at least 31 people, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz proposed that law enforcement increase monitoring of Muslim neighborhoods in the U.S. In a statement released by his campaign, Cruz wrote: 'We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.'" linkMuslim neighborhoods? What's a Muslim neighborhood? How many Muslims does it take to make one? Does it have to be at least 75 percent? 50? 25? 1? How do we know the religion of the people in any neighborhood? Do we send out Census personnel to record everyone's religion, as they did in 1930s-40s Europe? OK, this is ludicrous and dangerous, but wait! It gets worse when we get to his advisers: "One of those is Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan administration official and now an adviser to Cruz, who asserts that the Muslim Brotherhood penetrates and manipulates the U.S. government and the Republican Party. And Gaffney has advocated for a congressional panel to investigate treason by American-Muslims, like the House Un-American Activities Committee that operated during the first several decades of the Cold War to identify threads of communism in the U.S. Another adviser, Clare Lopez, who works at the same organization founded by Gaffney, recently suggested Sen. Joseph McCarthy was 'absolutely spot on in just about everything he said about the level of infiltration' of communism and said affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood are the 'go-to advisers, if not appointees' in the Obama administration." Yes, these "liberty-loving" Republicans want to bring back HUAC and McCarthyism. Maybe they're going resuscitate J. Edgar Hoover while they're at it. And they want to root out the Muslim Brotherhood from, of all places, the Republican Party itself. Who knew the RNC was a hotbed of "radical Islamic terrorism"? You think Cruz is the "rational" alternative to Trump? Think again. The Republican Party's two leading candidates turn out to be crazy racist authoritarians. Who'd have expected that?
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 23, 2016 13:42:01 GMT -5
"We have an extraordinarily successful, patriotic, integrated Muslim community. They do not feel ghettoized, they do not feel isolated. Any approach that would target them for discrimination is not only wrong and un-American, but counter-productive. As far as the notion of having surveillance of neighborhoods where Muslims are present, I just left a country that engages in that kind of neighborhood surveillance, which, by the way, the father of Sen. Cruz escaped for America, the land of the free. The notion that we would start down that slippery slope makes absolutely no sense. It's contrary to who we are." link
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Post by muddydove on Mar 23, 2016 15:08:49 GMT -5
Cruz will say whatever he feels will help him on a Thursday, knowing full well that he may want to say the opposite on the following Friday, and no one will hold his feet to the fire about it.
One of the pundits gave an analogy: Cruz is not a long-term stock investor; he's strictly a day trader.
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Post by buckybasser on Mar 24, 2016 0:13:00 GMT -5
A cause for concern or celebration?
I have made no secret of the fact that I am a Cruz voter. I would like someone much more conservative, but Cruz is what I must settle for...
In the past week, many members of the liberal extremist GOP establishment have been lining up behind Cruz.
Jeb Bush & Lindsey Graham are the most notable, but there are others - like S.C. Darling Nikki Haley.
www.politico.com/story/2016/03/ted-cruz-republican-establishment-elites-221174
Is this a cause for celebration in that Cruz might win actually win a Convention floor fight if Trump cannot reach 1237?
Or is it instead a cause for concern in that Cruz (already way too moderate) will be pulled towards of the radical leftist dark side of the GOP?
If Cruz allows himself to be indoctrinated by a Bevy of Bushies, the Basser will stay home even on his candidate of choice.
>O
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 24, 2016 6:40:45 GMT -5
In the past week, many members of the liberal extremist GOP establishment have been lining up behind Cruz.
Jeb Bush & Lindsey Graham are the most notable, but there are others - like S.C. Darling Nikki Haley.
Not to pop your balloon, but those guys are endorsing Cruz solely to stop Trump from reaching 1,237. If they can hang up the convention (unlikely, but possible), Cruz is not who they'll be pushing toward the nomination.
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 24, 2016 7:03:18 GMT -5
Mitt Romney explains the differences between Cruz and Trump:
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Post by muddydove on Mar 24, 2016 8:45:48 GMT -5
Police need to look much closer at the Cuban-American neighborhoods -- they have been producing some radically mindless people.
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 25, 2016 22:42:00 GMT -5
I have made no secret of the fact that I am a Cruz voter. BTW, 'basser, I wonder if you can explain why Cruz? I mean, what differentiates him from the 16 other Republicans who started the race? Let's skip over repealing the Affordable Care Act, tax cuts, and the stuff that virtually all of them agreed about. What issues, experience, personality traits, whatever made him the better choice for you? I should say that I would have imagined you as more of the Rand Paul Libertarian type.
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Post by buckybasser on Mar 26, 2016 10:15:20 GMT -5
You are correct to assume that I often lean libertarian - especially on the social issues. I also think it is correct to point out that Cruz is too similar to many others in the GOP establishment for me to be entirely comfortable. I mostly agree with him on these two issues...
The elimination of federal government agencies
I think we could eliminate one federal program each day for a year and call that a good start. Cruz wants to start with only five and leaves out the one most destructive to free market capitalism - the EPA. "The Cruz Five for Freedom plan eliminates the IRS, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. As President, Ted Cruz will appoint heads of each of those agencies whose sole charge will be to wind them down and determine whether any programs need to be preserved." www.tedcruz.org. I don't like the 'preservation' language at the end, but Cruz also supports a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, so perhaps we could eliminate more programs through budgeting.
Appointments to the federal courts
As a strict constructionist, I consider court appointments critical in a candidate. The Republicans have done an awful job lately and need someone with the legal mind to flush out any hints of progressive tendencies in all candidates for federal or supreme court vacancies. Cruz is the only one running with the legal mind & experience to make the proper appointments. Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz called Cruz one of the smartest students he ever taught. Cruz has appeared before the high court 9 times, including critical arguments on the 1st & 2nd Amendments. I am confident Cruz would consult with the finest legal minds to find judges that realize the only way to change the plain language of the U.S. Constitution is through the Article V process set forth therein.
Do I have any hope he will meet my expectations - of course not.
I really want a viable third party rooted in the U.S. Constitution, but that is not going to happen.
>O
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 26, 2016 14:27:23 GMT -5
You are correct to assume that I often lean libertarian - especially on the social issues. I also think it is correct to point out that Cruz is too similar to many others in the GOP establishment for me to be entirely comfortable. I mostly agree with him on these two issues...
The elimination of federal government agencies
Appointments to the federal courts
Ok, thanks. I should comment that you almost certainly would be disappointed by any President on these two issues. Every Republican since Ronald Reagan has promised to end federal programs and eliminate agencies, but it's never happened. The main reason for that is that all those programs and agencies are addressing some need that a substantial constituency sees a need for government to address. For example, does closing the Department of Commerce mean no longer collecting the Bureau of Economic Analysis data on which public policy-makers and private markets depend for unbiased information about the state of the economy? Or does BEA just get moved somewhere else in government, in which case you're just playing a game of reconfiguring boxes on the government's org chart? Same for, say, the Weather Service. On Court appointments, I don't know of anyone who's in favor of appointing Justices who don't believe in the Constitution; what you really mean is that you want Justices who have YOUR view of the Constitution, but that's decidedly a minority view, and of course there's that whole "advice and consent" thing. Anyway, thanks for the thoughtful response.
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Post by buckybasser on Mar 26, 2016 17:37:01 GMT -5
There is only one correct view of the U.S. Constitution. You read & apply the plain & simple language. If you need additional guidance on intent, you consult the views of the authors found in places like the Federalist Papers.
If you are unhappy with what you find, you then proceed to the Article V Amendment Process to change the document. Pretty simple stuff...
Newsflash - There is no "penumbra" of rights.
The federal courts have no authority to dictate what “the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family" mean...
This is not because of my opinions on abortion or gay marriage - you might find me quite liberal on both.
This is because our founding documents never gave the federal government (or courts) such incredible power.
They did not provide these powers because they had already lived in tyranny...
Unless you support judicial oligarchy (like the past century) any rational debate would be over.
But the radical left is winning in the courts, so they stay there with foolish attempts to justify an activist judiciary.
Like you say on Global Warming OB - rational debate ended on this years ago - idiotic debate has not.
>O
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 26, 2016 19:54:01 GMT -5
There is only one correct view of the U.S. Constitution.
We both know you're smarter than that, lol.
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Post by buckybasser on Mar 26, 2016 20:18:15 GMT -5
How funny. I thought about adding a similar line, but I knew you would...
We have had this debate about 6 times on various boards & in various formats. I always won...
I think it is clear we will never agree on what is perhaps the most fundamental issue of government - the current source of power...
I am fine with that because I actually enjoy simply being the radical batsh*t crazy right wing extremist who draws silly cartoon animals.
And also because I think it would be fun to fish, drink & dine together as Badger fans.
I know you said you cannot fish. I can either change that - or I will throw your (leftist) rear end to the sharks.
>O
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 26, 2016 21:57:37 GMT -5
We have had this debate about 6 times on various boards & in various formats. I always won... ;)
Ah such self-delusion, lol! You can't scare me with sharks--I live around Washington, DC, where there are more than 40,000 lawyers.
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Post by goldenbucky on Mar 27, 2016 16:57:00 GMT -5
You are correct to assume that I often lean libertarian...
I think we could eliminate one federal program each day for a year and call that a good start.
As a strict constructionist... Since your perspectives seem to motivate as least one influential component of the Republican coalition (I won't assume your party affiliation Basser, if any), I appreciate the straightforwardness of your statements. It seems like these perspectives are not often shared so openly. If I may ask, are your views on this motivated more by a desire to strictly adhere to constitutional principals (as you see them) or a view that they will lead to a better country? So much of this discussion often ends up as a debate over constitutional interpretation.
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Post by bigapplebucky on Mar 28, 2016 9:25:07 GMT -5
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Post by Old Badger on Mar 29, 2016 11:01:53 GMT -5
Scott Walker endorses Cruz, as expected. link
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Post by muddydove on Mar 29, 2016 11:39:53 GMT -5
Scott Walker endorses Cruz, as expected. linkI'd be more impressed by an endorsement from Walker, Texas Ranger.
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Post by buckybasser on Apr 1, 2016 19:52:44 GMT -5
You are correct to assume that I often lean libertarian...
I think we could eliminate one federal program each day for a year and call that a good start.
As a strict constructionist... Since your perspectives seem to motivate as least one influential component of the Republican coalition (I won't assume your party affiliation Basser, if any), I appreciate the straightforwardness of your statements. It seems like these perspectives are not often shared so openly. If I may ask, are your views on this motivated more by a desire to strictly adhere to constitutional principals (as you see them) or a view that they will lead to a better country? So much of this discussion often ends up as a debate over constitutional interpretation. Honestly GB, I do not know.
For example, Social Security is vastly popular, endorsed by the courts and seems politically untouchable. I also think that it is not only plainly unconstitutional, but also a gateway to socialism and ultimately to some form of totalitarianism. So, is government-sanctioned theft & redistribution of other people's limited cache of life, liberty & property better than allowing some folks to fall through the cracks?
This would certainly be valid point of debate at an Article V Convention of the States to amend the Constitution to actually legally allow the existence of the federal SSA. I guess my best thought would be to allow the various states to determine the outcome of the balancing act through their various tax systems.
Happy people stay can in their state and unhappy people can move.
In my opinion, if you decentralize power, then true freedom has a better chance... I do recognize & appreciate your point.
>O
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Post by Old Badger on Apr 1, 2016 21:37:36 GMT -5
Happy people stay can in their state and unhappy people can move.
In my opinion, if you decentralize power, then true freedom has a better chance... I do recognize & appreciate your point.
But didn't the Founders actually write the Constitution to overcome the deficiencies of the highly decentralized Articles of Confederation? Indeed, isn't one of the major criticisms of the EU that it's too much like the Articles and not enough like the Constitution, so that Europe never is able to act with a common purpose? The Constitution wasn't adopted in a vacuum, after all. And, in any case, most US government domestic programs already are decentralized. Except for Social Security and Medicare, federal social programs work through the states, as a result of which they vary widely from state to state. Federal statutes and regulations set some minimum standards, but the feds almost always approve waivers to those for state programs that experiment with alternatives, as is happening with Medicaid expansion right now. The whole idea that the US has a highly-centralized government is mistaken.
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munertl
State Legislator
Posts: 261
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Post by munertl on Apr 2, 2016 12:44:24 GMT -5
With the DC Madam scandal bomb about to re-drop and the promise within that data being highly relevant to the 2016 race, it's a fair speculation that the Ted Cruz campaign is about to die. There has been no name mentioned just yet, but reading between the lines, it's highly unlikely that it could be anyone else.
- timeframe being prior to 2007, Cruz at least spent time in Washington - information known and sealed since 2007 - petitions of release of info started in January, about the time the Cruz campaign began to become relevant. - already tabloid information out there about associations with prostitutes - Anonymous has dirt on him that they are ready to come forward with - the urgency of this release of information coincides with the peaking of Cruz in the campaign
Put 2 and 2 together and this guy is history. If you're running as this evangelical candidate that God wants to win, fooling around with hookers and getting caught means game over.
I would be shocked if it was anyone else. Who else is even a remote possibility? Certainly not Trump and not likely Kasich or Sanders because they're trailing significantly and pose no threat to be the nominees. Someone bring the popcorn for this show, it will be fun to see that train wreck go down.
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