That actually aligns with a majority of the electorate, particularly minorities, immigrants and the poor.
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More about Cruz at the Koch funded confab. ******* This weekend, Charles and David Koch’s Freedom Partners hosted five Republican presidential hopefuls and hundreds of top conservative donors at the St. Regis Monarch Beach luxury resort in California. The tax-exempt organization, which has been dubbed the Koch Brothers’ “secret bank,” allowed nine news organizations to cover parts of the conference http://thinkprogress.org/media/2015/08/03/3687249/koch-freedom-partners-media-restrictions/
So it's ok to be cynical regarding parts of the electorate, just not the parts that support your party? You should add a new line to your sig: "Team sports for the unathletic"
Hey! That's pretty good! Just so we're clear, you're not defending a college dropout for the GOP candidate right?
Stick a fork in him, he's done... Three Top Rand Paul Associates Were Just Indicted Everything you need to know about the scandal rocking the Paul campaign. —By Russ Choma; | Wed Aug. 5, 2015 2:46 PM EDT After years of investigation by the Department of Justice, three top Rand Paul associates, including the senator's nephew-in-law, were indicted for their role in an alleged attempt to buy an influential Iowa state senator's endorsement of Ron Paul during his 2012 presidential campaign. None of these operatives, who served as top Ron Paul campaign aides, is currently on the payroll of Rand Paul's presidential campaign. But two of them—Jesse Benton, who is married to Paul's niece, and John Tate—run a pro-Rand Paul super-PACs that has raised $3.1 million to support Paul's presidential campaign.* The third man indicted, Dimitri Kesari, has served as an aide to both Rand Paul and his father. Last year, former Republican Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson pleaded guilty to campaign finance charges accusing him of helping to cover up a scheme for the Ron Paul campaign to pay him more than $70,000 to switch his endorsement immediately before the 2012 Iowa caucus, from Michele Bachmann to Ron Paul. Sorenson has been awaiting sentencing pending his cooperation in a further investigation, but it hasn't been clear who on Ron Paul's staff would be caught up in the scandal. At the time Benton served as the campaign's chairman, Tate as the campaign manager, and Kesari as the deputy campaign manager. All three men were charged with criminal conspiracy and federal charges related to falsification of government records. Tate and Benton face charges of making false statements to federal investigators; Kesari was indicted on one count of obstruction of justice for allegedly trying to persuade Sorenson to deny the scheme when pressed by prosecutors. According to the indictment, Sorenson negotiated with the Paul aides and eventually met with Kesari in an Iowa restaurant, where the Paul aide passed him a $25,000 check. The check was never cashed, however, and eventually wound up in the hands of an Iowa special prosecutor investigating a possible breach in ethics rules by Sorenson. Under federal law, the campaign could have legally paid Sorenson openly, but Iowa Senate rules prohibit lawmakers from receiving compensation for their endorsements. According to prosecutors, the campaign instead routed the payments through a Maryland audio-visual company connected to Kesari's brother. During the course of the Iowa investigation, Sorenson acknowledged receiving $73,000 from the Maryland company but couldn't explain why that was. Paul campaign records show the campaign paid the Maryland company roughly $82,000. Though Sorenson pleaded guilty to taking the money and lying to investigators about where it came from, his indictment did not name who authorized the payments. The federal investigation has been spun by Paul insiders as the result of complaints by a disgruntled former Ron Paul supporter, Virginia conservative operative Dennis Fusaro. Fusaro certainly stoked the investigation by leaking emails to reporters showing Benton, Tate, and Kesari corresponding with Sorenson associates, as well as an audio recording of Sorenson admitting his role. Last summer, a leaked grand jury subpoena showed that that Justice Department investigators were casting a wide net in their pursuit of the case, demanding email records from much of the 2012 staff and even Ron Paul himself. The indictment makes clear that investigators found incriminating correspondence. Included in the indictment are details of email conversations between the Paul aides about authorization of the payments to the audio-visual equipment company. Other emails show them responding to others on the campaign staff about the payments. In one email exchange described in the indictment, from June 2012, an invoice from the AV company led Tate to ask Kesari, "What is this? What is it for, who is it? Why do we keep paying them? The last payment was supposedly the last." Kesari responded: "This is the last payment for kent Sorenson [sic]. The deal jesse agreed to with kent." Tate approved the payment. After media reports about the brewing scandal broke in September 2013, the indictment alleges, Kesari flew to Nebraska and then drove to Iowa to meet with Sorenson. Kesari allegedly asked Sorenson to prove he wasn't wearing a recording device and then demanded he return the $25,000 check he had earlier given to him. Kesari also allegedly tried to convince Sorenson not to discuss the campaign's role in the payments with federal investigators. While Kesari, Benton, and Tate are not working for Rand Paul's campaign, their indictment creates a major controversy for the candidate on the eve of the first GOP debate. In a statement to BuzzFeed's Rosie Gray, Ron Paul questioned the timing of the indictment against his former staffer: "I think the timing of this indictment is highly suspicious given the fact that the first primary debate is tomorrow." Rand Paul's campaign raised a little more than $7 million in the second quarter of the year, and the three super-PACs supporting his presidential bid have raised some $6 million. The largest, America's Liberty PAC, is run by Tate and Benton, who also leads Campaign for Liberty, a politically active nonprofit founded by Ron Paul. With $3.1 million in cash on hand, the super-PAC is a major part of Paul's campaign apparatus and has already released videos attacking his opponents. Benton, who is married to Ron Paul's granddaughter, became something of a hot commodity in the world of conservative politics following the 2012 Ron Paul campaign, which was seen as remarkably successful despite Paul's defeat. In late 2012, he was hired by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to be his campaign manager. Kesari was also hired to work for McConnell. Benton resigned from McConnell's campaign last August after Sorenson pleaded guilty, but he reemerged in March as the head of the pro-Rand Paul super-PAC. Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell announced the indictments today, saying the Justice Department would take any illegal campaign finance activity very seriously. "When political operatives make under-the-table payments to buy an elected official's political support, it undermines public confidence in our entire political system," Caldwell said. Kesari was arraigned today in an Iowa court, and Benton and Tate will be arraigned on September 3. The Rand Paul campaign has yet to release a statement on the indictments. Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Tate ran another pro-Paul super-PAC, Concerned American Voters. None of the three men who were indicted has a connection with that PAC.
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Latest GOP Polls since the debate are pretty fascinating. Trump is holding his position, more or less. But Bush and Walker - the two previous non-Trump leaders - are falling. Meanwhile, some combo of Cruz, Fiorina, Carson, and Rubio are all moving up. So now it's basically like a 6-way tie for 2nd behind Trump.
This may end up like 2008 where the fallback candidate nobody really likes (in this case Jeb Bush) ends up winning because there is no viable alternative.
Agreed. This is what i expect will happen. I have no idea how the republican party became a joke. I mean i nevwr agree with them. But atleast get a serious candidate who does not try to win over the extreme right. You do not see the democrats try to win over the extreme left.
I don't know the reasons. I would say though that some of their social policies are why I could never support that. No matter what else you say that I agree with I can not get past that, so it falls on deaf ears. People evolve, and maybe more rapidly in some ways now more then ever. So as a party if you want to fight against "the gays" or other stupid issues that should not matter. You may have a harder and harder time garnering your support. Maybe I'm waaaay off but perhaps where their problems arise from those select issues that make "traditional" in a bad way. And as I'm sure I have read on here, people like palin and huckabee are not trying to really win they are just trying to make $$$ from selling crap rural areas that are scared of anything that is different, that don't read much, and never travel outside the country.
To be fair, Bernie is trying to win over the left, and even a little left in the United States qualifies as "extreme left."
There is an outright Socialist running for the Democratic nomination..... Both parties pander to their base and to the extremes in the party during this phase of an election. They then pretend to be a centrist once they win the nomination. It's just how it goes. That said, this crop of Republicans is pretty weak, to make matters worse, the best of them are down near the bottom of the polls with the absolute worst sitting at the top.
Hum.....? Ted Cruz must show naturalization papers to keep his US Senate seat Details have been emerging which highly suggest that both Ted Cruz's parents had become Canadian citizens prior to his birth. According to past public statements made by his father, legal opinions and documentation currently available, Rafael (Ted) Cruz was likely born of 2 Canadian citizens in Calgary back in December of 1970. Under public pressure regarding a possible run for President of the United States, Cruz did release his Canadian certificate of birth. Since the certificate only lists his parents place of birth and not their citizenship status, it has just merely been assumed that his mother retained her US citizenship since her birth. It was not until May of 2014 that Senator Cruz filed the legal paperwork necessary to officially denounce his Canadian citizenship which was automatic at birth. According to a documented timeline of the Cruz' Family citizenship status and various other legal experts in Canada, Senator Ted Cruz was born a citizen of Canada at birth and there is no denying that legal fact. This timeline provides a summary of known citizenship status of his father, mother and himself presented in chronological order of events. A recent FOIA request to obtain a copy of his US naturalization papers, if they exist, was denied stating that the information would have to be requested by Rafael (Ted) Cruz himself. With the now highly likely true circumstances of his birth, this US Senator from Texas should be required to show proof that he ever became a citizen of the United States in order to be allowed to retain his seat in congress. Without this documentation of naturalization, which would be further proof to automatically disqualify him from running for President, he can in no way continue to hold a seat in the US Senate as one must at least have become a US citizen through naturalization to be eligible to hold the office. If Senator Ted Cruz was only a citizen of Canada and has since denounced that citizenship, is he a man without a country and unlawfully holding a US Senate seat?
^ I really wouldn't care that much except for all of the birther crap over Obama. Obama's natural born status has always been fairly strong as even if he had been born in Kenya he still would be a natural born citizen since his mother was a US citizen. Anyway I don't expect Breitbart.com et al to start going off with demanding to see more info out of Cruz to prove his natural born status.
Looks like a lot of bull****. His mother was born in Delaware. So, she's a natural born citizen. He was born of a citizen (doesn't matter where), so he's a citizen. All the rest of the detail about his father and moving about is a lot of hocus-pocus that doesn't matter. There's no evidence of him becoming a citizen because he always was one. It'd be great if he wasn't and we could get him out of US government forever, but this is every bit as bad as the Obama birther stuff and for exactly the same reason -- their fathers may have been foreigners, but their mothers were from the American heartland. Leave the xenophobic stuff for the republicans.
It is all truly dumb and irrelevant, but the claim the article makes is that the mom might have renounced her US citizenship when she became a Canadian citizen. In which case, he was born to 2 non-Americans in Canada and wouldn't ever have been a US Citizen of any sort. But they provide no evidence that she did any such thing.
