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Post by buckybasser on Jun 26, 2015 0:52:21 GMT -5
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Post by Old Badger on Jun 26, 2015 9:47:15 GMT -5
Once again, Senator Cruz is a calm, moderate & reasonable voice for the nation in troubling times.
I assume you were being sarcastic, right?
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Post by Old Badger on Jul 3, 2015 22:24:35 GMT -5
"Sen. Ted Cruz continues to defend Donald Trump on immigration. Cruz (R-Tex.), in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" praised Trump for talking about immigration..."I salute Donald Trump for focusing on the need to address illegal immigration," Cruz said...Cruz previously said that Trump was "terrific" and shouldn't apologize because he "speaks the truth." A number of GOP candidates condemned Trump's comments." link
I like it that Republicans are turning this race into one in which the central issue sounds like: "Just how much do you despise Mexicans?" I hope they keep it up right through to the convention--and beyond, for that matter. Ironic that one of the most strident voices comes from a guy with a Spanish surname, but fine by me if that's how they want to play it. How soon before Texas is in play again?
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Post by Old Badger on Jul 29, 2015 9:27:57 GMT -5
"Finally, Senate Republicans are standing up to the bully who terrorized them the past two and a half years — and they’re finding out he isn’t so tough, after all. After Cruz on the Senate floor Friday called his fellow Republican, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), a liar, his GOP colleagues have moved swiftly to shut down his antics...In a particular humiliation of Cruz, he was unable to get a “sufficient second” for a vote on his Iran amendment Sunday, persuading just three senators — well short of the 20 percent he needed. Such seconds are routinely granted as a courtesy, and longtime Congress watchers couldn’t recall a similar rebuke by senators of a colleague...
"In a broader sense, Republican senators seem to be growing in confidence that they can defy what remains of the tea party and affiliated conservative groups such as Heritage Action and Club for Growth. Not a single Republican senator was defeated in a primary last year, and none but McCain so far faces a real challenge next year." link
Cruz virtually organized the House Tea Party caucus from across the Capitol during the last Congress, but the fact that he's running so poorly in the presidential race, and that "establishment" Republicans held their own in the 2014 elections, seems to have sapped much of his imputed power. Calling McConnell a liar on the floor was an amateur's mistake, and apparently the last straw for most GOP Senators. Cruz seems to have reached the point that Joe McCarthy did when he was taken down by Army Counsel Joseph Welch in a nationally-televised hearing. Orrin Hatch eviscerated him, and C-SPAN2 sent that out into the world.
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Post by Old Badger on Sept 10, 2015 11:25:45 GMT -5
From Milbank in today's WP:
You could see in the span of 20 minutes Wednesday afternoon why Donald Trump is soaring in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and why Ted Cruz is struggling...Cruz, the Harvard- and Princeton-educated debater, subjected listeners to a 13-minute speech, structured into categories and subcategories, and packed with elegant turns of phrase that sailed right over the heads of his listeners.
“I agree with Prime Minister Netanyahu that a nuclear Iran poses an existential threat to the nation of Israel,” the junior senator from Texas told the gathering, organized by the Tea Party Patriots. “And let me be clear: When he says ‘existential,’ he doesn’t mean a bunch of Frenchmen in black berets chain-smoking.” There were a few isolated laughs on the vast West Lawn of the Capitol; this wasn’t a Camus crowd...
Cruz ranged from Khameini to Soleimani and from Hamas to the Huttis. He cited four Americans detained in Iran by name. He drew silence lamenting the absence of “Scoop Jackson Democrats.” He taught the crowd about the dangers of an electromagnetic pulse. And he outlined a legislative strategy — holding up the deal over a technical dispute involving “side agreements” — that generated only mild reaction...
Then came the bombastic billionaire. Trump’s brief speech, if it can be called that, had no form and contained all the subtlety of a weapon of mass destruction. “We are led by very, very stupid people,” Trump proclaimed. “Very, very stupid people.” The crowd roared. link
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Post by muddydove on Sept 10, 2015 12:04:41 GMT -5
I really felt sorry for Cruz that the Huckabee staffer at the Kim Davis hullabaloo wouldn't let him get to the reporters.
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Post by Old Badger on Sept 10, 2015 12:58:54 GMT -5
I really felt sorry for Cruz that the Huckabee staffer at the Kim Davis hullabaloo wouldn't let him get to the reporters.
How does a guy who can hold center stage for weeks on Capitol Hill manage to get overshadowed on successive days like that? Well, it probably shows how little it takes to cower Members of Congress by abusing the rules more than anything about Cruz himself. So much for Texas bravado, though.
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 9, 2015 16:37:11 GMT -5
"Ted Cruz has been branded a “wacko bird” by a Senate colleague and a “jackass” by the former speaker of the House. A GOP consultant labeled him a show horse, and a strategist for a rival presidential campaign called him the Mitt Romney of 2016 — the Republican no other Republican can stand...Cruz does not appear to be bothered. The senator and presidential candidate seems to relish the fact that so many fellow Republicans love to hate him...He uses the enmity of others to paint himself as an outsider, someone whose role taking on Washington prompted an ugly backlash from the establishment that he counts as a point of pride." link
That's just a snippet from a long front-page story in today's WP on how Cruz rubs so many Republicans the wrong way, apparently intentionally. Here's the question: How does a guy who's completely hated within his own party--so much so that in the Senate he doesn't even get the courtesy votes that all other senators get--ever govern if he's elected President? What does he do to make Members of Congress who can't stand him take political risks for him? Jimmy Carter, one of the rare "outsider" presidents we've ever had, ran into this very problem, and was run out of office after one term.
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Post by bigapplebucky on Nov 11, 2015 13:35:26 GMT -5
Over the weekend, as NCRM reported several times, Republican presidential candidates shared the stage with a preacher who literally – and repeatedly – has called for gay people to be put to death. Pastor Kevin Swanson, a powerful "man of God" who created the National Religious Liberties Conference and whose radio show has a wide syndication, this weekend played host to three GOP presidential candidates, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Bobby Jindal. Gee, what groups call for exterminations of people based on accident of birth? Let's see. The Nazis. ISIS. And this anti-gay wacko-bird and his three GOP presidential candidate acolytes. They actually were up on the stage chatting with him. Edit from link: Despicable. Utterly despicable.
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Post by muddydove on Nov 11, 2015 19:57:35 GMT -5
Kevin Swanson is a real nutjob. Sad to think that any politicians are courting him.
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Post by buckybasser on Nov 12, 2015 1:14:40 GMT -5
Good job to point this out!
We must look to the preacher to determine the real ideology of a candidate...
>O
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Post by bigapplebucky on Nov 12, 2015 14:48:59 GMT -5
Good job to point this out!
We must look to the preacher to determine the real ideology of a candidate...
>O Did Wright call for the extermination of a class of people? Or even the killing of a few? Did Obama get up on stage with him and agree? Did Wright say something outrageous in 2007 with Obama in the audience? Cruz did that this weekend. The crazy quotes from Kevin Swanson were not from 1992 or some other distant past moment, but were current. And Cruz was there.
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Post by muddydove on Nov 12, 2015 16:42:14 GMT -5
Good job to point this out!
We must look to the preacher to determine the real ideology of a candidate...
>O Did Wright call for the extermination of a class of people? Or even the killing of a few? Did Obama get up on stage with him and agree? Did Wright say something outrageous in 2007 with Obama in the audience? Cruz did that this weekend. The crazy quotes from Kevin Swanson were not from 1992 or some other distant past moment, but were current. And Cruz was there. Why Is the Media Ignoring Ted Cruz's Embrace of 'Kill the Gays' Pastor?Last weekend Senator Ted Cruz, along with fellow GOP presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, spoke at a conference in Des Moines headed up by a man who advocates the execution of gay people -- per his interpretation of the bible -- and who made his call for mass extermination once again, onstage at the event, the National Religious Liberties Conference. Pastor Kevin Swanson has said in the past that Christians should attend gay weddings and hold up signs telling the newly married gay and lesbian couples that they "should be put to death." He was an advocate of Uganda's infamous "Kill the Gays" bill, which he saw as a "model." At the confab over the weekend, where he introduced Huckabee, Jindal and Cruz to the audience -- and where Ted Cruz's father, Rafael Cruz, an anti-gay Tea Party crusader, was a star speaker -- he reiterated his death penalty call, adding that that homosexuals should first be given some time to repent before the executions begin. There's nothing subtle about what he said, and you can watch it for yourself, including his statements about what he would do if he were one of those parents of a gay person. .................... www.huffingtonpost.com/michelangelo-signorile/post_10496_b_8544540.html
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 12, 2015 18:39:37 GMT -5
Ah, the old "I don't know who I shared that stage with" dodge, lol. Yes, I believe in religious liberty, including the right of God-fearing Christians to wish fellow-Americans executed for doing perfectly legal things they don't like. Gotcha, Ted.
Where did Cruz get that bizarre accent? It's not from Canada, Texas, Princeton, Harvard, or DC.
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 12, 2015 19:48:56 GMT -5
"Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) — who has spent the past few weeks taking oblique swipes at Senate colleague and presidential rival Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — was sharply critical Thursday, blasting Rubio for his support of a failed immigration reform bill that would have granted a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. The Texas senator told conservative radio host Laura Ingraham that Rubio had opposed adding provisions to the bill that would have strengthened border security...
"Rubio pushed back on those claims Thursday, saying the bill had the correct security components but was waylaid by voter mistrust — and arguing that he and Cruz shared 'almost all the same views on immigration...Ted is a supporter of legalizing people that are in this country illegally,' Rubio said after a campaign stop in South Carolina. 'In fact, when the Senate bill was proposed, he proposed giving them work permits. He’s also supported a massive expansion of the green cards. He’s supported a massive expansion of the [H-1B] program, a 500 percent increase.'” link
The only two presidential candidates with Spanish surnames fighting over which one is likely to be "tougher" on (mostly Spanish-surnamed) undocumented immigrants. Remarkable!
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Post by Old Badger on Nov 22, 2015 16:30:14 GMT -5
"The Republican presidential candidate has spent his entire campaign — launched at Liberty University, the Christian school founded by Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Va. — courting the support of evangelical Christians. Yet his effort has intensified in recent weeks — a sign not only of the looming proximity of the first nomination votes in such early states as Iowa and South Carolina, but also of the fact that he still hasn’t made the sale with the voters he needs to win the nomination.
"Cruz still trails neurosurgeon Ben Carson, a favorite of faith-based voters, nationally as he has for months. Cruz’s plan is multi-pronged, based in part on the idea that Carson, who has faced scrutiny in recent weeks for a lack of foreign-policy knowledge and a personal story sometimes inaccurately remembered — will stumble...Cruz’s campaign strategists, meanwhile, said the senator from Texas has inherited support from religious supporters of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who dropped out of the race in September, and that the same will happen with backers of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who pulled the plug on his campaign last week. After that? Carson." link
Cruz seems to be trying to create a rather odd coalition: Evangelical Christians, Tea Partiers, and Libertarians. Moreover, he seems to think that winning over the Christian Right for the primaries will carry over into the general election: “If 10 million more evangelical Christians show up in November 2016, we’re not going to be staying up until 3 in the morning wondering what happened in Ohio or Florida...They’ll call the election at 8:35 p.m." Well, 10 million is ambitious, but then Cruz also has a way to address that: “Some pastors, you may be thinking, ‘Well, over half of Christians aren’t voting, but not in my church...You sure? How sure are you?” (Do you know what your teen-agers are doing in their rooms?)
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Post by muddydove on Nov 22, 2015 21:19:11 GMT -5
I dearly hope the GOP nominates Cruz. The result? ........................................... Landslide for Hillary!!
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Post by Old Badger on Dec 11, 2015 23:59:51 GMT -5
Cruz has an enemy; it's personal--and he's not alone:
On MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" Tuesday, the veteran anchor sat down with former Senate majority leader and 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole to talk, ostensibly, about the current state of his party and the rise of Donald Trump. But the Kansas Republican had something else on his mind. And that something else was how much he dislikes Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. In a question about what Dole makes of Trump, the former Senate leader quickly turned matters to Cruz. "He's not traditional Republican conservative," Dole said of the Texan. "Achievements are shutting down the government twice, and calling the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, a liar on the Senate floor. It violates the rules of the Senate. And he doesn't have a single Senate supporter...
He used to make these speeches. 'Remember President Dole, do you remember President McCain.' The inference was that we were all a bunch of liberals, and only he is a true conservative. And he uses the word 'conservative' more than he ever uses the word 'Republican.' So, it would be difficult."...When he endorsed Jeb Bush's presidential campaign last month, Dole went out of his way to take a shot at Cruz. "I think [Jeb's] the most qualified, and we need somebody with experience and there are a lot of good candidates — I like nearly all of them," Dole said. "Except Cruz.”
While much of the focus at the moment is what it would mean for Trump to be the Republican nominee, the prospect of Cruz as the party's standard-bearer makes Republican establishment types in Washington far angrier. In fact, some of the resistance in going after Trump aggressively is based on the idea that such a move might strengthen Cruz. "There's no benefit at this point for the establishment to go after Trump because his votes aren't going to their person," said one high-ranking Republican operative granted anonymity to speak candidly. "They're afraid that will only help Cruz." link
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Post by buckybasser on Dec 12, 2015 19:22:11 GMT -5
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Post by Old Badger on Dec 13, 2015 0:38:00 GMT -5
Look - I will be the first to say that I want a much more conservative candidate than Cruz...
Cruz isn't a conservative at all. He has no real political philosophy, except "whatever is good for Ted Cruz is good." But if you're a fan you really should enjoy this:
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Post by Old Badger on Dec 14, 2015 22:28:22 GMT -5
Who says Big Brother isn't watching? Oh, wait! It's just Ted Cruz:
"URBANDALE, Iowa — As Cecil Stinemetz walked up to a gray clapboard house in suburban Des Moines last week wearing his “Cruz 2016” cap, a program on his iPhone was determining what kind of person would answer the door. Would she be a “relaxed leader”? A “temperamental conservative”? Maybe even a “true believer”? Nope. It turned out that Birdie Harms, a 64-year-old grandmother, part-time real estate agent and longtime Republican, was, by the Ted Cruz campaign’s calculations, a “stoic traditionalist” — a conservative whose top concerns included President Obama’s use of executive orders on immigration. Which meant that Stinemetz was instructed to talk to her in a tone that was “confident and warm and straight to the point” and ask about her concerns regarding the Obama administration’s positions on immigration, guns and other topics...
"The outreach to Harms and others like her is part of a months-long effort by the Cruz campaign to profile and target potential supporters, an approach that campaign officials believe has helped propel the senator from Texas to the top tier among Republican presidential candidates in many states, including Iowa, where he is in first place, according to two recent polls...Cruz has largely built his program out of his Houston headquarters, where a team of statisticians and behavioral psychologists who subscribe to the burgeoning practice of “psychographic targeting” built their own version of a Myers-Briggs personality test. The test data is supplemented by recent issue surveys, and together they are used to categorize supporters, who then receive specially tailored messages, phone calls and visits...
"Cruz, a critic of excessive government data collection, has been notably aggressive about gathering personal information for his campaign. Some of the data comes from typical sources, such as voters’ consumer habits and Facebook posts. Some is homegrown, such as a new smartphone app that keeps supporters in touch while giving the campaign the ability to scrape their phones for additional contacts." link
Uh-oh! So, the Cruz campaign is tapping into people's personal data to create campaign pitches directed at them, personally. Different strokes for different folks. Enhanced electronic waffling. Some time ago, in the discussion over the NSA program to acquire phone company metadata to protect the country by looking for patterns of communication that could signal terrorist activity, I noted that what NSA was collecting was a tiny fraction of what corporations have on each of us. One response was that the companies only wanted to sell us stuff, not check our politics. But it turns out that corporate data mining is also being used in political campaigns; I'm sure Cruz's is not the only one doing something like this. So, what happens when the winner goes to the White House and brings these "psychographic targeting" gurus with him/her? Are we really so sure that telephone metadata is the bigger problem then?
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Post by Old Badger on Dec 15, 2015 15:06:54 GMT -5
Why a Ted Cruz nomination would be good for the country:
For all Trump’s bombast, the author of “The Art of the Deal” at the end of the day much prefers to sit down and, well, deal...Cruz, on the other hand, understands that for far-right voters, any deal with Democrats is a bad deal; anything that doesn’t stop the workings of government is a failure...If he were to be the nominee, it would be good news for the Democrats in the short term and the country in the long term. His ideologically extreme positions would hand Hillary Clinton an edge in what the fundamentals still suggest is otherwise likely to be a close election. And a Cruz loss would be most likely to end the myth on the far right that “Republicans lose presidential elections when they don’t run far enough to the right.”...That fiction has sustained the right-wing after multiple general election losses in recent decades, convincing them to double down on extremism rather than reconsider. Such intransigence has already led to enough destructive government shutdowns and near defaults. The sooner the GOP’s rightward sprint is stopped the better; Cruz’s nomination may be the best way to do so." link
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Post by Old Badger on Dec 18, 2015 10:53:12 GMT -5
"To stop Ted Cruz, the Republican establishment is working around the clock to caricature the Texas senator as just another career politician who follows the political winds and not core principles. The strategy, being pursued by several of Cruz’s rivals, is aimed squarely at eroding his perceived authenticity, a core strength that has made him the frontrunner in Iowa. In this regard, Cruz’s continuing back-and-forth with Marco Rubio over his position on a 2013 Senate bill is about much more than immigration. It’s about whether the Texas senator is just as much a finger-in-the-wind politician as the rest of the pack. Beyond just immigration, Rubio’s campaign has blasted out a barrage of press releases and clips this week aimed at portraying Cruz as a flip-flopping politician who will say whatever makes the most political sense at the moment he says it, from crop insurance to defense spending." link
This looks to me like the Karl Rove Strategy: go after them where they're strong and erode that, rather than where they're already weak. And it's not just Rubio. Christie, Graham, and Paul, have been piling on, too, along with such conservative media voices as the Union Leader and Michael Gerson. This tells us that Cruz has emerged as the primary challenger to Trump and that a lot of people in the GOP are taking seriously the possibility that he may win the nomination. And their worry is that, precisely because he really is ideologically on the far right (unlike Trump, who's a deal-maker and all over the populist landscape, not an ideologue) he could do for the Republicans in 2016 what Barry Goldwater did for them in 1964. Further evidence: Harry Reid just gave Cruz a boost over Rubio, whom many consider the GOPer mostly likely to win a general election:
“I just think what Rubio has done on immigration is one of the worst, worst machinations in politics that I’ve ever seen. It shows a lack of character in my opinion...You never have to guess where [Cruz] is. He’s not winning personality contests here. Cruz is just who he is. He just is a very, very smart man marching forward with some ideas I don’t like.”
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Post by Old Badger on Dec 19, 2015 17:48:40 GMT -5
Five issues on which Ted Cruz has changed position during this campaign, while claiming to be "consistent" at all times (fun read): link.
Picking up on that theme, Jennifer Rubin cites the case of Cruz's negotiations with John McCain and the Group of 8 on immigration reform legislation: "In listening to Cruz’s remarks in 2013, one cannot miss how sincere and earnest Cruz sounds. He was so convincing that multiple reports at the time portrayed him as trying to reach agreement on legalization. He gave no wink, no hint he was really a virulent opponent of immigration reform. The take-away, then, is that he is an extraordinary liar — either then in convincing people he was sincere or now in trying to convince people he was not. (I have no idea which it is.) For a guy running against those scoundrels inside the Beltway, Cruz seems to outdo his colleagues when it comes to telling people whatever they want to hear." link
Personally, I don't ever think Cruz is sincere because he always sounds like a patent medicine salesman to me. But others do seem to buy his sincerity act, and as the old political saying goes: sincerity: if you can fake that you've got it made.
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Post by Old Badger on Dec 21, 2015 15:56:51 GMT -5
"Christian conservative activists whose support has been hotly pursued by Republican presidential candidates have begun to quietly coalesce around Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) — a major boost for his efforts to present himself as the leading challenger to front-runner Donald Trump. Members of this core GOP constituency have long been torn between several favorites in the party’s crowded field. But many organization leaders have decided in recent days to line up behind Cruz because they consider him the best-funded and most electable social conservative in the race, according to several participants in the discussions. He won the backing of a key evangelical coalition after a secret Dec. 7 meeting in which top national activists agreed to roll out a stream of endorsements, many timed for maximum impact between now and March 1, Super Tuesday, when a dozen states will hold primaries or caucuses." link
Some of those endorsements already have begun (e.g., from James Dobson). Expect more after the first of the year; the group is reconvening at a Texas ranch later this month.
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Post by Old Badger on Dec 22, 2015 19:25:21 GMT -5
“'I oppose legalization … today, tomorrow, forever!' railed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who is certainly smart enough to know the late Alabama governor George Wallace’s rallying cry, 'Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!' Cruz will no doubt bristle at the comparison, but when one stoops to emotionalized, immovable stances playing to the fears of working-class whites — and borrowing the lingo of the dark past — it’s hard to complain when people take you for a nativist. (This, after all, is a pol who called for an 'America First' foreign policy.) His dog-whistles will surely summon a large and angry pack of voters." link
That's from conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin, whose unenviable job is to write a couple of columns a week trying to show that there are sane people on the right by taking on the crazies who dominate the headlines. Good luck with that, Jennifer. Cruz is gonna be Cruz, whatever.
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Post by goldenbucky on Dec 23, 2015 23:37:20 GMT -5
Now Cruz takes issue with an editorial cartoon depicting his kids after he features his 5 and 7 year old in daughters in speaking/acting roles where they participate in his partisan crazy talk.
My first impression was that it is just kind of gross that he would involve his daughters in mudslinging at such a young age. Maybe its because I've been pretty cautious when discussing politics around kids that young. I guess it is my own personal preference but I'd rather they start out learning the ideals of our democracy before getting caught up in mud-slinging.
Seems disingenuous to deploy one's own children that way and then act shocked SHOCKED! that somebody might make commentary on it. I can't think of past examples quite like this - am I missing something?
Yuck.
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Post by buckybasser on Dec 24, 2015 1:17:45 GMT -5
I cannot imagine involving such young & impressionable children in politics...
An even more disgusting thought - what if the radical colony of leftist teachers that creep & crawl the halls of our schools did such a thing!?
Could you even comprehend confiscating other people's property & liberty through taxation to indoctrinate innocent & naïve grade school age children?
I am sure glad our nation has not sunk that far yet!
Yuck.
>O
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Post by Testes on Dec 24, 2015 11:05:08 GMT -5
I'm sure Basser has no problem with the Pledge of Allegiance.
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Post by goldenbucky on Dec 24, 2015 15:15:11 GMT -5
Basser I'd be similarly put off if my kids were learning snarky put downs about John Boehner or Mitch McConnell at school. I haven't seen anything like that.
The subject of whether we should have public schools seems like another topic entirely...
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