Author Topic: Sen.Ted Cruz  (Read 131568 times)

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #150 on: November 11, 2015, 09:48:23 AM »
"On TPP, the vote was for TPA, which both Ryan and Cruz voted for. It removed 66% votes for passage and changed it to 50% plus 1. This legislation provided for Fast Track Authority where by Congress will not have future inputs into regulation changes. The WH wants it, and it is implemented."

Please flesh this out on the TPP thread.  Thank you.

DougMacG

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz, raising taxes on the poor
« Reply #151 on: November 11, 2015, 09:55:36 AM »
Please flesh this out "but does not fully explain that this applies to every economic act and dollar, not just applied to profits after all expenses are deducted."

"This is a regressive tax in that the sales tax part of it hits the lowest income hardest."   There is a sales tax in the mix?

A state sales tax applies normally just to consumer purchases and makes exceptions for essentials like food and clothing.

The Cruz 'business transfer tax' of 16% applies to every dollar of our $17 trillion GDP including employment, raw materials, food, clothing, housing, utilities, tuition, child care, health care, etc.  The 'subtraction' method business transfer tax means subtract only what has already been taxed the 16% and would cause it to be double taxed.  Every dollar of every economic transaction gets the 16% hidden tax.  It is applied behind the scenes, hidden, not visible at the point of sale like a sales tax.

As John McEnroe used to say, you can't be serious!  He doesn't get down to a 10% flat tax with a 36k exclusion for free.

See the links in this post and please correct me if I am wrong.  http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=2408.msg91069#msg91069

« Last Edit: November 11, 2015, 09:58:46 AM by DougMacG »

Crafty_Dog

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« Last Edit: November 18, 2015, 08:21:56 AM by Crafty_Dog »

DougMacG

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How Ted Cruz became a Jeff Sessions Republican, (flip flop on immigration)
« Reply #153 on: November 18, 2015, 08:35:53 AM »
Also give Trump and his poll numbers credit for Cruz evolving on immigration.  One point here is that Cruz shouldn't be pointing accusingly to Rubio's past views if his own have changed so dramatically in the last few months.  In both cases it looks like political expedience, but to learn and change based on facts and reality might be better than the alternative.

How Ted Cruz Became a Jeff Sessions Republican
by ELIANA JOHNSON   , National Rreview
November 18, 2015

When Ted Cruz argued in the most recent Republican debate that the ongoing flow of immigrants into the country will “drive down the wages” of millions of Americans, it was a departure for him. Cruz has long supported higher levels of legal immigration. When he cited concerns over wages and subsequently backtracked on increasing the levels of guest workers and legal immigrants, many saw a new policy intended to appeal to Republican grass roots, but also the influence of the Senate’s foremost immigration hawk. The controversial argument that immigrants, both legal and illegal, are depressing the wages of the lower and middle class has become something of a calling card for Alabama senator Jeff Sessions. Over the past decade, his office has essentially served as ground zero for the war against comprehensive immigration reform and as a clearinghouse for the intellectual and political arguments against it.

It’s not the first time the soft-spoken Southerner has managed to inject his arguments into the presidential primary. Cruz is but the latest in a series of Republican contenders to consult with the senator on immigration and to come away from the conversation singing Sessions’s tune. Sessions’s influence on the party is more often felt than seen, but as the Iowa caucuses approach and Republicans look to rally the grass roots, it is becoming increasingly visible. Cruz’s immigration plan, unveiled Friday in a speech in Orlando, Fla., calls for halting increases in legal immigration “so long as American unemployment remains unacceptably high” and for limiting the H-1B visa program to those with advanced degrees. It is a dramatic departure for a candidate who just six months ago was criticizing former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s rightward shift on immigration and asserting, “There is no stronger advocate of legal immigration in the U.S. Senate than I am.” Cruz had already had a change of heart, but his public pronouncements followed a two-hour meeting with Sessions and his top staffers. The subject of the discussion was an H-1B reform bill — Cruz had proposed that he and Sessions team up to push the bill.

According to Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies and a leading immigration hawk, Sessions’s ten years of work on the immigration issue have given him “credibility with the base, and that is something that is in very short supply among politicians.” That credibility is also something Cruz needs to preserve if he is to win the Republican nomination. “The presidential candidates seeking the Republican nomination should listen to Jeff Sessions,” says Rick Tyler, Cruz’s national spokesman. Sessions has “been focused and consistent on solving the problem of illegal immigration,” Tyler says. “Senator Cruz has worked with him on a number of immigration-reform bills and will continue to consult with him.” Sessions has been unrelenting in advancing a populist argument against comprehensive immigration reform. Sessions’s credibility derives from his monomaniacal focus on immigration and the role he has played in rallying his colleagues in the Senate and the House against the comprehensive reform bills in 2007 and again in 2013. Armed with reams of data and numerous academic studies, most notably from Harvard economist George Borjas, Sessions has been unrelenting in advancing a populist argument against comprehensive immigration reform. It is the rich, he says, who benefit from low-skilled labor, which keeps wages down and profits up, while the poor have seen their salaries drop or their jobs replaced entirely by foreign workers. “The principal economic dilemma of our time is the very large number of people who either are not working at all, or not earning a wage great enough to be financially independent,” reads a passage in the senator’s 23-page guide to the issue for newly elected lawmakers. “What sense does it make to continue legally importing millions of low-wage workers to fill jobs while sustaining millions of current residents on welfare?”

It's an argument not often heard in the immigration debate. On the left, union leaders who might naturally make the argument have dropped their opposition to amnesty (the New York Times chastised them for it in 2000, noting that it would “depress the wages” of native-born workers), and Republicans have focused largely on legality, ensuring that immigrants are entering the country legally. “I think Sessions fills a needed gap in that sense,” says Yuval Levin, the editor of National Affairs and a contributing editor of National Review. “It makes sense to think about wages when you think about immigration.”

For Republicans, it also seems to make sense politically to argue that increased immigration levels depress wages on the low end of the scale – it undermines the perception of the GOP as the party of the rich. By pressing the case within the Republican conference on Capitol Hill, Sessions has made the Republican side of the immigration debate something that “really does resonate with a number of people, especially since the market crash, the economic slowdown, which really hasn’t ended for most people,” Krikorian says. The first mention of Sessions’s name on the campaign trail came not from Ted Cruz but from Scott Walker. “Our sense was that Walker was new to the federal scene and therefore would benefit from our thoughts,” says a Sessions aide, who sent the Walker campaign the primer the senator distributed to freshmen lawmakers in January. Sessions followed up in a series of phone calls with the governor.

Walker turned heads when he told radio talk-show host Glenn Beck that the next president should champion a legal immigration policy that focuses “first and foremost on protecting American workers and American wages.” Then he dropped Sessions’s name, in a nod to the Republican base that on this issue, he understood their concerns.

“I’ve talked to Senator Sessions and others out there,” Walker said, “but it is a fundamentally lost issue by many in elected positions today . . . and we need to have that be at the forefront of our discussion going forward.” It was one of the high points of Walker’s short-lived campaign, but he never explained what an emphasis on wages would mean as a matter of immigration policy. Walker was thrown in part by the tumult Donald Trump introduced into the presidential primary with the announcement of his campaign in June. In Trump, who began to use his enormous platform largely to stoke populist resentment about the type and amount of immigration into the U.S., Sessions and his team saw an opportunity to amplify their message. The Trump immigration plan has Sessions’s fingerprints all over it. In a series of phone calls, they provided policy advice that culminated in their collaboration with the Trump campaign on Trump’s immigration proposal. The Trump plan has Sessions’s fingerprints all over it: It argues that “the influx of foreign workers holds down salaries, keeps unemployment high, and makes it difficult for poor and working-class Americans — including immigrants themselves and their children — to earn a middle-class wage.” The policy proposal: Decrease the number of low-skilled immigrants who enter the country legally, and require companies to favor American workers over foreign-born visa holders. Trump himself seemed to acknowledge Sessions’s political value and the credibility he has with grassroots conservatives. When Sessions joined him on stage at a campaign rally in Mobile, Ala., in late August, Trump was full of praise. “He’s been so spot-on, he’s so highly respected,” Trump said of Sessions, who responded slyly: “I’m really impressed with your [immigration] plan. I know it will make a difference.”

Had Trump familiarized himself with it, it might have. Instead, during the Republican debate hosted by CNBC last month, he contradicted key aspects of his Sessions-inspired immigration plan. The plan had called for lowering the rates of legal immigration. In the debate, however, he said: I’m in favor of people coming into this country legally. And you know what? They can have it any way you want. You can call it visas. You can call it work permits. You can call it anything you want. Nobody ever called Trump a disciplined messenger. But the label has often been applied to Ted Cruz, and if Cruz continues to carry the Sessions mantle in the Republican primary, the Alabama senator’s views will get a wider hearing than ever before.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/427240/ted-cruz-jeff-sessions-republican-on-immigration


ccp

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #155 on: November 18, 2015, 10:59:36 AM »
Alan Dershowitz said Cruz was "off the charts" on intelligence.  I don't remember what he said of Brock in chief.

Both at Harvard law.


Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: Sen.Ted Cruz vs. Dr. Ben
« Reply #157 on: November 19, 2015, 07:32:38 PM »
Ted Cruz Battling Ben Carson for Evangelical GOP Voters
Texas senators aims to reverse lead among this key voting bloc now held by the retired neurosurgeon
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz speaks Monday at the Bully Pulpit forum at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Cruz defended his call for accepting Christian refugees fleeing Syria, but not Muslim refugees. Photo: Richard Ellis/Zuma Press
By Janet Hook
Nov. 19, 2015 6:33 p.m. ET
29 COMMENTS

GREENVILLE, S. C.—Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is moving steadily to consolidate support for his presidential bid on the Republican Party’s right flank, but he is facing stiff competition for evangelical voters, who are turning in large numbers to retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

Mr. Cruz’s efforts have been broad and deep, including a recent rally here in support of religious liberty where he called for a 10-million-person increase in evangelicals voting in 2016.

“When we stand together, the truth is mightier than lies; the light is stronger than the darkness,” Mr. Cruz told a crowd of about 2,500 at Bob Jones University, a Christian college. “There are more of us than there are of them.”

Evangelicals are one of the largest voting blocs in the GOP primary electorate in key early voting states. Cultivating them is especially important in Iowa, where such voters made up about 57% of GOP caucusgoers in 2012. Mr. Cruz’s father, Rafael, a celebrity in his own right on the evangelical ministry circuit, has campaigned heavily for his son in Iowa. His state director, Bryan English, is a minister.

A Nov. 4 national poll by Quinnipiac University found that among Republicans, Mr. Carson is the first choice of 32% of evangelicals, compared with 16% for Mr. Cruz. In Iowa, Mr. Carson also has an advantage among likely caucus goers, with the support of 23.5% while Mr. Cruz draws 12.3%, according to the Real Clear Politics poll average.

Messrs. Cruz and Carson will be among seven GOP presidential candidates speaking Friday night to a meeting of 1,500 social conservatives sponsored by the Family Leader in Des Moines.

Mr. Cruz’s supporters are banking on the Carson candidacy fading as voters come closer to actually picking a presidential nominee. Meanwhile, Mr. Cruz is quietly building a far-reaching political organization in early voting states and beyond. And while he hasn’t criticized Mr. Carson, Mr. Cruz draws an implicit contrast by arguing that he doesn’t just hold Christian values—he has fought for them in Washington.

“Some candidates will talk about religious freedom, but only one has fought for it and won,” a supporter says in a radio ad aired this fall by a pro-Cruz super PAC, Keep the Promise.

That argument has made an impression on voters like Susan Swanson, who finds both Messrs. Carson and Cruz appealing. “Both have good values, but I see Ted as a fighter,” said Ms. Swanson, who works for a Christian nonprofit center advising pregnant women in Augusta, Ga. “He’s had to fight his own party.”
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks this week at the International Church of Las Vegas. ENLARGE
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks this week at the International Church of Las Vegas. Photo: John Locher/Associated Press

Some voters prefer Mr. Carson because he is more removed from Washington. “He is a good Christian man. I do believe that’s what this country needs now more than anything,’’ said William Tucker, a machinist in Mississippi. “I don’t get the same vibe from Ted Cruz as I do from Ben Carson. He comes off as a politician first and foremost.”

Cruz supporters say he is better equipped than Mr. Carson to manage foreign policy, especially in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris. “When I look at national security and the geopolitical chess game that’s going on…I don’t have any doubt—it’s Ted Cruz who’s going to play it better,” said Rep. Steve King, a leading Iowa conservative who endorsed Mr. Cruz Monday.

Cruz supporters say Mr. King and other key supporters give the campaign an organizational edge more valuable than raw numbers in early polls. “They have relationships with the people who drive voters to the caucuses,” said Cruz campaign spokesman Rick Tyler.

Mr. Carson’s spokeswoman Deana Bass said that Mr. Carson’s evangelical support runs deep because “people are familiar with his faith, having read his life story.” He began amassing supporters before he declared his run for president, as he wrote books and spoke to audiences about his life’s journey from troubled youth to renowned neurosurgeon that is seen as a classic tale of Christian redemption. A well-known evangelical activist, David Barton, is heading one of the super PACs supporting Mr. Cruz.

When Mr. Cruz started his campaign in late March, he was a blip on the public opinion radar, a star among tea-party activists but little known nationally. But he has turned out to be a formidable fundraiser, through a combination of small donors and large contributors, and his efforts are being supplemented by a flush family of super PACs. His campaign ended the third quarter of 2013 with more cash on hand than any other GOP candidate.

It was clear from the outset of his campaign that Mr. Cruz would make a play for the evangelical vote. He announced his candidacy at Liberty University, a Christian college founded by the late Jerry Falwell. He has made religious-liberty protection a central campaign issue, especially after the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage left many traditionalists feeling under siege.

While some candidates are staking their hopes on getting momentum from victory in one early state, Mr. Cruz is extending his reach into the swath of southern states that hold their primaries on March 1.

The Cruz playbook calls for drawing support in three of the four voter blocs within the GOP. Writing off the party’s establishment wing, he is playing to win the GOP’s tea-party activists, who are his natural constituency; libertarians, a smaller group that he has been trying to peel off from rival Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky; and evangelicals.

His biggest challenge, supporters say, is introducing himself to evangelical voters who know little about him. The campaign and one of the super PACs supporting him have been trying to spotlight his work defending religious liberty before he was elected to the Senate. A flier distributed at the Bob Jones University rally detailed court cases he argued before the Supreme Court, including a case involving the display of the Ten Commandments at the Texas capital. Some of the super PAC ads took the same tack.

His campaign is counting on the idea that the more evangelicals know about him—and about Mr. Carson—the more likely they are to back Mr. Cruz. People at Bob Jones University, where the two candidates appeared a day apart, were able to compare their night-and-day styles, with Mr. Cruz offering as fiery a presentation as Mr. Carson’s was low key.

The comparison worked to Mr. Cruz’s advantage in the case of Dee Dee Groves, who attended both events undecided between the two and came out a Cruz supporter. “I really appreciate his strong Christian stand,” said Ms. Groves, who is home schooling her children in Greenville. “I still like Carson, (but) I feel like he’s not dynamic enough.’’

Crafty_Dog

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WSJ's Kim Strassel goes after Cruz
« Reply #158 on: November 19, 2015, 07:39:36 PM »
 By Kimberley A. Strassel
Nov. 19, 2015 7:15 p.m. ET
44 COMMENTS

The Paris attacks have put a lot of things into focus. Including a new focus on a particular trait of a particular up-and-coming presidential candidate: Ted Cruz.

The Texas senator has been the stealth contender. He has quietly built his donor base and erected an early-state infrastructure. He has identified his main opponents and deployed strategies to poach voters from each. He flatters Donald Trump and Ben Carson, waiting to scoop up support if they fade. He lambastes Marco Rubio, presenting himself as a purer pick for the conservative base.

But more notable at the moment is Mr. Cruz’s calculated effort to peel off Rand Paul voters by pitching himself as Paul-lite on foreign policy. The strategy isn’t surprising to anyone who has watched Mr. Cruz’s career. A dictionary definition of “opportunistic” is to “exploit chances offered by immediate circumstances without reference to a general plan or moral principle.” And that helps explain why Mr. Cruz is both so loved and so disliked.
Opinion Journal Video
Wonder Land Columnist Dan Henninger on the President’s reaction to the French terrorist massacre. Photo credit: Getty Images.

The senator’s supporters adore him because they see him in those moments when he has positioned himself as the hero. To them he is the stalwart forcing a government shutdown over ObamaCare. He’s the brave soul calling to filibuster in defense of gun rights. He’s the one keeping the Senate in lame-duck session to protest Mr. Obama’s unlawful immigration orders.

Mr. Cruz’s detractors see a man who engineers moments to aggrandize himself at the expensive of fellow conservatives. And they see the consequences. They wonder what, exactly, Mr. Cruz has accomplished.

ObamaCare is still on the books. It took the GOP a year to recover its approval ratings after the shutdown, which helped deny Senate seats to Ed Gillespie in Virginia and Scott Brown in New Hampshire. Mr. Obama’s immigration orders are still on the books. The courts gained a dozen liberal judges, all with lifetime tenure, because the lame-duck maneuver gave Democrats time to cram confirmation votes through. Mr. Cruz’s opportunism tends to benefit one cause: Mr. Cruz.

Yet getting away with this kind of thing is harder in foreign policy, and the Paris massacre is illustrating that difficulty. For months now, Mr. Cruz has been presenting himself in debates and national forums as hawkish, even as he panders to Mr. Paul’s voters at smaller events. Last month he attended the Republican Liberty Caucus in New Hampshire, where he boasted that the “liberty movement has been integral to our campaign since Day 1,” and touted the endorsement he received from (the isolationist) Ron Paul during his run for the Senate. He enjoyed a standing ovation.

Mr. Cruz regaled the crowd about how he had opposed a proposal to intervene in Syria and how he doesn’t support “nation building.” To this he could add a few others: He has consistently voted against defense reauthorization bills that enable troop funding. And this spring he ginned up support to pass a law that undercuts the National Security Agency’s ability to use metadata to root out terror plots. Mr. Cruz, citing “privacy rights,” co-sponsored the bill, along with Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Al Franken and Barbara Boxer.

Among the vocal critics, by contrast, were the freshman Republican senators elected on their foreign-policy chops: Arkansas’s Tom Cotton and Iowa’s Joni Ernst.

It may have seemed like a good idea to Mr. Cruz at the time. But after Paris, he finds himself with a national security agenda that is increasingly at odds with the public will. Florida’s Marco Rubio (who opposed the NSA bill) had fun this week reminding Americans of the stark foreign-policy differences between himself and the Texan, noting that Mr. Cruz has supported laws that “weaken U.S. intelligence.” Mr. Rubio, who has delivered at least 10 major foreign-policy addresses in the past few years, is running as the unabashed hawk, calling for robust new U.S. world leadership. Mr. Cruz may have walked himself into playing the counterpoint—a Rand Paul stand-in.

Mr. Cruz will certainly argue that he’s more hawkish than Mr. Paul. He has consistently criticized Mr. Obama for failing to demonstrate international leadership. Many of his votes are accompanied by disclaimers. He says, for instance, that he opposed the defense reauthorization bills because they didn’t contain language prohibiting the indefinite detention of citizens.

Yet after Paris, this approach risks looking feckless. Foreign policy requires guiding moral principles and consistency. If national security continues as a pressing theme, will voters put their faith in a candidate who is on record (whatever the nuance) against military spending, against intelligence capabilities, against a proactive stance in Syria? A candidate who even refuses to condemn secrets-leaker Edward Snowden?

That’s a record closer to Bernie Sanders than to the GOP. And that will be a tough sell, even for Mr. Cruz. 

DougMacG

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Re: WSJ's Kim Strassel goes after Cruz
« Reply #159 on: November 19, 2015, 10:10:49 PM »
Very interesting.  Perhaps the first time I've seen someone land a punch on him from the right.  Glenn Beck had him on radio and asked about Rubio's charge about him voting to weaken intelligence capabilities.  First he laughed - not a very convincing laugh because it's not funny.  Then he went on about that is Marco trying to change the subject away from immigration, as he changed the subject away from the intelligence vote.  Beck let him go on until he finally stopped and then asked him again even more specifically. His avoidance was quite telling especially since Beck is most likely a Cruz supporter.

These are tough votes but he never just came out and explained it was a tough tradeoff between privacy and intelligence gathering.

Good luck picking up both the Trump, bomb the sh*t out of them, vote and the Rand Paul isolationism-lite vote.

Strategically, note that Cruz struck first making a point of weakness about Rubio that conservatives already know and Rubio struck back with a weakness.on Cruz ttat people didn't really know.

I favor Rubio over Cruz not because he's more conservative like me but because I think he can bring more people over to our side and win.
« Last Edit: November 20, 2015, 06:29:15 AM by DougMacG »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #160 on: November 20, 2015, 07:11:21 AM »
I confess that this piece has resonance with me:

https://theintercept.com/2015/11/15/exploiting-emotions-about-paris-to-blame-snowden-distract-from-actual-culprits-who-empowered-isis/

Exactly what is the point of giving the State ever more Orwellian powers and conversely shrinking our American freedom if, as this piece asserts, the Jihadis were already doing trade craft that makes irrelevant the Orwellian surveillance?  Aren't we regularly reading that the jihadis simply take someone dark?

If we are talking political opportunism here, can't the same be said of Rubio's position and attack in this moment?  Can't we say that Cruz is actually showing some backbone in this moment by not sacrificing our privacy to the convenience of the political winds of the moment?  Yes, I agree that if this is the case that he should have "come out and explained it"-- this is a fair point-- though all of these candidates are putting in real long days at a relentless pace and I am willing to give them (in this case Cruz) a chance to clean up missed opportunities.

As for Strassel's other attack points (from a frame of reference of the GOPe btw, I thought they were out of favor around here , , ,  :roll: ) is the blame for the political consequences of the shutdown on Cruz or the GOPe Reps in Congress who failed to back his stand in favor of Congress actually exercising the power of the purse. 

I caught Cruz last night on Hannity (for the record I use the DVR to get only to segments that I like, in this case Cruz, and blow off anything having to do with Hannity bloviating) and, as usual, he displayed an ability far superior to any of the other candidates to keep track of Hillary's nefariousness webs of lies, evasions, criminality, and utter incompetence and wrong-headedness.

DougMacG

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #161 on: November 20, 2015, 08:51:25 AM »
I confess that this piece has resonance with me:

https://theintercept.com/2015/11/15/exploiting-emotions-about-paris-to-blame-snowden-distract-from-actual-culprits-who-empowered-isis/

Exactly what is the point of giving the State ever more Orwellian powers and conversely shrinking our American freedom if, as this piece asserts, the Jihadis were already doing trade craft that makes irrelevant the Orwellian surveillance?  Aren't we regularly reading that the jihadis simply take someone dark?

If we are talking political opportunism here, can't the same be said of Rubio's position and attack in this moment?  Can't we say that Cruz is actually showing some backbone in this moment by not sacrificing our privacy to the convenience of the political winds of the moment?  Yes, I agree that if this is the case that he should have "come out and explained it"-- this is a fair point-- though all of these candidates are putting in real long days at a relentless pace and I am willing to give them (in this case Cruz) a chance to clean up missed opportunities.

As for Strassel's other attack points (from a frame of reference of the GOPe btw, I thought they were out of favor around here , , ,  :roll: ) is the blame for the political consequences of the shutdown on Cruz or the GOPe Reps in Congress who failed to back his stand in favor of Congress actually exercising the power of the purse.  

I caught Cruz last night on Hannity (for the record I use the DVR to get only to segments that I like, in this case Cruz, and blow off anything having to do with Hannity bloviating) and, as usual, he displayed an ability far superior to any of the other candidates to keep track of Hillary's nefariousness webs of lies, evasions, criminality, and utter incompetence and wrong-headedness.

   - The going dark argument is valid, but so is the point that these terror organizations are openly recruiting on social media.  We need tools and resources to fight them on the information front of this war.  At the monment of that vote, that was the tool the experts were saying they needed.

I'm scoring this Cruz-Rubio fight as a tie - in a situation where Cruz was winning it before he picked the fight.

"Can't we say that Cruz is actually showing some backbone in this moment by not sacrificing our privacy to the convenience of the political winds of the moment?"

   - I don't buy the argument that capturing and studying 'metadata' is a sacrifice of my privacy, unless they release it or use it for nefarious purposes.  They are not coming into our home, they are not listening in without a warrant, etc.  By having access to metadata, when they find a terror point, we want them to tie it in with every possible connection without delay.  As I have posted, if I have dialed a wrong number to a known terror cell by accident, that call deserves scrutiny and in a post-9/11 world I may be called on to explain my innocence or connection to that person.  Even in my innocence I may be able to give them helpful information. (We have rental property within a mile of where 911 hijackers lived and could have had contact.)  Regrettably, fighting suicide bombings and terror does not fit neatly into a pre-911 law enforcement and civil liberties world.  Yes I believe in a right to be left alone, but this fight is also real and there is no liberty left if we lose the terror and security fight.

Both sides of that argument have validity.  Rubio's attack point is true though.  That legislation hampered intelligence gathering.  Cruz was leaning toward the Rand Paul liberty-privacy side at that moment and Rubio was consistently siding with the fight against terror.  Events have turned against the purer civil libertarian view.

"Yes, I agree that if this is the case that he should have "come out and explained it"-- this is a fair point-- though all of these candidates are putting in real long days at a relentless pace and I am willing to give them (in this case Cruz) a chance to clean up missed opportunities."

   - True that the debate is still on, but this was a great opportunity in a friendly setting with no particular limit on time to show off his award winning debate skills and he shrunk from it.  Cruz is a smart guy.  He knows he has a vulnerability here and is choosing to not double down on the Rand Paul side of this debate at a time where they are all trying to show they would lead the toughest fight against terror.


"As for Strassel's other attack points (from a frame of reference of the GOPe btw, I thought they were out of favor around here , , ,  rolleyes ) is the blame for the political consequences of the shutdown on Cruz or the GOPe Reps in Congress who failed to back his stand in favor of Congress actually exercising the power of the purse."

   - Again, two valid sides to this.  Yes, we failed to use the power of the purse effectively (although as you have pointed out we shrank the deficit and curtailed other new spending).  Yes, Cruz led the fight.  But are you a leader if you have no followers?  Conservatives like me have argued the so-called 'shutdown' did no damage because we won the elections a year later.  We've also argued that the shutdown is Obama's fault.  But Strassel is also right that we lost the public relations fight over it at the time and it took a year to recover that.  Since we were losing the PR fight, had the Cruz strategy prevailed much further beyond a 17% 'shutdown' for 16 days into a very long showdown with a very stubborn President who was fully supported by the press, are we sure we would still have all won those electoral gains?

To me, what is needed is to change minds in the masses, not just for a few of us to take stronger stands.  While Ted Cruz was proving himself one of the top 2 or 3 stalwarts of the conservative right of which I am a proud member, he also perhaps pidgeonholed himself out of being someone who can be perceived by the persuadable in the middle as someone they can relate to or vote for.

So far, approval spreads and general election polling bear that out.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_cruz_vs_clinton-4034.html

I also don't think Cruz' tax plan looks like the work of someone who intends to be running past the primaries.  It gives way too much ammunition to the Hillary side, and it leaves us in a very bad position for when we eventually lose power, if we were to win and enact this.

If these two (Cruz and Rubio) get any better at fighting this out, they will both lose and so will we, IMHO.
« Last Edit: November 20, 2015, 09:27:20 AM by DougMacG »

ppulatie

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #162 on: November 20, 2015, 08:56:58 AM »
Quote
  - I don't buy the argument that capturing and studying 'metadata' is a sacrifice of my privacy, unless they release it or use it for nefarious purposes.  They are not coming into our home, they are not listening in without a warrant, etc.  By having access to metadata, when they find a terror point, we want them to tie it in with every possible connection without delay.

I am glad that you trust the government to do what is right.  But try and sell that to the Tea Party groups that were singled out by the IRS.

Government is all about expansion of control over the citizens. Give them an ability to gather information on the populace, and at some point, they will use it against the people.
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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #163 on: November 20, 2015, 09:05:26 AM »
PP,  No I don't trust government and I don't like being in the situation we are now in.

And I'm guessing that you don't think we will prevent suicide attacks by using the traditional method of investigating the 'crime' after it happens and prosecuting the (already blown up) perpetrators.

There are a lot of lost liberties I would like back ahead of metadata.

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #164 on: November 20, 2015, 09:32:15 AM »
No, investigating after the fact will not stop it. 

Absolutely we have lost many freedoms that I would like back, but getting them back is not likely. This is especially so since we are ruled by a bureaucratic state that imposes its own laws without regard for what is truly statutory or not.

The problem is that with any program that is initiated, the goal is to expand and build upon the power and the governmental benefits received with that program. For metadata gathering, it appears to be "okay" at this point, but that is only what we see on the surface and are allowed to know.   What is being done with the data behind the scenes is what bothers me.

We have let the camel's nose in the tent............and it will eventually push all the way into the tent.
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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #165 on: November 20, 2015, 09:34:37 AM »
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DougMacG

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #166 on: November 20, 2015, 09:49:15 AM »
"The problem is that with any program that is initiated, the goal is to expand and build upon the power and the governmental benefits received with that program. For metadata gathering, it appears to be "okay" at this point, but that is only what we see on the surface and are allowed to know.   What is being done with the data behind the scenes is what bothers me."

   - I agree although between IRS, FAFSA and an invasive census, there isn't much about me that they don't already know.
For another thread but Google with Android, GPS, Gmail, searches, contacts and history (and Apple for the rest of you) has all the rest.

The fight of the moment though is security and terrorism.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #167 on: November 20, 2015, 09:50:42 AM »
So, clarify for me exactly what is it that the State needs but does not now have?

And what is/was Cruz's role in that?


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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #168 on: November 20, 2015, 10:09:42 AM »
The Senate let the existing program lapse.  Cruz sided with Rand Paul on that.  I am not an expert on the details but I did notice at the time that Rand Paul's arguments were loaded with exaggeration and grandstanding.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/01/us-usa-security-surveillance-idUSKBN0OG0RF20150601#sYZUD0D53vDwIK0x.97
Senate lets NSA spy program lapse, at least for now

... Security officials counter that it provides important data they can combine with other intelligence to help stop attacks.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #169 on: November 20, 2015, 10:37:22 AM »
Wasn't this temporary?

ppulatie

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #170 on: November 20, 2015, 10:46:24 AM »
With the government, when is any temporary program ever temporary?

Only with Tax Cuts or Budget Cuts. If there are Temporary Tax Hikes or Budget increases, temporary becomes permanent.
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Crafty_Dog

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #171 on: November 20, 2015, 12:10:07 PM »
Actually I mean in this case the interruption.


DougMacG

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #172 on: November 20, 2015, 01:27:04 PM »
Yes, the lapse was temporary.  They worked out a compromise that put new limits/restrictions on the program, left the record keeping at the phone companies instead of with the NSA as I understand it.

The brief lapse was a big deal while it was happening.

Either they succeeding in significantly limiting the intelligence capabilities or it was another case of Cruz fighting for something and losing.

The allegation is that Cruz (and Paul) voted to weaken intelligence programs.  Is the allegation true or false?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOVEMBER 19, 2014, Powerlineblog.com
TED CRUZ VOTES TO HAMPER U.S. ANTI-TERRORISM INTELLIGENCE GATHERING
The Senate has failed to pass the “USA Freedom Act,” which would have hobbled our government’s efforts to conduct electronic surveillance of terrorists. Good. As Mitch McConnell argued, with ISIS and other blood thirsty terrorist groups on the rise, this is “the worst possible time to be tying our hands behind our back.”

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden have described the “USA Freedom Act” as “reform only ISIS could love.” But they are wrong. Ted Cruz loves it too, or at least liked it enough to vote against the filibuster that blocked it. In effect, Cruz voted for the legislation.

Mukasey and Hayden explain why a vote for the “USA Freedom Act” is a vote to hamstring our intelligence services in their efforts to keep America secure:

For starters, the bill ends the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of what is called telephone metadata. This includes the date, time, duration and telephone numbers for all calls, but not their content or the identity of the caller or called, and is information already held by telephone companies.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/11/ted-cruz-votes-to-hamper-u-s-intelligence-gathering.php

Ted Cruz has also been a critic of NSA spying. He was one of four Republican senators who crossed party lines to vote to move the USA Freedom Act forward in November. At a recent campaign event in Iowa, he called the compromise bill the "single best chance to end the bulk collection of meta data," according to CNN -- and knocked Paul for his vote against it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/04/23/heres-where-the-presidential-candidates-stand-on-the-nsa-scooping-up-americans-phone-records/

Cruz was for NSA spying befoe he was against it, before he was for it.  (?)
« Last Edit: November 20, 2015, 01:48:11 PM by DougMacG »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #173 on: November 20, 2015, 02:14:33 PM »
I remember now and have a different take on it.

When the phone companies have the records there will tend to be a paper trail when the Feds want something.  When the Feds have the records we are leading them into temptation.

Cruz was right.

DougMacG

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #174 on: November 20, 2015, 03:31:26 PM »
Cruz was right ... unless the need for the information is urgent, like in a terror attack situation.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #175 on: November 20, 2015, 03:43:18 PM »
Look, the Russians GAVE us the brothers in Boston and still we couldn't put it to use-- and all of us can think of plenty more examples.

Besides I'm thinking a phone company would cough up the info with more efficiency, ESPECIALLY in an emergency than DHS.

Balance that against Hillary having access to everyone's phone calls and emails.  

If this weren't political already, we would have her 30,000 deleted emails.

And, isn't your concern a matter of closing the barn door after the horses have escaped?  http://www.christiantoday.com/article/terrorists.may.be.using.sonys.playstation.4.to.communicate.and.plan.their.attacks/70960.htm

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #176 on: November 20, 2015, 04:01:49 PM »
We could actually secure our border rather than let anyone in and spy on everybody equally. Nah, that's crazy talk.

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #177 on: November 20, 2015, 05:14:46 PM »
Crafty

My grandson uses the Play Station 4 all the time. He is playing games online with his friends. Each has their own PS4 and are doing it in their homes.

Jayden has a headset own with microphone, and he is talking back and forth with his friends while they are playing. I can easily see terrorists using this method to communicate and who would know what was going on, especially if talking in code while playing a violent type of game.
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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #178 on: November 20, 2015, 08:14:18 PM »
Exactly!  So what is the point in giving the State the right to our email, phone calls, etc.?


Crafty_Dog

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #180 on: November 21, 2015, 07:42:59 AM »
The question relevant to this thread is whether have the data held by the phone companies instead of the State is a problem for our security.  I'm not getting that a ticking time bomb question applies to this aspect of things and as such I therefore approve of Cruz's position in the regard-- indeed I regard it as a positive that he refuses to be stampeded even while he is one of us in the war with Islamic Fascism.

As for the tradecraft, those are some really interesting URLs from GM (How do you do it GM?) so let's take this over to Intel Matters, or Homeland Security.

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #181 on: November 21, 2015, 09:45:35 AM »
The question relevant to this thread is whether have the data held by the phone companies instead of the State is a problem for our security.  I'm not getting that a ticking time bomb question applies to this aspect of things and as such I therefore approve of Cruz's position in the regard-- indeed I regard it as a positive that he refuses to be stampeded even while he is one of us in the war with Islamic Fascism.

As for the tradecraft, those are some really interesting URLs from GM (How do you do it GM?) so let's take this over to Intel Matters, or Homeland Security.

I will take the rest of this over to the other thread, but from my point of view (and in spite of being out-numbered), the charge is valid that intelligence resources were at least distanced from those behind the curtain that we pay to try to connect the dots before evidence of an impending attack can fully materialize.  That there are other ways to communicate and other things like securing borders  we should be doing or that some of us for good reasons don't want them to have unfettered access to this information doesn't change the validity of that charge made by Rubio on Cruz' vote, from my point of view.   )

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Ted Cruz at FTC
« Reply #182 on: November 23, 2015, 08:55:41 AM »
WHAT NO ONE SEEMS TO KNOW about Ted Cruz’s past.
At the FTC, Cruz’s agenda could have been written by Milton Friedman.

Cruz promoted economic liberty and fought government efforts to rig the marketplace in favor of special interests. Most notably, Cruz launched an initiative to study the government’s role in conspiring with established businesses to suppress e-commerce. This initiative ultimately led the U.S. Supreme Court to open up an entire industry to small e-tailers. Based on his early support of disruptive online companies, Cruz has some grounds to call himself the “Uber of American politics.”

Moreover, and perhaps surprising to some, Cruz sought and secured a broad, bipartisan consensus for his agenda. Almost all of Cruz’s initiatives received unanimous support among both Republicans and Democrats.

Ted Cruz a consensus-builder? He was, at the FTC.

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/219606/



Crafty_Dog

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #183 on: November 23, 2015, 02:08:09 PM »
Good point to make-- hope we see more of it!

And here's Ted's most recent promo clip:  https://www.facebook.com/tedcruzpage/videos/10153714235167464/

Tangential observation:  Amazing how much of the candidates campaigns are requiring little to no money , , ,

Crafty_Dog

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The Case for Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #184 on: November 24, 2015, 06:38:28 PM »


D. Goldman makes his case in favor of Ted Cruz.
A.
Dave's Top 10 Reasons to Vote for Ted Cruz

A month ago I predicted a Cruz-Rubio ticket. Now that Cruz has overtaken Carson to run neck-and-neck with Trump in the Iowa Quinnipiac University poll, Cruz is looking a lot like a winner. Here are my top 10 reasons to back him.

10. He really knows economics--not the ideologically-driven pablum dished out at universities, but the real battlefield of entrenched monopolies against entrepreneurial upstarts. As Aweesh Agarwal and John Delacourt reported in this space, he did a brilliant job at the Federal Trade Commission: "Cruz promoted economic liberty and fought government efforts to rig the marketplace in favor of special interests. Most notably, Cruz launched an initiative to study the government’s role in conspiring with established businesses to suppress e-commerce. This initiative ultimately led the U.S. Supreme Court to open up an entire industry to small e-tailers." Anyone can propose tax cuts. It takes real know-how to cut through the regulatory kudzu that is strangling America enterprise.

9. He really knows foreign policy. He is a hardline defender of American interests, but wants to keep American politics out of the export business. That's why neo-conservatives like Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post and Kimberly Strassel at the Wall Street Journal keep sliming him. The Bushies started attacking Cruz a year ago, when he stated the obvious about the Bush administration's great adventure in "democratic globalism": "I think we stayed too long, and we got far too involved in nation-building…. We should not be trying to turn Iraq into Switzerland." He's not beholden to the bunglers of the Bush administration, unlike the hapless Marco Rubio.

8. He really knows the political system. As Texas Solicitor General he argued nine cases before the US Supreme Court and won five of them. How many other lawyers in the United States have gone to the Supreme Court nine times on points of Constitutional law? The best write-up I've seen on brilliance as a Constitutional lawyer came from the liberal New Yorker--grudging praise, but praise nevertheless. Some of his legal work was brilliant, displaying a refined understanding of separation of powers and federalism. If you want a president who knows the mechanism of American governance from the inside, there's no-one else who comes close to Cruz.

7. He's an outsider, and America needs an outsider. The public thinks that Washington is corrupt, and it IS corrupt. The banks are corrupt, the defense industries (with their $1.5 trillion budget for a new fighter plane that won't fly) is corrupt, the tech companies (run by patent trolls rather than engineers) are corrupt, the public utilities are corrupt. The American people want a new broom. But it helps to put it in the hands of someone who knows his way around the broom closet.

6. Trump and Carson aren't serious candidates. Carson is an endearing fellow who has no business running for president: apart from his medical specialty, his knowledge of the world is an audodidact's jumble of fact and fantasy. Donald Trump inherited money and ran a family business: never in his life did he have to persuade shareholders, investors, directors, or anyone else to work with him. At best, he knew how to cajole and threaten. It's been his way or the highway since he was a kid, and that's the worst possible training for a US president.

5. Cruz is in but not of the system. The distinguished conservative scholar Robert P. George mentored him at Princeton and the flamboyant (but effective) liberal Alan Dershowitz taught him at Harvard Law School. Both agree he was the smartest student they ever had. An Ivy League education isn't important unless, of course, you don't have one: to run the United States, it helps to have dwelt in the belly of the beast. Cruz came through the elite university mill with his principles intact, and a keen understanding of the liberal mentality.

4. He's got real grit--call it fire in the belly, but Cruz wants to be president and wants us to want him to be president. Determination is a lot more important than charm, where Cruz won't win first prize. When it comes down to it, Americans don't want a charming president, but a smart, tough and decent one. Marco Rubio, the Establishment's last hope after Jeb Bush's belly-flop, is instantly recognizeable as the tough-guy hero's cute younger brother. Either Cruz or Fiorina would fill out the ticket.

3. He knows how to run a real campaign as opposed to a flash-in-the-pan media event. Cruz has boots on the ground, an organization of people who believe in him and raise money at twice the rate of Rubio--with an averge $66 donation.

2. He's a true believer in the United States of America. His love for his country and belief in its prospects are impassioned and unfeigned. He's ambitious, but his ambition stems from a desire to serve, where he believes that he is uniquely qualified to serve.

And the top reason to vote for Ted Cruz is:

He can beat Hillary Clinton. Not just beat her, but beat her by a landslide. Mrs. Clinton isn't that smart. She looks sort of smart smart when the media toss her softballs, but in a series of one-to-one, nowhere-to-hide Presidential debates, Cruz would shred her. Cruz was the top college debater in the country. He knows how to assemble facts, stay on message, anticipate his opponent's moves and neutralize them. He's a quarter-century younger than Mrs. Clinton, smarter, sharper, and better prepared. He's also clean as a whistle in personal life and finances, while the Clintons could reasonably be understood to constitute a criminal enterprise.

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/2015/11/24/daves-top-10-reasons-to-vote-for-ted-cruz

DougMacG

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Chair of Senate Intelligence takes it to Ted Cruz (and Crafty)
« Reply #185 on: November 29, 2015, 02:35:57 PM »
Previously on these pages:
"When the phone companies have the records there will tend to be a paper trail when the Feds want something.  When the Feds have the records we are leading them into temptation.

Cruz was right."


Chair of the Senate Inteeligence Committee, Sen Richard Burr, R-NC, was on Fox News Sunday and Chris Wallace with his rebuttal this morning:

(excerpt from transcript)  http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2015/11/29/safe-at-home-sen-richard-burr-talks-terror-threat-carly-fiorina-reacts-to/

WALLACE:  ...Today at midnight, the NSA's bulk data collection of America's phone records, that program expired as of last night, and now the NSA is going to need a court order from a judge to collect records on any American.  And again, we're not talking about the content of the phone call, simply my phone number called your phone number, and we spoke, or people on those two lines spoke for X number of minutes. 

What impact do you think that’s going to have on your counter-terrorism effort? 

BURR:  ... I think what's troubling is that you'll have to go to multiple telecom companies, and at their pace search their records, which means it could take weeks.  What we saw in Paris once we got a cell phone was that we used that cell phone number to look at cell phones it had talked to -- and not only Paris investigators but Belgian investigators were able to expand the search net in a way that stopped a massive terrorist attack, an additional one in Paris, potentially has led to the apprehension of at least a dozen, if not more, ISIS operatives throughout Belgium, Germany, and parts of Europe. 

I’m not sure that we know the full extent of what we’ve learned to this point, but any time you can take electronics and use those selectors, it's beneficial to the world's intelligence community.  And the United States made a real mistake when they eliminated this program where we could search foreign known terrorist' cell phones. 

But Congress took that away from the NSA, and, unfortunately, it's not going to be a timely tool to use in the future. 

WALLACE:  Well, let me pick up on that.  You have signed on to legislation that’s now in the Senate that would revive the program, which is I say ran out as of midnight, but the Senate just voted to end the program in June.  So, what are the chances that they're going to reverse that just a few months later? 

BURR:  Well, Chris, it's amazing what happens when people are reminded what terrorists can do.  It hadn’t happened here at home, but I think the American response to the Paris attack was as significant outside of New York and New Jersey as 9/11 was.  The American people recognize that the indiscriminate, brutal acts that ISIS carried out could happen in any community across this country and throughout the world. 

And I think as Americans, we believe we should do everything we can to eliminate that.  Knowing who the terrorists are and where operatives may be in the United States or something, Americans expect us to know, they expect us to investigate. 

I want to make sure that the tools that law enforcement have are as robust as they possibly can be, and metadata is a big contributor to that.


How much privacy did you gain when this terror tracking program expired?  I didn't get any of my privacy back.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #186 on: November 29, 2015, 03:40:12 PM »
Excellent discussion on the merits; I may have to reevaluate my position.  Please post this on Intel Matters and/or Privacy/4th Amendment.

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #187 on: November 29, 2015, 04:27:51 PM »
From what I understand, the NSA is using new methods of collecting the data so they no longer needed the old program.
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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #188 on: December 02, 2015, 12:01:15 PM »
If I have this right, Cruz was against Hillary's Libya policy and Rubio a gung ho supporter.  Is this correct?



I saw it asserted that Cruz tends towards "Let them kill each other and leave it to God to sort it out" in Iraq-Syria.  Is this correct?

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz draws the wrong lessons from Libya (?)
« Reply #189 on: December 02, 2015, 02:27:33 PM »
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/ted-cruz-wrong-lesson-libya/

...  Even on policy, the distinctions between these two candidates [Rubio and Cruz] are relatively trivial. That has led to some rather tortured efforts by both campaigns to either blur or highlight those dissimilarities. While Rubio has attempted to suggest that he and Cruz agree on more than they disagree, Cruz has taken the opposite approach and is elevating their minor disagreements into irreconcilable divisions. For the Texas senator, that has meant sacrificing coherence in the effort to strike a pose. In that process, Cruz seems to be drawing some rather incomprehensible lessons from the failed NATO intervention in Libya. More bizarrely, he has laid that failure at the feet of his fellow Republicans.

“Senator Rubio emphatically supported Hillary Clinton in toppling [Muammar] Gaddafi in Libya,” Cruz recently said. Calling the deceased dictator directly responsible for the deaths of 270 people in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 a “significant ally in fighting radical Islamic terrorism,” Cruz added that Marco Rubio shared as much blame for the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi that claimed four American lives as did former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“If you look at President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and for that matter some of the more aggressive Washington neo-cons, they have consistently misperceived the threat of radical Islamic terrorism and have advocated military adventurism that has had the effect of benefiting radical Islamic terrorists,” Cruz added. He went on to say that the proposed intervention in Syria is identical to that which led to a disaster in Libya. Just two weeks after an ISIS terrorist cell with a command structure in Syria slaughtered 132 people in Paris, Cruz insisted that the United States “has no dog in the fight of the Syrian civil war.”

Cruz hadn’t gone as far as Senator Rand Paul, who has in the past said it was a mistake for the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein despite that regime’s abuses and a virtually constant state of war between Hussein’s Iraq and the West from 1990 to 2003. Cruz did, however, offer an alternative to Rubio’s approach to geopolitics. “Ultimately I believe we should always be on the side of a transition to democracy,” Rubio said in 2011 in support of regime change in places where “those in charge of a government are friendly to our interests.” Cruz apparently disagrees.

The Texas senator is, however, misrepresenting history insofar as the Obama administration’s mission while “leading from behind” over the skies of Libya was never regime change. “Of course, there is no question that Libya – and the world – would be better off with Qaddafi out of power,” Obama said in an address to the nation. “But broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.” In that address, the president noted that regime change in Iraq was not worth the cost in lives or dollars. That’s perhaps why the administration was ill-prepared for the crumbling of Gaddafi’s regime.

That collapse came suddenly. What had been designed as an air war that would degrade Tripoli’s ability to wage a campaign of terror on civilians in Libya’s rebellious west soon transformed into air support mission for anti-government forces. Six months into the air campaign, and after just 64 NATO-led strikes on Gaddafi’s capital, the dictator was forced to go into hiding. Hillary Clinton immediately expressed qualified support for Libya’s ramshackle interim government, even before Gaddafi was captured and murdered by his countrymen – a fate that stiffened the spines of the Arab leaders facing similar unrest in their countries, and cemented their resolve to resist their outer at all costs.

In the intervening months, Libya became a haven for al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists. As conservatives are well aware, the American diplomatic and CIA outposts in Benghazi had been the target of Islamist attacks on more than one occasion before the coordinated strike on September 11, 2012, that killed three American servicemen and a U.S. ambassador. Any of those attacks should have been a wake-up call for the administration. Libya had become a vacuum where terrorism could be planned and executed with impunity. Those warnings went ignored. Today, Libya is a North African haven for radical Islamist groups including ISIS, which occupies the Libyan port city of Sirte.

It’s easy for some to suggest that Western interventionism is the problem here, and the world would be better off if the cries of the civilians Gaddafi slaughtered went ignored. That’s only an argument that can be made from outside the Oval Office, but it is one that has a broad political constituency. To claim that Libya is a “neo-con” failure, however, is a willful misrepresentation of neo-conservatism. Libya is a disaster today as a result not of Western engagement but withdrawal. Cruz has drawn the worst lesson from the Libyan debacle: half-measures will almost always produce suboptimal results.


The West has a bad taste in its mouth from its experience in Iraq, but to suggest that nation-building is a wholly reckless enterprise is wrong. As our Max Boot observed, to make his case, Cruz is selectively ignoring success stories like Colombia’s. “Colombia has been able to beat back the Marxist guerrilla group known as FARC, which little more than a decade ago controlled an area the size of Switzerland,” he noted. This was only possible with the help of U.S. military advisors and aid investment. Boot also noted that the United Arab Emirates is exporting civil society as well as troops to Yemen as part of its effort to oust an Iranian-backed militia from power. “Paradoxically, the more nation-building we do, the less likely it is that we will be forced to send large numbers of our own troops into harm’s way,” Boot noted. If Ted Cruz is suggesting that interventionism produces terrorist safe havens, he will have to account for his steadfast opposition to intervention in Syria where American detachment allowed for the rise of ISIS.

Cruz has determined that his electoral prospects are advanced by his embrace of a slightly more disengaged approach to foreign affairs than even Barack Obama. His tormented effort to link Marco Rubio’s support for interventionism to Hillary Clinton only highlights that it is, in fact, Cruz who shares the administration’s thinking regarding foreign crises. When it comes to addressing looming disasters abroad before they become disasters at home, only one of these candidates represents a change from the approach preferred by Barack Obama.

DougMacG

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #190 on: December 02, 2015, 03:55:44 PM »
Very helpful Doug.  It would appear Sen. Cruz was playing a tad fast and loose , , ,

What about what his strategy for the ISIS, Syria, et al in the Middle East?

Cruz blaming Rubio for the assassination of the American Ambassador in Benghazi was out of line and out of touch with the facts.

It would appear to me that Cruz doesn't have a strategy, saying that Syria is not our fight and positioning himself somewhere between the hawks and the doves.  He may be right but I think there is a greater urgency than that for many reasons to topple ISIS in every area they control.  Sunni Arab fighters, gulf states involved, NATO etc. but with American leadership.  There is something horribly wrong with letting them rape girls and force them to raise another generation of terrorists who are coming to get us.  This doesn't get better taking a wait and see approach.

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #191 on: December 02, 2015, 04:04:19 PM »
Unless/until we are ready to fight the war the way it needs to be fought, there is no point in doing anything.


Very helpful Doug.  It would appear Sen. Cruz was playing a tad fast and loose , , ,

What about what his strategy for the ISIS, Syria, et al in the Middle East?

Cruz blaming Rubio for the assassination of the American Ambassador in Benghazi was out of line and out of touch with the facts.

It would appear to me that Cruz doesn't have a strategy, saying that Syria is not our fight and positioning himself somewhere between the hawks and the doves.  He may be right but I think there is a greater urgency than that for many reasons to topple ISIS in every area they control.  Sunni Arab fighters, gulf states involved, NATO etc. but with American leadership.  There is something horribly wrong with letting them rape girls and force them to raise another generation of terrorists who are coming to get us.  This doesn't get better taking a wait and see approach.

DDF

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #192 on: December 02, 2015, 08:26:48 PM »
Unless/until we are ready to fight the war the way it needs to be fought, there is no point in doing anything.



Don't make me laugh. That will be never.

One thing I have learned here, as much as people like to think that I'm crazy, is that you have to be willing to play by the same rules you need to inflict.

Americans can't do that. They have too much to lose.

I'm not being snide. It's the truth. When was the last time you went, knowing your wife could seriously be targeted?

I remember the last time it happened to us. Do you? Has it ever happened?

That's what you need to be able to endure in order to fight the war that needs to be fought.

Period.
« Last Edit: December 02, 2015, 08:29:25 PM by DDF »


ppulatie

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #194 on: December 04, 2015, 08:41:00 AM »
DDF,

Must agree entirely with your war fighting sentiments. Fight to win or don't fight at all.

Since WW2, we have not fought to win. Use of overwhelming force to win, fighting with no restrictions, has become for lack of a better word, evil. So we play PC games that end up costing us lives and treasure.

Kill people, break things, and show the enemy what happens when you mess with us............and show the rest of the enemy supporters what can be coming their way.

Among the current candidates, I don't see the willingness to fight to win, except perhaps with Trump. The others will fight like we have in the last few decades.
PPulatie

DougMacG

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #195 on: December 04, 2015, 09:16:00 AM »
DDF,

Must agree entirely with your war fighting sentiments. Fight to win or don't fight at all.

Since WW2, we have not fought to win. Use of overwhelming force to win, fighting with no restrictions, has become for lack of a better word, evil. So we play PC games that end up costing us lives and treasure.

Kill people, break things, and show the enemy what happens when you mess with us............and show the rest of the enemy supporters what can be coming their way.

Among the current candidates, I don't see the willingness to fight to win, except perhaps with Trump. The others will fight like we have in the last few decades.

Two cents here, I agree.  Rules limited our engagement are killing us, literally, but it is more complicated than that.  We still have troops in Germany, Japan and South Korea.  We fought well in Gulf war I, then quit, taking Saddam's word for a surrender agreement (of which I have been trying to obtain the text).  Saddam broke the agreement. (Who could see that coming?)  We fought well in the second war with Iraq, phase I, shock and awe, deposed the tyrant quickly, found him eventually, then stayed which is when the strategy failed, then succeeded, then we left and failed again.

Cruz says stay out of Syria, but Syria is the breeding ground for things like THIS:
http://breaking911.com/graphic-isis-child-soldiers-search-ruins-for-prisoners-then-shoot-them/
8 year olds being trained to play hide and seek with prisoners, find them, execute them, then hand the gun to the next kid.
These aren't isolated incidents of atrocity.  It is what they do and it doesn't stop without US leadership.  That we know!
This is NOT a wait and see, let them sort it out situation, IMHO.  They are already global.

DougMacG

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #196 on: December 08, 2015, 07:43:45 AM »
From Pres. thread:

CCP: "Cruz gets better and better on the podium."
That to me is a sign of a real genius.  We still haven't seen his peak.

   - Agree.  But his strategy seems aimed at the primaries only, proving he is the most conservative running in a 4-way or 16-way race..  Is there any evidence he draws more people to the conservative side?

Crafty:  "I like his [Cruz] tax proposal best."

   - If we were starting a country today from scratch, I think I would agree with you.  But I don't think it's politically realistic, I don't think anyone has thought through the economic transition of a change like this, and I think if it did happen, rates would soon go back up and we would be stuck with one more MAJOR layer of federal taxation.

Polls vary widely, but large majorities have consistently favored higher rates on higher incomes.  (That's how we got into this mess.)
http://www.nationalmemo.com/big-majorities-favor-progressive-tax-and-spend-policies-polls-show/

I don't see how this gets enacted if Cruz did win.  Democrats in the Senate would suddenly say, hey, you're right, let's give it a try!  Remember Dems had 60 seats in the Senate at the moment O'care was deemed passed.

If Cruz did win and this got enacted, I don't see how the transition works.  Certain industries housing, autos for example) will tank immediately.  We don't have the stomach to sit still while that happens.  We would see programs to prop up those hurt in the transition and so on.  I don't see how you phase in radical change.  What happens to the politics when the short term effect is turmoil?  Approval ratings tank, other initiatives collapse, etc.

I don't see how both taxes don't end up being raised to the hilt later.  Look at every other tax that started small.  I can't stand the idea of giving them one more big tax source to work with, introducing a MAJOR new tax without repealing the old one.  If we had a 15% VAT tax and a 10% flat income tax when President Cruz leaves office, what happens next?   They wouldn't go up just a couple of points.  Tax rates on the rich would go right back up to where they were at least and the VAT would be permanent, way above 15%.  Do you not see that happening?  Bernie Sanders is doing just as well as Cruz and others in general election matchups.  That is the state of our politics.

I don't think Cruz fully believes in his plan either or he would be touting it at the beginning, middle and end of his speeches.  Why isn't this tax plan front and center in his campaign?  No one has taken it seriously IMHO. The best coverage of it anywhere on the internet is here. 




Crafty_Dog

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #197 on: December 08, 2015, 10:33:52 AM »
Intelligent discussion on the merits Doug.

As far as not discussing it much, I think he does believe in it-- at least that was the impression I got when he and an article by its intellectual author Art Laffer persuaded me of its merits-- but in this moment it would be too wonkish for making it a central theme.  My impression was that he can speak quite persuasively about it.   Contrasting it to Hillary's approach will be time enough for it.



DougMacG

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #198 on: December 08, 2015, 12:49:09 PM »
Intelligent discussion on the merits Doug.

As far as not discussing it much, I think he does believe in it-- at least that was the impression I got when he and an article by its intellectual author Art Laffer persuaded me of its merits-- but in this moment it would be too wonkish for making it a central theme.  My impression was that he can speak quite persuasively about it.   Contrasting it to Hillary's approach will be time enough for it.

The tax "discussion" with Hillary will be in the face of hurricane-sized, mainstream media-led blitz supported by another $2 billion from the campaign and her PACs.  They will promote the fact-based claim that this is a massive tax cut ("giveaway") for the rich at a time when we are already in deficit, owe 19 trillion, have aging bridges, inner city schools are failing, and while Republicans are cutting off healthcare subsidies to working families, etc.  As he tries to explain, they will go off call him out as an extremist on everything else too.  I don't agree there will be more time later for a serious discussion needed that isn't happening now.

He is serious about this?  I take you to friendly task on that.  How many co-sponsors in the House?  How many in the Senate?  (If those are the RINOs, then how many sponsors in the challengers for those incumbents' seats?) Tax cuts go through the Congress and Cruz is a member (since 2013)...  This came out of the blue.   And it is wonkish.  It is a great way to set up a tax system from scratch; then we would point to all the taxes that anyone making a high income will pay instead of hearing ad nauseam hw the big this tax cut will be for the rich  We aren't one election away from dropping the top federal rate from about 40% to 10%, IMHO.  I wish we were!

You and I like Professor Laffer, but that article does not say a word about getting elected on this, getting it sold, getting it passed, managing the transition, and preventing it's mis-use after he leaves office, five of my concerns.

At least in the Fair Tax they give lip service to repealing the income tax amendment first - which will never happen in our lifetime (even less likely after that).

The greater the dynamic claim that this tax rate cut will stimulate the economy, the greater the dollar amount in trillions that will be shouted and 'fact-checked' as a "giveaway" to the "wealthiest among us". 

As G M said on another matter, they will say that anyway.  Yes, but don't feed the sharks unnecessarily.  A whole new system of taxation is worth fighting for only if and when that war is winnable.   Given that the lowered rates can always be raised, the repealed taxes can always be restored, but the new tax will never be ended, I can't see a scenario with this that is a long term win for conservatives. 

My prediction (sorry, not much of a track record) is that: 1) Cruz can't win the general election anyway and this won't help.  2)  The top marginal rate will never drop below let's say 25% federal, the best of the other proposals. 3) We will be sold a VAT tax anyway and Democrats will say Ted Cruz supported it.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Sen.Ted Cruz
« Reply #199 on: December 08, 2015, 05:34:44 PM »
They had a side by side comparison of the Reps tonight on Bret Baier with regard to the Middle East.  I confess to being surprised that apparently he only actions Cruz supports are bombing and arming the Kurds and that he opposes US boots leading an alliance.