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Carville: 'Ted Cruz Is the Most Talented, Fearless Republican Politician I’ve Seen in 30 Years'

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by bobmarley, May 6, 2013.

  1. FranchiseBlade

    Supporting Member

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    Yes Cruz has a history of being dishonest and hypocritical. But he loves to grand stand and try and show off. It would be entertaining except for the possibility that some folks take him seriously.
     
  2. bobmarley

    bobmarley Member

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    Link?
     
  3. bobmarley

    bobmarley Member

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    Gringo Army Orders!! Beat Back the Liberal Hordes Attacking Ted Cruz!!

    HAHA!!!

    Video – Ted Cruz gives commencement speech at Hillsdale College

     
  4. Deji McGever

    Deji McGever יליד טקסני

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    All politicians are liars (especially in campaign cycles), but for a freshman senator he does like to swing for the fence. But I guess that's the allure of the Tea Party.

    The problem is, if everyone left of you includes your own party it doesn't bode well for political survival, especially in the less partisan Senate.
     
  5. bobmarley

    bobmarley Member

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    The problem with a site like that is they use their own guide for what the facts regardless if they are accurate or not.

    But I do believe that all people have lied at some time in their life.
     
  6. Rashmon

    Rashmon Member

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    We all know that facts and reality have a liberal bias, right?
     
  7. Deji McGever

    Deji McGever יליד טקסני

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    I don't think the facts have a political bias, so much as the only thing that registers on their radar are controversial statements that get made into sound bites. In the case of high level US politicians, these are statements written for them as talking points that get repeated by people and are almost always not entirely the truth. The site is only as useful as a person's patience to read the explanations. It tends to vindicate people like Sean Hannity and Saxby Chambliss for example, who are hardly friends of the Left and rate pretty well, relatively speaking.

    It's good that someone makes an effort to do it, in the same way that organizations track campaign contributions. It's a lot easier to do for elections in the US than when I did it for Mexico and Israel (my agency has done 3 elections so far) to see who actually are the big dogs in funding and "own" politicians.

    I do this because I need to know who actually funds whatever politician I'm hired to promote, because people belonging to to those groups are the ones likeliest to produce individual donors. I have to check my own politics at the door and follow the money so that I can make mine.

    To my surprise it isn't advocacy groups like AIPAC, the NRA, the ACLU, or pro-life or anti-abortion groups, which sucks, because it would have made my job really easy.

    They were banks, insurance companies, and other alpha dogs in the finance world, and their funding dwarfs that of all the others by at least an order of magnitude. And do you know who THEY support? Whomever they think is going to win. By December 2011, that was Obama, and I called it then. His funding was too vast to overtake.

    And the higher the office, the more this matters. If you are a firebrand candidate like Ted Cruz that rallies the faithful, it can get you in, and frankly, all the way to the Senate is really impressive. That might be why Carville is so enamored.

    But over time, winning elections in the future at that level doesn't happen without support from very establishment funding sources, and right now, if I'm not mistaken, he's only got the Koch Brothers.

    That's also why low level elections are much easier...there's less money involved and the campaigning tends to be more about ideas.
     
  8. bobmarley

    bobmarley Member

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    I prefer if Cruz stay in the Senate and become a Supreme Court Justice one day.
     
  9. Deji McGever

    Deji McGever יליד טקסני

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    Making enemies with colleagues in the Senate is probably not the best way to make that happen.
     
  10. bobmarley

    bobmarley Member

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    But it is a way.

    New article about Cruz on Immigration reform

    Byron York: Ted Cruz opens up on immigration

    What, exactly, is Ted Cruz’s position on comprehensive immigration reform? There’s no doubt the outspoken and still very new Texas senator opposes the Gang of Eight proposal. From that, some Democrats and commentators on the left have concluded that Cruz is determined to block any far-reaching immigration measure. “Cruz seems categorically opposed to anything that smacks of comprehensive reform,” declared one liberal analyst recently.

    Cruz doesn’t see it that way. Last weekend, his office got in touch, saying the senator would like to discuss his views on immigration reform. “His critique of the [Gang of Eight] bill and his amendments to restructure it offer a compelling contrary vision that we believe makes more sense and is more in line with the country,” wrote an aide.

    Cruz called on Tuesday as he traveled in Texas during the Memorial Day break. He began by criticizing the way Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee joined with the two Republican members of the Gang of Eight “in lockstep” to “reject virtually every substantive amendment that would have fixed the real problems in this immigration proposal.” Their tactics, Cruz argued, would likely succeed in pushing the bill through the Senate but would ultimately doom it in the House of Representatives. “That approach is not an approach designed to pass a bill,” Cruz said.

    As Cruz explained it, the five amendments he offered — all five were shot down by the Democrat/Gang of Eight bloc — would have salvaged key parts of the bill.

    The first was border security, which Cruz said the current bill “leaves to the subjective, amorphous discretion of the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano.” Cruz offered an amendment that would have created a three-year period, during which security would be increased, before the estimated 11 million currently-illegal immigrants could apply for legal status. Cruz’s amendment was probably too programmatic — it stipulated, for example, that the number of Border Patrol agents be tripled and the amount of equipment at their disposal be quadrupled — and would have been vulnerable to charges that it was dictating from Washington the tactics better left to authorities on the border. Nevertheless, it would have fixed one of the Gang of Eight bill’s greatest vulnerabilities, which is its legalization-first, security-later approach. The amendment was defeated.

    Two other Cruz amendments would have increased the number of high-skilled temporary workers and the number of total immigrants allowed into this country legally each year. “I am an unapologetic advocate of legal immigration,” Cruz told me, but his suggestions to change the mix of immigrants arriving in the U.S. were shot down by Democrats, plus the Gang of Eight Republicans. “Why?” asked Cruz. “It was a deal that they cut with the union bosses.”

    Cruz’s final two amendments dealt with the 11 million who are in the country illegally. The first stated flatly that “no person who has previously been willfully present in the United States while not in lawful status shall be eligible for United States citizenship.” In one sentence, Cruz would take the path to citizenship out of immigration reform. “In my view, the path to citizenship is the most divisive element of the current bill,” Cruz told me. “It is designed by the White House to be a poison pill, to cause the bill to be voted down in the House of Representatives.”

    “Sen. Schumer was very candid,” Cruz added, recalling the Judiciary Committee meetings. “He said if there is no path to citizenship, there can be no reform. I certainly commend his candor. That is the political, partisan objective from his end.” Cruz’s amendment was defeated.

    The final amendment said that “aliens who have entered or remained present in the United States while not in lawful status shall not be eligible for means-tested benefits.” “I think integral to remaining a nation that doesn't just welcome but celebrates legal immigrants is ensuring that those who come here are coming because they want to work towards the American dream and provide for their families and not be dependent on means-tested welfare,” Cruz told me. “I believe that the overwhelming majority of immigrants, that’s why they come to this country, just like my father came to this country 55 years ago.” Democrats and the two Republicans on the Gang of Eight did not agree; the amendment was voted down.

    So Cruz’s amendments were designed to 1) eliminate the legalization-first, security-later structure of the Gang of Eight bill while still creating a way to legalize those now here illegally; 2) increase certain types of legal immigration; and 3) remove what might be called the moral hazard of rewarding those who came here illegally with citizenship and federal benefits. “In introducing amendments, what I endeavored to do was improve that bill so that it actually fixes the problem,” Cruz told me. “I think an overwhelming majority of Americans in both parties wants to see our broken immigration system fixed, wants to see the problem solved, the border secured, and our remaining a nation that welcomes and celebrates legal immigrants. Given that bipartisan agreement outside of Washington, my objective was not to kill immigration reform but to amend the Gang of Eight bill so that it actually solves the problem rather than making the problem worse.”

    Each of Cruz’s amendments was entirely defensible, but also entirely impossible in today’s climate. The Gang of Eight bill is a painstakingly-crafted proposal which Democrats would abandon immediately if any of Cruz’s ideas were incorporated in it. Schumer and his allies have a long list of deal-killers, and it includes every single one of Ted Cruz’s ideas.

    But what if Cruz had somehow magically gotten his way? What if his amendments were all approved, and no other changes were made that made the bill unacceptable? If that happened, would Cruz vote for comprehensive immigration reform?

    That was the question I stupidly failed to ask at the end of our conversation. Kicking myself, I sent a note to a Cruz aide a short time later, asking that he check with the senator. After consulting with Cruz, the aide sent this response: “It’s hypothetical, because the Gang of Eight members have made clear they will not substantively amend the bill in order to preserve its ‘delicate balance.’ The senator’s concerns with the current bill remain, and he’ll continue to try to improve it so it secures the border, improves legal immigration, and upholds the rule of law.”
     
  11. Commodore

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    <iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/BOuN-wl9Jog" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
     
  12. Commodore

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    <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UEbS8AJEhP0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
     
  13. Commodore

    Commodore Member

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    <iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F95450112"></iframe>
     
  14. solid

    solid Member

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    Underestimate Cruz at your peril. Carville is right. Cruz can be a bit arrogant at times (a common trait among very intelligent people), but he is very clever, and not a wimp like most of his Republican colleagues. Dems will target him early because frankly they take him seriously.
     
  15. cml750

    cml750 Member

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    Fixed it for you ;)!
     
  16. FranchiseBlade

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    No it was fixed before, and examples of Cruz' lying and dishonesty were clearly shown.
     
  17. Commodore

    Commodore Member

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    <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/06wJ50p6rMs#t=0m30s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
     
  18. FranchiseBlade

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    poor Cruz, not really getting his way in going against the bi-partisan support for allowing the immigration bill to come to the floor.
     
  19. bigtexxx

    bigtexxx Member

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    BWAAAHAHAHA the Cruz Missile strikes again. He is a master of humiliating his opponents. Love it. The poor liberals will have to deal with his beatdowns for decades to come.

    Hook me up with some popcorn and C-Span, Barack!
     
  20. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    I love me some Ted Cruz full r****d.

    This week has not disappointed

    Cruz 2016.
     

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