Tag: Ted Cruz

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Opinion Viewpoint

You Lose, Cruz.

We doubt that Senator Ted Cruz will win the 2016 Republican nomination, much less the presidency, and he’ll lose because of the hypocritical position he’s adopted on immigration. Everyone who follows politics can see this, except Ted Cruz.

Cruz is a well-educated man with an undergraduate degree from Princeton, a law degree from Harvard, and a judicial clerkship with former Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Despite this, and the fact that Cruz and his family have benefited from generous immigration laws and policies in the United States and Canada (his father emigrated from Cuba to the U.S. in 1957, Ted was born in Canada), he offers zero creative leadership in addressing a broken U.S. immigration system.

Senator Cruz’s focus is on “border security.” He sponsored a bill to increase, by 300 percent, the number of immigration agents at our southern border. He’s also called for abolishing the Internal Revenue Service and sending all revenue agents south to secure the border. We really don’t need an army of accountants at the border, and Cruz, of course, ignores the fact that the border patrol is already five times larger than it was 20 years ago. Next, Cruz calls for overturning President Obama’s executive orders on deferred action, which allows millions of undocumented people to live, work, study, and keep their families together (at least temporarily) in the U.S. Cruz also signed onto a friend of the court brief in support of the lawsuit brought by 26 states that has halted the President’s “Deferred Action” program.

Cruz’s gaze south is disconcerting at best and racist at worst. His emphasis on militarization of the southern border suggests that threats to our national security originate in our geographic south, though there’s no real evidence to support this.

Cruz’s position of more security and penalties for undocumented immigrants who have “jumped the line” to come to the U.S. will not play well with Latino voters. Such voters want Latino citizens, visitors, and the undocumented treated respectfully by American politicians and citizens. They want educational opportunities — such as tuition equity policies — they want access to basic health care, and they want a pathway to succeed in our nation through hard work, not via handouts. Cruz’s inability to grasp the extent of his own immigration privilege has led him into a Latino lasso from which there is no escape.

The difference between Cuban-Americans and other Hispanics among us is significant and requires some historic perspective. First, the 1959 Castro revolution in Cuba, which started out nationalist and quickly turned Marxist-Leninist, has deeply influenced United States immigration policy toward that island nation. Essentially, Cubans who fled Cuba in the aftermath of the revolution have been welcomed and supported by the United States’ people and government. 

The path of Cuban immigrants contrasts sharply with that of immigrants from the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean, many of whom suffer serious social deprivation in their homelands. For example, Haitians are treated unkindly by our immigration system despite United Nation-supplied social statistics that show deep economic despair: Life expectancy in Haiti is 64 years, compared to 80 in nearby Cuba. Public expenditure on health care in Haiti as a percentage of GDP is 6.4 percent (in Cuba it’s 8.6 percent), and the population living below minimum level of dietary energy consumption is 51.8 percent in Haiti, in Cuba it’s 5 percent.

People of Mexican descent living in the United States are neither impressed nor energized by the Cruz anti-immigration rhetoric. Of the roughly 54 million Hispanics living in the U.S., 64 percent are of Mexican descent. By comparison, 3.7 percent are of Cuban descent. Mexican Americans, Haitian Americans, and others who wish to come to the U.S. recoil against sanctimonious speak from those who have enjoyed special immigration privileges. Cruz, like any candidate seeking to win a national election, can only succeed by building a strong coalition with Hispanics across racial, cultural, and socio-economic boundaries. He’s unlikely to sway anyone in the U.S. with tired, hollow talk of militarizing the border. Only bipartisan, thoughtful, comprehensive immigration reform can help create a sane, equitable, and humane system. The Texas senator has energetically fought against this sort of reform. For this reason alone, Ted Cruz seems determined to lose.

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: Dreamstime.com | Gail Benson

Now that we have survived the “category three” ice storm that was predicted to shut down humanity this past weekend, prompting many to believe that it was all just a Kroger kickback conspiracy and leaving everybody with enough bread to last at least six months, it’s time to move on and get back to our normal propane-free lives.

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When the news broke last week about the death of Nelson Mandela, I had this feeling that something century-changing had just happened. It wasn’t really a surprise, given his age and ailing health, but it still seemed like the world would never be quite the same without him in it. It felt monumental. He was 95 years old and in the limelight, albeit for 27 years of it in a horrible prison, most of his adult life, fighting for the basic rights of blacks in South Africa. It was like the world had lost a father, grandfather, or great-grandfather.

My initial reaction was at least he wasn’t gunned down in cold blood like Dr. Martin Luther King (by, in my opinion, his own government as ordered by FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover). He got to live a long life and see freedom not only for himself but also for the people who had previously been living under the rule of apartheid. I also thought, as the world is going to mourn the loss of this man, how are all these childish American politicians going to look as they continue trying to do anything and everything they can to derail President Obama’s every move.

So I did a Google search on “Ted Cruz and Nelson Mandela” and was pretty shocked to see that this was posted on Cruz’s Facebook page:

“Nelson Mandela will live in history as an inspiration for defenders of liberty around the globe. He stood firm for decades on the principle that until all South Africans enjoyed equal liberties he would not leave prison himself, declaring in his autobiography, ‘Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.’ Because of his epic fight against injustice, an entire nation is now free. We mourn his loss and offer our condolences to his family and the people of South Africa.”

Was this some kind of twisted PR strategy on his part to try to prove that Cruz is human, or did he really mean this? Was this created by a mid-level social-media intern who couldn’t get in touch with Cruz before posting this on his site, or does Cruz really feel this way?

Whatever the case, if you have the stomach for it and can get past the misinformation and butchering of the English language, and don’t mind letting yourself get absorbed in an abyss of redneckishness, the comments posted in response to his post are pretty interesting. As has been reported, perhaps the most interesting comments have been from Cruz’s own loyal supporters, who couldn’t believe he wrote something positive about a man they see as a Castro-loving, communistic, terroristic, white-hating murderer.

Yep, they blasted their own hero with vicious rhetoric. One of my favorites was from a guy who condemned Cruz for his comments and whose own Facebook page touted a recent event called “Packin’ Heat Meet Greet” at a coffee shop somewhere in Washington state.

His Facebook page was full of clever photos of signs, like the one that read, “Gun-Free Zone: Attention Criminals: All law abiding students, faculty, and staff of this institution have been disarmed for your convenience.” And this comment from a news piece about the Cruz comments also kind of sums it up:

“Ted fell down on this one. I hope it is just lack of knowledge and ignorance. I hope it is not pandering, when he actually knows differently. That would let the air out his ballon [sic] and put him in the much [sic] with the rest of the delusion [sic] idiots praising this phony and terrorist.”

Nice. Of course, overwhelmingly, the comments were from non-Cruz supporters in response to the Cruz supporters or former Cruz supporters because he said something nice about one of the greatest civil rights leaders in the world.

I’m not sure what all this says about the United States or Ted Cruz or his followers or his new haters or any of it all, but one thing is for sure: People are nuts, and they have far too much time on their hands. They use Cruz’s comments about Mandela to compare Barack Obama to Hitler. They compare apartheid to the Affordable Care Act. They use it to compare Barack Obama to Fidel Castro. (Cruz and his father are among the guiltiest of that.) Which is what makes it all the more interesting that Cruz went out on a political limb and is now being chastised by his own flock.

Even more interesting: After the brouhaha reached its peak over the past weekend, the profile photo of Ted Cruz dressed in his traditional navy-blue suit suddenly changed to an image of him standing in a field wearing a hunting vest and holding a rifle. Hmmm.

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Opinion Viewpoint

In Christie’s Footsteps

Getting reelected with 60 percent of the vote in a blue state wasn’t going to get New Jersey governor Chris Christie any thanks or praise from fellow Republicans, and he knew it. So the morning after, he gave them the “Jersey treatment,” rubbing it in their faces.

After winning 51 percent of the Latino vote, Christie held court with the national press, boasting he had built the relationships and the trust in Latino communities that Republicans have been unable to build as a national party. He asked rhetorically, “Now find another Republican in America who’s won the Latino vote recently.” Then said, “When you come just six months before an election, people are going to be like, ‘Where have you been? And why should I trust you? This other guy over here he’s been here for years.'”

It didn’t take months, or even weeks, after his expected reelection for things to get prickly with Christie, now an official 2016 contender. He is speaking so much like a future candidate his potential rivals wouldn’t give even one day of honeymoon. When asked directly by NBC’s Chuck Todd whether Christie was conservative enough to win the GOP nomination, GOP governor Rick Perry of Texas not only refused to answer the question, he wouldn’t even say Christie’s name.

It was the same with other Republican presidential wannabes, who belittled or dismissed Christie’s smashing victory among women, minorities, and Democrats. Kentucky senator Rand Paul called Christie a “moderate,” while Florida senator Marco Rubio told CNN that all elections are different and that “some of these races don’t apply to future races.” Though Rubio offered his congratulations to Christie, he said the governor had spoken “to the hopes and aspirations of people within New Jersey.” Key word: “within.” Texas senator Ted Cruz said he appreciated that Christie is “brash, that he is outspoken and that he won his race,” but when asked whether Christie is truly conservative, Cruz walked off without answering.

Christie confidants are already telling the press the governor is seriously prepping to be a candidate for the GOP nomination and that Republican donors across the country are begging him to run — again. For many establishment Republicans, or those not aligned with the Tea Party, Christie represents the only hope of winning the White House, because they see him as the only candidate who could defeat Hillary Clinton. He can — unless someone like former Florida governor Jeb Bush enters the race — expect to run on his electability and appeal among general election voters as a problem solver with a record, while other more conservative candidates paint the governing wing of the party as sellouts.

As candidates begin quietly jostling for support among consultants, elected officials, donors, and interest groups, it appears Christie could soon take up valuable space Rubio had once hoped to occupy on the left of Tea Party candidates like Cruz and Paul. After all, he made a high-risk choice to take a beating from conservatives for leading on immigration reform, which he has since retreated from. To move back to the right, Rubio backed the failed “defund” movement Cruz led, which resulted in an unpopular government shutdown that tainted the GOP as a whole but didn’t defund Obamacare. Rubio wants to be seen as a fresh new leader, but, now stained by the gridlock in Washington, he will find Christie arguing that no leadership is emerging from the nation’s capital, while governors like himself are bringing solutions and changes to the country for the better.

Rubio said the key message from last week’s gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, where GOP candidate Ken Cuccinelli lost his gubernatorial bid, was that it’s necessary “to abandon the politics of big government and embrace free enterprise and limited government.” Rubio said Cuccinelli had made that argument in Virginia while Christie had “tried to make it” in New Jersey, and he declared that on a national level “that’s a winning argument no matter who our nominee is in 2016 and certainly for our candidates running in 2014.”

Should he run, Christie will certainly make that argument. To potential candidates like Rubio, it’s the other arguments he makes that will be the problem.

A.B. Stoddard is a columnist and editor at The Hill newspaper.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

The Shutdown

So it did happen, and here we are in the first week of what we still hope will be a temporary shutdown of federal services, a predicament owing entirely to the blackmail tactics of Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz and his Tea Party ilk who are

Senator Ted Cruz

— let us be clear about it — not “conservatives.” They are right-wing anarchists who despise government — any kind of government, including the of-the-people, by-the-people, and for-the-people kind.

The issue is not Obamacare, as he and his fellow government-haters pretend. It is the public process itself, the time-honored and constitutionally ordained way in which our free people have been ordering their most important affairs for the two-and-a-half centuries since we won independence from the British crown.

It is clear from the election results of 2012 that the nation’s voters endorsed the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, or at least consented to the implementation of the act, a tentative first step toward better, more widespread, and less costly public health care. Even the Republican speaker of the House, John Boehner, acknowledged that Obamacare was the law of the land, before he surrendered to the minority Tea Party members of his caucus, who were encouraged by Cruz to revolt against the speaker.

What we see happening now in the halls of Congress is not democracy, and it is not protest. It is an attempt at a coup, the kind of thing you would expect to see in a banana republic but never in our own.

Ed Williams

Ed Williams

The man who for almost two decades has served Shelby County as its official historian has now become a revered part of that history. Ed Williams, who died at his home Sunday night at the age of 78, had been an integral part of the county’s political and governmental nexus before being appointed to the historian’s position by the Shelby County Historical Commission in 1997.

A man of dry wit and dispassionate judgment, he was also a pillar of the Republican Party, and, even though it has become unfashionable for partisans of the GOP to describe themselves as “moderates,” that is what Williams was. A graduate of East High School, who was schooled at Auburn University and the University of Memphis, Williams was an engineer but found himself attracted to public life. He won his first race, typically a gentlemanly one, for the state House of Representatives over Democrat Charles Burson, who in later years remembered Williams as fondly as Williams did Burson.

He would later serve four terms on the Shelby County Commission during the period when there were no partisan primaries for that body and was a go-between and facilitator for all factions on the commission. He held positions in the county trustee’s and assessor’s offices and was serving as the county’s environmental coordinator before he took up his historian’s duties.

Whoever gets to be Shelby County historian after Williams, who was a friend to many in the public sphere across party lines, will have big shoes to fill — and some serious and respectful documentation to do on their predecessor in the job.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: Senator Ted Cruz

Hi, kids. Uncle Randy checking in once again. Happy fall to all. Fall always reminds me of fresh starts and new beginnings.

This rapid weather change, however, makes me believe that we are going to pay for that reasonably mild summer we experienced in Memphis.

Which reminds me, I hope everyone gets their flu shot this year. That is, if you don’t believe that the vaccine is a secret government conspiracy to make you sick enough to wish you had health insurance. In that case, you’re in luck. Obamacare is due to kick in on October 1st, and, as I predicted in these pages, we are already seeing the insurance companies running competing advertisements for affordable policies. That’s different. For someone like me, who went without health insurance for a decade because of the dreaded “preexisting condition,” the Affordable Care Act is a long-awaited remedy. For a person who receives all their information from Fox News and right-wing websites, it’s the worst thing to hit America since the influenza pandemic of 1918.

With only days before the law takes effect, the Republicans are scrambling around like cockroaches, attempting anything and everything to derail or delay Obamacare. The Tea Party-dominated House Republicans passed a bill to allot money to run the government, without funding Obamacare, technically a violation of the law. If the Tea Party began telling the American people to stop paying their income taxes or to ignore the speed limit, wouldn’t they be aiding and abetting the commission of a crime? The Koch brothers have been running television ads that show a creepy looking Uncle Sam with a wicked smile preparing to perform a gynecological exam on an unsuspecting young woman. The grotesquery is supposed to convince younger people to opt out of Obamacare. This is where you younger folks come in. I understand that the Affordable Care Act is unpopular and that the right-wing hysteria has had its effect, but all the bill does is deliver 30 million new customers to the health insurance industry. The problem isn’t Obamacare, it’s the health insurance scam that the medical/pharmaceutical complex forced upon us in the first place. Now that we’re all in this together, the first step out of this trap is to at least make health insurance more affordable and available to everyone.

Obamacare allows a young person to remain on their parents’ insurance until age 26. I know you’re feeling great now, but when you start getting close to 30, things begin to happen. You may be fit enough to play on a park commission basketball team, until you’re diving for a loose ball and get your teeth knocked out, which actually happened to a friend of mine. Another friend was a teammate in a softball league until he tore out his knee sliding into home.

You’ll be happy you have health care on these occasions, not to mention when you get illnesses that require a doctor’s care. Young people’s participation is necessary to make the law effective, despite the Koch brothers’ efforts to convince them otherwise. Obamacare is the settled law of the land, yet the House bill to defund the act allows the “loyal opposition” to kick their 42nd attempt at killing the law over to the Senate, where it stands no chance of passing but every chance of becoming the partisan, political spectacle of the fall season.

All eyes will be on the man Sarah Palin refers to as “Tea Party Ted” — Texas senator Ted Cruz. The first-term senator, whose presidential ambitions are embarrassing, has vowed to do “everything necessary and anything possible to defund Obamacare,” including a promise to filibuster any spending bill that does not defund the health care law. Majority leader Harry Reid responded, “Any bill that defunds Obamacare is dead. Dead.”

Cruz is living proof that a degree from Harvard ain’t what it used to be. He may possess a rich intellect, but he displays poor judgment. That leftist rag, The Wall Street Journal, called Cruz’s idea of using the continuing resolution to defund Obamacare “crazy.” John McCain said it was a “bad idea.” Before “Tea Party Ted” was to appear on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace said he was “stunned” to receive opposition research on the senator “from other Republicans.” Cruz, the neo-Joe McCarthy, has labeled Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” and said that “sharia law is an enormous problem in this country.” Oh yeah, he voted against the Violence Against Women Act too.

Even fellow conservatives despise him. Right-wing representative Peter King of New York said, “He should stay in the Senate, keep quiet. If he can deliver on this, fine. If he can’t, he should keep quiet from now on, and we shouldn’t listen to him.” Harry Reid will merely strip any language about defunding Obamacare from the spending bill and send it back to the House. Then it’s up to “Crying John” Boehner to find the votes to pass the Senate bill and prevent a government shutdown or stand with the Tea Party and go down with the ship.

If you recall, the last government shutdown was a disaster that led to the fellating of President Clinton. The deadline is September 30th, and if you think this is exciting, just wait until next month’s self-inflicted crisis over the damned debt ceiling, when the Tea Party lunatics attempt to delay the implementation of Obamacare for another year. I’m not a lawyer, but I watch a lot of television. Isn’t this legal grounds for obstruction of justice?

Randy Haspel writes the “Born-Again Hippies” blog, where a version of this column first appeared.