Tag Archives: Ted Cruz

News

Cruz challenges Trump to one-on-one debate after Trump chickens out of Fox News debate

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I think that this little cry-baby wants his pacifier
I think that this little cry-baby wants his pacifier

Story from the non-partisan The Hill.

Excerpt:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said late Tuesday that Donald Trump’s fear of defending his record is behind the GOP front-runner’s boycott of the next Fox News GOP presidential debate.

“The reality is, the reason Donald is doing this – I actually don’t think it’s because of [Fox News host] Megyn [Kelly] at all,” he said on Fox News’s “Hannity.”

“I think it’s because he’s afraid to defend his record, that he knows he can’t defend his record and he’s trying to hide from the voters of Iowa,” Cruz said six days from the early voting state’s caucuses next Monday.

“He’s not willing to stand up and explain why he supports Bernie Sanders-style, full-on socialized medicine, expanding ObamaCare so the federal government is in charge of our healthcare,” he said, tying Trump with the Democratic presidential contender.

“He can’t explain why today he supports taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood,” the Republican White House hopeful added.

“He can’t explain why he supported [President] Obama’s stimulus plan and supported Obama’s TARP bail-out of the big banks. He doesn’t want to answer those questions, and he refuses to show up.”

[…]Trump announced late Tuesday that he is skipping the seventh GOP presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa Thursday evening.

I really hope that Trump does agree to a formal debate with Cruz, but honestly, he doesn’t have the balls for it.

Endorsements that matter

I don’t usually blog about endorsements for any candidates, but I will note that Ted Cruz picked up the endorsement of the president of the conservative Family Research Council think tank.

Washington Times reports:

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, has endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas for president, calling Mr. Cruz “a constitutional conservative who will fight for faith, family and freedom.”

“I trust Ted to fight to pull America out of the political and cultural tailspin that President Obama’s policies have put us in,” Mr. Perkins said. “This is no normal election; this election is about the very survival of our Constitution and our republic.”

Mr. Cruz said he was “honored” to have Mr. Perkins’ endorsement, calling him “a man of incredible principle and faith.”

Mr. Perkins is currently president of the FRC, which promotes socially conservative values and is one of the most influential conservative advocacy groups in the country.

[…]The Texas senator has also been endorsed by Dr. James Dobson, another social conservative leader, and past FRC President Gary Bauer.

Cruz also has the endorsement of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson. Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council are the groups that most informed my views on social issues, like marriage and right to life. They have an evidence-based approach to social issues. It’s much easier to debate these issues if you use their studies and materials. I can only guess that they think that Cruz is the candidate who is most capable of this style in the public square.

Ted Cruz’s achievements

For those looking for a good summary of Ted Cruz’s achievements as a conservative, there was a good article at Legal Insurrection.

It says:

Prior to winning that senate seat with conservative grassroots and TEA Party support and becoming the first Hispanic to serve as a senator from Texas, Cruz was also the first Hispanic—and the longest-serving person in Texas history—to hold the office of Solicitor General of Texas.

Cruz joined the George W. Bush campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy adviser and advised then-candidate and Governor Bush on a wide range of policy and legal matters, including civil justice, criminal justice, constitutional law, immigration, and government reform.

During the Bush administration, Cruz served as associate deputy attorney general at the DOJ and as a policy adviser on the Federal Trade Commission.  While at the FTC, Cruz was an avid free-market crusader—an extension of his high school participation in the Houston-based Free Market Education Foundation, a program Cruz entered at the age of 13.

At Princeton, where Cruz obtained his bachelor’s degree in Public Policy and shone as a star debater, he wrote his senior thesis on the separation of powers in which he argued that the Founders provided a means, in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, of protecting the people from a totalitarian central government.

After graduating with honors from Princeton, Cruz attended Harvard Law School, where he not only served as an editor on both the Harvard Law Review and the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy but was also a founding editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review.

In his role as Solicitor General of Texas, Cruz successfully defended the constitutionality of the Ten Commandments on the Texas capitol grounds, defended the Second Amendment by arguing that the DC handgun ban infringed on the rights of the people to bear arms, and he defended Texas against an attempt to re-open the cases of 51 Mexican nationals, all of whom were convicted of murder in the United States and were on death row.

[…][H]e ably fought the Rubio-Schumer immigration bill, has repeatedly worked to repeal ObamaCare (including a memorable filibuster in the Senate), and has been vocal in calling out even other Republicans as “campaign conservatives.”

Let me tell you how I would like my life to be like. I would like it if I could open the newspaper and see someone articulate and intelligent advocating for the conservative principles that were built into this country at the Founding – federalism, freedom of speech, the rule of law, judicial restraint, limited government, and so on. I would like to see Supreme Court nominees who interpret the Constitution instead of legislating from the bench. I would like to see fewer regulations and a lower tax burden on working individuals and private sector job creators. I would like to see smaller government and the abolition of public sector unions. I would like to see respect for the religious liberty of Bible-believing Christians.

I don’t think we are going to see any of these things if we nominate Donald Trump instead of Ted Cruz.

News

Where did Rubio, Cruz and Trump stand on amnesty before running for President?

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Marco Rubio with his allies: Democrat Churck Schumer and RINO John McCain
Marco Rubio with his allies: Democrat Churck Schumer and RINO John McCain

Here is an article from the non-partisan Roll Call, from way back in April 22, 2013. The title is “Rubio Targets Fellow Conservatives on Immigration”.

Excerpt:

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is running a campaign-style press operation to push an immigration overhaul, a fitting move for a politician who needs it to bolster a rumored 2016 presidential bid.

[…]According to multiple sources tracking the immigration debate, Rubio is perhaps the most important senator in lending the group’s effort enough conservative credibility to result in a final bill. Because Rubio’s future political aspirations will certainly be affected by the fate of the looming legislation, the proactive approach his team is taking is helping him take matters into his own hands.

[…]Of course, with each email, Rubio’s commitment to the bill grows stronger. And in a town where perception is almost everything, a daily record of his defense of the bill and attacks on the conservatives trying to kill it is certainly building a perception.

Who were the “conservatives trying to kill it” mentioned in the linked article? Jeff Sessions, Chuck Grassley, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz. And now Rubio has the nerve to accuse Cruz of supporting amnesty, after Cruz led the fight against it.

So let’s see what Ted Cruz did to fight amnesty.

 

Ted Cruz and Mike Lee go to war against amnesty
Ted Cruz and Mike Lee go to war against amnesty

Ted Cruz

Listen to Senator Jeff Sessions, a hawk on immigration, explain where Ted Cruz was when amnesty was being proposed by Rubio and his Democrat allies:

Legal Insurrection describes what Sessions says:

Sessions states:  “One of the things you’ve been hearing about somehow is a criticism of Ted and how he and what he did with regard to this massive [immigration bill] that they tried to ram through in 2013,” Sessions said. “Let me tell you, I was there. Every step of the way, Ted Cruz was on my side and fought this legislation all the way through.”

Sessions makes an important point during this speech:  “This presidential election is going to decide who runs the White House: the crowd that pushed this legislation or the crowd that opposed it.”

And that, I think, is the crux of this issue . . . and, at least in part, of this election.

And what about Donald Trump? Does he have a record of opposing amnesty?

Donald Trump

Trump was for amnesty back in August of 2013 – according to his own tweet:

Donald Trump tweets about illegal immigration, circa August 2013
Donald Trump tweets about illegal immigration, circa August 2013

If illegal immigration and border security are important to you, then your candidate is Ted Cruz. He is the only one running with the record of fighting against illegal immigration, as well as taking in refugees from countries that are dominated by radical Islam.

News

Trump wants to increase taxpayer subsidies of ethanol, Cruz wants to end them

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Donald Trump should stick to Miss Universe pageants
Donald Trump should stick to Miss Universe pageants

Donald Trump is pandering to ethanol special interests, trying to catch up to Cruz in Iowa.

The Wall Street Journal explains:

Donald Trump, who is battling Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), for the top spot in in corn-rich Iowa, is seeking to draw a contrast between the two candidates by catering to the state’s corn ethanol industry more than any other top GOP candidate.

[…]“I am there with you 100%,” Mr. Trump told a crowd of hundreds of Iowans whose livelihoods depend on the ethanol industry at a summit in Altoona, Iowa, on Tuesday. “You’re going to get a really fair shake from me.”

Corn has long been king in Iowa, the nation’s top corn-producing state, implanting in Iowa voters a sentiment that every candidate must cheer Washington’s backing for ethanol. Since 2011, though, that universal backing has been eroding.

Congress decided at the end of 2011 not to renew a tax credit that cost the government $6 billion a year. Critics of the government’s ethanol policy then set their targets on the ethanol mandate, which requires refineries to blend an increasing amount of biofuels into the U.S. gasoline supply each year.

At the ethanol summit Tuesday, Mr. Trump also read a prepared statement opposing Congress “changing any part of the RFS,” or Renewable Fuel Standard, the mandate’s formal name.

Trump doesn’t just want to keep the subsidies as they are, he wants to raise them, according to this article from The Hill.

It says:

Donald Trump said Tuesday that federal regulators should increase the amount of ethanol blended into the nation’s gasoline supply.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, Trump, a real estate mogul and the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ought to follow the ethanol volumes Congress set in 2007.

“The EPA should ensure that biofuel … blend levels match the statutory level set by Congress under the [renewable fuel standard],” Trump said.

The mandate is popular in Iowa, which hosts the nation’s first caucuses.

He is pandering to the people he speaks to wherever he goes… he has no convictions.

Ethanol doesn’t lower the price of gas, it actually raises the price of food, since some crops are being redirected to an inefficient process. It’s a handout to ehtanol producers, at the expense of gas consumers who must pay more for an inferior product.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz
Texas Senator Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz is different:

In a Des Moines Register op-ed Wednesday, Cruz said he would look to “phase out the Renewable Fuel Standard, end all energy subsidies, and ensure a level playing field for everyone,” a move that would eventually end the mandate that requires oil refiners to mix biofuel into their gasoline supplies.

“My view on energy is simple: We should pursue an ‘all of the above’ policy,” he wrote. “We should embrace all of the energy resources with which God has blessed America: oil and gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, and biofuels and ethanol. But Washington shouldn’t be picking winners and losers.”Cruz has previously said he would look to end the mandate by 2022, phasing it out over five years, if elected to the Oval Office.

Cruz leads Republicans in Iowa polls ahead the caucuses there next month, but his ethanol policies could hurt him in the state, which leads in the fuel’s production.

The senator from Texas has previously co-sponsored a bill to end the ethanol mandate immediately. Last spring, he sponsored a phase-out bill, and he says that plan is the best way to support fuel producers.

Going into Iowa and taking on the ethanol subsidy takes balls of steel. And Cruz has them.  He is risking the entire election on doing the right thing for the country as a whole, instead of pandering.

Cruz is trying to shift the public to the right – explaining basic economics to them, and asking them to give up their special interests in order to return to the vision of the Founders for America. Will it work? I think someone ought to try to remind us what America is supposed to be like.

There is a very good explanation of why ethanol subsidies are crony capitalism, by conservative firebrand Mark Levin.

Here’s a summary:

Levin explained what crony capitalism is. That it is the state picking winners at the expense of others.  In the case of ethanol they have made it mandatory in cars, even though it is proven that it does not reduce oil usage, because oil is needed for the production of ethanol.  That it hurts engines.

The most damaging thing that ethanol does, according to Levin is add to famine and poverty in the third world, by limiting the production of food crops, as the land is used to grow ethanol feedstock instead of food.

Levin focused on the fact that Donald Trump is going all in for ethanol to pander to Governor Terry Branstad in Iowa.  He told his audience that Branstad’s son makes a living from the ethanol industry.

There are fundamental economic issues at play here. We are harming our economy and destroying our long-term prosperity the longer we allow socialists to run our economy. Things can be good in this economy. We can get the jobs we want, cheaper prices, higher quality. We can have social programs that work, and greater individual freedom. But we have to go back to our founding principles. That is what made us great, and what can return us to greatness. We did not become the wealthiest nation on the Earth by accident. When all else has failed, why don’t we try doing what worked for the last 200 years?