Ted Cruz: The first talk radio presidential candidate

Ted Cruz is the first talk radio presidential candidate, so it's no wonder Glenn Beck has endorsed him. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and others also gush over him.

I say that because Cruz, like a talk radio host, owes his popularity to staking out the "purest" (read: most extreme) views within his party, without any hope of ever getting what he wants. 

Cruz has never compromised in the Senate, he only grandstands, meaning he gets nothing done. He's a shameless self-promoter who has zero endorsements from his Republican colleagues in the Senate, who can't stand him. 

It's amazing that Cruz looks like a strong candidate for the GOP nomination, having just won Iowa. (But not without some dirty tricks.)

It just goes to show that talk radio runs the GOP. Too bad talk radio takes zero responsibility for governing, just like Ted Cruz.

Now if you want a good look at the real Ted Cruz, in his young and striving young-adult years, read this:

http://theslot.jezebel.com/heres-what-happens-when-you-try-and-track-down-a-ted-cr-1752337625 

Fear

Americans, I'm sad to say, are afraid. They're chicken shits. Because there was an attack on Paris. Over 100 people were killed.

Yet every year, over 10,000 Americans are killed by guns. We don't care. It's not that Americans die, it's HOW they die. Jealous husband -- that's life. Crazy guy -- it happens. Kid playing with dad's gun -- it's a tragedy. Depressed teen -- it was hormones. Black people -- take your pick of reasons that we write off.

The truth is, we're not afraid of killing. It's all around us. We're afraid of whatever the media and some fear-monger tells us to be afraid of. Because if we were objective about it, we'd do something reasonable. But fear isn't reasonable; it's the wrong stimulus to elicit a reasonable response.

Same with our compatriots in the armed services. If they die from an IED -- that's war. If they die from friendly fire -- that's war. If they drink themselves to death at home after PTSD -- that doesn't count.

Americans are afraid of the wrong things.

No, Syrian, Iraqi and other refugees aren't going to storm our borders like is happening now in Europe.

No, they're not going to "infiltrate" us through our southern border either. Not when ISIS or Al Qaeda could just send hundreds of jihadists with European passports to the U.S., without a visa, to wreak havoc.  Jihadists who can buy guns without a background check, and, in many states, openly carry firearms legally.  Why would terrorists take the former route, which takes at least 18 months, and may ferret out a real terrorist?  Why take the time and risk?  It defies reason and logic.

And yet we're afraid of them nevertheless, these refugees.

Americans are pussies. Especially the right-wing ones who say they want to defend America. They're the biggest fraidy cats of them all.  They'd rather upend the Constitution to defend against a lightning strike than take commonsense steps to defend themselves against much more likely causes of death.

But why?

It's the media. The same "lib'rul media" or "mainstream media" or "biased media" that they despise making them so afraid. They all -- we all -- get our information from SOMEWHERE.  So where are they getting information that's telling them that Syrian women and children are a threat to their very lives, to the American way? They didn't think of it themselves, that's for damn sure.

They are just as manipulable by the media as any liberal, as any other person... nay, more so, because they think their ideology gives them special perspicacity. And yet their fear blinds them.

And so I say, CHILL THE F--K OUT.  Stop being such f---ing pussies. If we're the strongest nation in the history of mankind -- and we are -- then that comes with some responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is to serve. And serve we do -- at least some of us. Our men and women of the armed services go where we tell them, train whom we say to, kill whom we say to, and come home if they're lucky. But we civilians also have responsibility to NOT BE SUCH F---ING PUSSIES, and out of our fear, our ignorance and idiocy, send our brothers and sisters into harm's way halfway across the world to fight some bearded loonies in their caves, unless it really means something, unless it really protects us at home, or defends our interests as enumerated in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

The latter responsibility is where we're falling flat. Oh yes, we "honor" our troops with ribbons and FB posts... as we send them into one unsolvable mess, one quagmire after another.  As we ignore them when they return home and try to live in our great American society. Have we no shame? Have we no compassion? Have we no honor, to send these men & women of honor into stupid, dishonorable battles for nothing?

Swallow your Stars & Stripes and choke on them if you use them to justify your fear, to cover up you inadequacy, your latent racism, xenophobia, or religious vision of apocalypse.

Don't use our United States of America for your own stupid, selfish, fearful, short-sighted aims.

Don't buttress your own pathetic shortfalls with the might and resolve of the U.S. Military.

Don't ask our diplomats to say bullshit they don't believe.

Don't deceive yourselves, your family and your neighbors that you're in this fight when you're really not. You know nothing of war, or risk, or death or bloodshed or loss.

Just STOP. Just f---ing quit it. Just STOP.

Fuck Trump. Fuck Carson. Fuck Cruz. And yes, fuck Hillary. Fuck anybody who thinks we can solve civil wars or terrorism with "balls" or "bigger balls" or "brass balls" or salty balls or any kind of balls you can think of.  All that "balls" means is, some guy in a suit in a mansion with body guards sends thousands of Americans in uniform to die. Is that what you want?  Is that what you really need to feel safe, to go about your day?

If you really, truly need that, then I pity you. I despise you, yes. But I pity you.

You're not a worthy inheritor of America's greatness.  You're a scared little girl cowering under her sweaty bed sheets.

GOP knows U.S. can't do much in Crimea, but blasts Obama anyway

Cohen is right:  "Calls for a greater US response to Putin’s military provocations assume a degree of omnipotence in US foreign policy – and an ability to shape foreign events – that simply doesn’t exist, and never really has."

Therefore it's shameful how Republicans try to score political points against President Obama when we're faced with the biggest foreign policy crisis since 1991. The No-Responsibility Wing can't be serious adults for even one second.

Cohen sums up the nuttiness of conservative critics [emphasis mine]:

"We don’t want military action" in Crimea, says Rand Paul. "We should be exceedingly reluctant to employ US military force," says Ted Cruz. Even Area Unrepentant War-Monger Dick Cheney says "there are military options that don’t involve putting troops on the ground in Crimea".

Indeed, one is hard-pressed to find a single person in Washington who believes the US should send actual American soldiers to Ukraine – even if Russia truly escalates the crisis and send its troops into Eastern Ukraine.

All of which raises a quite serious and legitimate question: what the hell are we arguing about?

If the US is not prepared to put troops on the ground? If we’re not willing to use military force? If we’re content with taking the biggest tool in the US toolbox off the table, then how exactly is the United States supposed to reverse Russia’s seizure of the Crimea? Our vast military capabilities won’t mean much to Putin if he knows we aren’t willing to use them.

Here’s the dirty little secret of the foreign-policy pundit/expert orgy on what to do about Crimea: the US has at its disposal very few levers with which to change Russia’s behavior, at least in the near-term. We can cancel multilateral summits and military training (already done); we can deny visas to Russian officials (just beginning); we can even ramp up bilateral economic sanctions and try to build support among key European allies for a larger, more invasive sanctions regime (under discussion).

But as our long effort to bring Iran to the negotiating table over its nuclear ambition reminds us, such steps will take time and diplomatic effort to bring results. 

Like I said before, the levers that the U.S. does have at its disposal require that useless gum-flapping diplomacy stuff that Republicans revile.  

A dirty little secret of US foreign policy on Crimea: there's not much we can do

By Michael Cohen

March 14, 2014 | Guardian

URL: http://gu.com/p/3nh25

Ted Cruz and his dad on the death penalty

Since Texas Senator Ted Cruz is a "good" conservative and a good son, we can be sure the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

If you want to know what this Canadian conservative nutjob really believes, just listen to his preacher dad Rafael Cruz.

BTW, if you have a problem with the concept of social justice, then you have a BIG problem with the Catholic Church. And liberation theology may be making a comeback in the Catholic Church... even though it never went away in Latin America, one of the last strongholds of the Roman Catholic Church.

Similarly with the death penalty: the Roman Catholic Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church, the National Council of Churches (representing 35 Protestant and Orthodox churches), the U.S Episcopal Bishops, the U.S Presbyterian General Assemblies, the American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A., the Unitarians, and the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jewish movements all oppose capital punishment on religious-moral grounds. [HT: Pew Research.]

The Southern Baptist Convention is just about the only mainstream church that still advocates the death penalty.  

So if you call yourself a believer, a Christian or a person of faith, then think twice about Ted Cruz, his dad, and the Republican Party. And if you're so-called "pro-life" and pro-death penalty, then you'd better think twice then twice again.  Are you choosing your religious beliefs a la carte, as it suits your politics? Are you putting politics before your religion?

P.S. -- Some of my conservative friends have misunderstood my conservative logic when I said that, "Ted Cruz is a 'good' conservative and a good son, [so] we can be sure the apple didn't fall far from the tree." Like a good Christian, I forgive them for their misunderstanding.

You see, Obama and the far Right taught us that one's beliefs are determined by one's associates. Share a ZIP code with Bill Ayers? You're left-wing, bomb-throwing radical. Go to Rev. Wright's church? You hate whitey.  Belief by association is even stronger when it comes to one's parents, like Obama's biological socialist dad. Therefore, conservative logic teaches us that, with absolute certainty, Ted Cruz shares his dad's beliefs. It simply couldn't be otherwise. I mean, he doesn't even try to renounce his father's beliefs. So we can rest assured that Ted Cruz is an Evangelical Dominonist just like his dad.

Ted Cruz's Dad Declares God Is Pro Death Penalty

By Shadee Ashtari

November 7, 2013 | Huffington Post

URL: http://huff.to/1bbeHpZ

Zakaria: Beware the dark side of conservatism

Zakaria may tend to lift material from other journalists, but even so, he's lifting the right stuff. This one gets posted in full!  I mean, this is simply epic. Check it out [emphasis mine]:

But compared with almost any period in U.S. history, we live in bourgeois times, in a culture that values family, religion, work and, above all, business. Young people today aspire to become Mark Zuckerberg. They quote the aphorisms of Warren Buffett and read the Twitter feed of Bill Gates. Even after the worst recession since the Great Depression, there are no obvious radicals, anarchists, Black Panthers or other revolutionary movements — save the tea party.

And here's the upshot of his smackdown:

The era of crises could end, but only when this group of conservatives makes its peace with today’s America. They are misty-eyed in their devotion to a distant republic of myth and memory yet passionate in their dislike of the messy, multiracial, quasi-capitalist democracy that has been around for half a century — a fifth of our country’s history. At some point, will they come to recognize that you cannot love America in theory and hate it in fact?

Ouch!  And so... as my Tea Party friends dust themselves off and wipe the figurative blood from their noses, here's a stylistic note for my journo colleagues: it really is incorrect and misleading to refer to the "tea party" in the singular. They should always be referred to in the plural. They have no overarching organization, leadership, common platform, or even history of playing nicely with each other. They run the gamut from billionaire-funded astro-turf operations like Americans For Prosperity to local coffee klatches in Flyoverville, MO.  

This is why blithering, bilious idiots like Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint or Ted Cruz can rightly claim to speak for the Tea Parties: they have just as valid a claim to leadership of this brainless millipede of an "organization" as anybody does. To be totally honest, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have the most legitimate claim. They speak directly to the Tea Parties everyday, and humor their every paranoid anti-government fantasy.  

Conservatism needs to lighten up

By Fareed Zakaria

October 17, 2013 | Washington Post

The crisis has been resolved, but this respite is temporary. We are bound to have more standoffs and brinkmanship in the months and years ahead. To understand why, you must recognize that, for the tea party, the stakes could not be higher. The movement is animated and energized by a fear that soon America will be beyond rescue.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) put it plainly at the recent Values Voter Summit in Washington: “We’re nearing the edge of a cliff, and our window to turn things around, my friends, I don’t think it is long. I don’t think it is 10 years. We have a couple of years to turn the country around or we go off the cliff to oblivion.”

Cruz dominated the summit’s straw poll, taking 42 percent of the vote, more than three times his nearest rival. His fundraising committees reported this week that they took in $1.19 million in the third quarter, double the total in the preceding quarter. Cruz’s national approval rating may be an abysmal 14 percent, but to the base of the Republican Party he is an idol.

The current fear derives from Obamacare, but that is only the most recent cause for alarm. Modern American conservatism was founded on a diet of despair. In 1955, William F. Buckley Jr. began the movement with a famous first editorial in National Review declaring that the magazine “stands athwart history, yelling Stop.” John Boehner tries to tie into this tradition of opposition when he says in exasperation, “The federal government has spent more than what it has brought in in 55 of the last 60 years!”

But what has been the result over these past 60 years? The United States has grown mightily, destroyed the Soviet Union, spread capitalism across the globe and lifted its citizens to astonishingly high standards of living and income. Over the past 60 years, America has built highways and universities, funded science and space research, and — along the way — ushered in the rise of the most productive and powerful private sector the world has ever known.

At the end of the 1961 speech that launched his political career, Ronald Reagan said, “If I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.” But the menace Reagan warned about — Medicare — was enacted. It has provided security to the elderly. There have been problems regarding cost, but that’s hardly the same as killing freedom.

For most Americans, even most conservatives, yesterday’s deepest causes are often quietly forgotten. Consider that by Reagan’s definition, all other industrial democracies are tyrannies. Yet every year, the right-wing Heritage Foundation ranks several of these countries — such as Switzerland — as “more free” than the United States, despite the fact that they have universal health care.

For many conservatives, the “rot” to be excoriated is not about economics and health care but about culture. A persistent theme of conservative intellectuals and commentators — in print and on Fox News — is the cultural decay of the country. But compared with almost any period in U.S. history, we live in bourgeois times, in a culture that values family, religion, work and, above all, business. Young people today aspire to become Mark Zuckerberg. They quote the aphorisms of Warren Buffett and read the Twitter feed of Bill Gates. Even after the worst recession since the Great Depression, there are no obvious radicals, anarchists, Black Panthers or other revolutionary movements — save the tea party.

For some tacticians and consultants, extreme rhetoric is just a way to keep the troops fired up. But rhetoric gives meaning and shape to a political movement. Over the past six decades, conservatism’s language of decay, despair and decline have created a powerful group of Americans who believe fervently in this dark narrative and are determined to stop the country from plunging into imminent oblivion. They aren’t going to give up just yet.

The era of crises could end, but only when this group of conservatives makes its peace with today’s America. They are misty-eyed in their devotion to a distant republic of myth and memory yet passionate in their dislike of the messy, multiracial, quasi-capitalist democracy that has been around for half a century — a fifth of our country’s history. At some point, will they come to recognize that you cannot love America in theory and hate it in fact?

We don't negotiate with terrorists

"We don't want to detonate a bomb in Washington. We really don't!  So why are you threatening to make us detonate a bomb? Just give us what we want and everything will be fine."

If a member of al Qaeda said this to President Obama trying to get his demands met, we would call it what it was: terrorism.

It's a sad attempt at nifty rhetoric (see article below) and nobody's going to fall for it. 

So think: that's just what the GOP Congress is threatening -- to shut down the federal government unless Obama agrees to de-fund a law that was passed by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court.  

That's not "checks and balances" stuff, folks. Such tactics were not written into the Constitution or ever anticipated by the Founding Fathers. That's political terrorism.  And the hostages are you and I.

Like I said before, for Democrats' political fortunes, I hope the GOP tries to hold us hostage to nullify a law passed by Congress because it will backfire on Republicans. But for America's sake, for our economy's sake, I hope the GOP wises up and steps back from the brink. 

Cruz: Ignore Media, GOP ‘Can Win’ Defunding Obamacare Argument

By Katrina Trinko

August 21, 2013 | National Review

URL: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/356332/cruz-ignore-media-gop-can-win-defunding-obamacare-argument-katrina-trinko