The confidence to engage rather than avoid....
Florida Congressman Alan Grayson told radio host Alan Colmes Wednesday that if Ted Cruz is elected president, he “will file that beautiful lawsuit saying that he’s unqualified for the job” according to the Constitution. Cruz was born in Canada to a native-born American mother, making the presidential candidate a dual Canadian-American citizen. It was not until a 2013 Dallas Morning News article that Cruz acknowledged his Canadian citizenry publicly. In 2014, the senator renounced his Canadian citizenship altogether.Apparently Grayson believes that anyone who is born to an American parent while in a foreign country is not an American by birth. Or something.
All the GOP tax plans look good to us — though some are admittedly better than others. The danger now is that too many conservatives have formed a circular firing squad and are shooting down nearly all proposals on purity grounds or attacking trivial differences. This is the surest way to derail tax reform altogether. If Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp and Bill Bradley had held to such a "my way or the highway" approach, the epic 1986 tax reform that collapsed tax rates to 15% and 28% never would have happened.That said, Laffer and Moore continue by narrowing their focus to Rand and Cruz:
Which brings us to Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. The two of us helped craft their low-rate flat tax plans. The plans are similar: Paul's rates are 14.5% on business net sales and wages and salaries. Cruz has a 16% business net sales tax and a 10% wage and salary tax.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on Wednesday said that if President Barack Obama wants to be critical of his rhetoric, he should "come back and insult me to my face." Obama has been critical of Cruz's proposal for handling the Syrian refugee crisis, which includes allowing in Syrian Christians, but not Syrian Muslims. The president earlier this week called that approach "shameful," adding, "we don't have religious tests to our compassion." "Mr. President, if you want to insult me, you can do it overseas, you can do it in Turkey, you can do it in foreign countries, but I would encourage you, Mr. President, come back and insult me to my face," Cruz told reporters Wednesday morning, looking directly into the cameras. "Let's have a debate on Syrian refugees right now. We can do it anywhere you want. I'd prefer it in the United States and not overseas where you're making the insults. It's easy to toss a cheap insult when no one can respond, but let's have a debate."
Terrorism suddenly rivals the economy as the single most important issue to Americans in the 2016 presidential election -- and a year out, a new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds more people paying close attention to the contest than at this point in any race back to 1988. After years of dominating the political landscape, the economy now has company. Given the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, 28 percent of Americans now call terrorism the top issue in their choice for president, compared with 33 percent who cite the economy. Nothing else comes close. Attention, moreover, is focused as never before. Three-quarters of Americans say they are closely following the 2016 race, including three in 10 who are following it very closely. That’s the highest level of attention at this point in a presidential race in polls back nearly 30 years.According to this report: "Partisan divisions are 33-23-36 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents."
That group, which has raised more than $100 million, has asked voters in New Hampshire how they feel about Mr. Rubio’s skipping important votes in the Senate. And the group’s chief strategist has boasted of his willingness to spend as much as $20 million to damage Mr. Rubio’s reputation and halt his sudden ascent in the polls, according to three people told of the claim. Seething with anger and alarmed over Mr. Rubio’s rise, aides to Mr. Bush, the former Florida governor, and his allies are privately threatening a wave of scathing attacks on his former protégé in the coming weeks, in a sign of just how anxious they have become about the state of Mr. Bush’s candidacy. Their looming problem: In trying to undercut Mr. Rubio as unaccomplished and unprepared, Mr. Bush is a flawed messenger. Over the years he has repeatedly, and sometimes lavishly, praised the younger lawmaker, often on camera.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had arguably the most memorable moment from Wednesday night's Republican primary debate on CNBC when he slammed the moderators. But for Frank Luntz, the veteran GOP pollster who ran a focus group during the debate, the results were clear. "I have been doing this since 1996 and tonight is a special moment. I've never tested — in any primary debate — a line that scored as well as this," Luntz said after the debate on Fox News' "The Kelly File."
Ted Cruz: ‘Climate Change Is Not Science -- It’s Religion’ “Just a couple weeks ago in the Senate I chaired a hearing where the president of the Sierra Club testified,” said Senator Cruz in an Oct. 28 interview on The Blaze TV. “We had an exchange, where I simply asked him about the data.” “He [Mair] simply couldn’t answer the most basic question, starting with the fact -- he couldn’t answer the most basic fact that for the last 18 years the satellite data show no significant warming whatsoever,” said Cruz. “He had no idea about that,” said Cruz. “He turned to his aides every minute or two.” “You know, part of the reason he didn’t know the facts?” said Cruz. “Because climate change is not science -- it’s religion.”
No other candidates earn double-digit support in the poll, from NBC News/Survey Monkey. Among those Republicans who watched the debate, Trump edges Carson, 25-24, while Cruz’s support jumps to 17 percent. Nearly a quarter of Republicans said Cruz did the best in the debate. He was followed closely by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), with one-in-five Republicans saying he did best. Trump and then Carson round out the top 4 performances in the debate, according to Republican voters.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, at 10 percent, is the only other candidate [besides Carson and Trump] in double digits. He's followed by Florida Senator Marco Rubio at 9 percent. The horse-race numbers for the top four mirror a Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday, with the main exception being that the earlier poll had Rubio in third place with 13 percent.As he continues to campaign in Iowa, Cruz emphasizes the import of the 2016 presidential election. He tweets:
The stakes of this election are high: https://t.co/lg7v8xrudY Join us: https://t.co/R1EkwUz9Id
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 24, 2015
O'Reilly to Dems Against Kate's Law: 'How Can You Live with Yourself?' Bill O'Reilly said a stand-alone vote on Kate's Law would put lawmakers to the test and -- in his opinion -- disqualify any Democratic senators who oppose it from holding office. The proposal would impose a mandatory five-year prison sentence on felons caught trying to re-enter the U.S. after being deported.
In 2010, we were told that Republicans would stand and fight if only we had a Republican House. In 2014, we were told that Republicans would stand and fight just as soon as we won a majority in the Senate and retired Harry Reid. In both instances, the American people obliged. Now we’re told that we must wait until 2017 when we have a Republican president. Like Charlie Brown and the football, this disconnect explains the massive frustration with Washington. The American people do not believe Republicans will actually do what we say we will do.And this, of course, is why 62% of Republican voters feel betrayed by the GOP. Despite historic victories handed to Republicans in 2010 and 2014, the GOP refuses to do what they campaigned they'd do and what voters sent them to Washington to do: stop Obama's agenda. These "campaign conservatives," to use Cruz's term, continue to have their show votes in Congress, meaningless votes intended to appease conservative voters, but then they quietly rubber stamp Obama's policies. Cruz explains:
Alas, no. In today’s partisan Washington, there are only two important kinds of votes: show votes on legislation that has no chance of becoming law and votes on legislation that “must pass.” (A third kind of vote—growing government and worsening the deficit—occurs as well. These votes succeed because Democrats and Republican leadership agree that expanding corporate welfare and cronyism helps the reelection of career politicians of both parties.)
