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Ted Cruz Tag

Yesterday was another heated day on the floor of the Senate, as Republicans took to the podium to lambaste SJR 19, Democrats' latest effort to control the content and flow of political speech in America. As we discussed Monday, SJR 19 proposes a Constitutional amendment that would give Congress the right to set limits on how much money can be raised for and spent in federal political campaigns, and would drastically limit the First Amendment rights to both free speech and free association. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), have spent the past two days defending the resolution as our last chance to preserve the integrity of the vote---and proposing some dangerous policy in the process. Tuesday brought both junior and senior Senators to the floor in opposition to the proposed amendment, putting Democrats on defense and causing waves on social media. One of the main concerns raised in Tuesday's floor speeches was the potential for government control over political speech to spiral, and cut off the flow of information entirely. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) got creative with his presentation, targeting Senator Al Franken (D-MN) and others who embrace parody and humor as part of their political commentary:

Now that Ted Cruz has proposed that Americans who fight with ISIS be stripped of citizenship, there's been a rash of articles questioning whether this would be legal, such as this one at Hot Air. At American Thinker, Rick Moran has written:
Currently, natural born citizens of the US cannot have their citizenship revoked against their will. It is unclear whether Cruiz's bill would supercede the denaturalization law. It is also against international law to strip an individual's citizenship if they are not also a citizen of another country. In other words, the US cannot create a "stateless" person that no other country would accept.
The relevant law is this statute originally from the 1940s, as well as several subsequent SCOTUS cases. This is how that portion of the statute reads:
a) A person who is a national of the United States whether by birth or naturalization, shall lose his nationality by voluntarily performing any of the following acts with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality— ...

When you consider the disturbing number of Americans allegedly working with ISIS already, this sounds like a solid idea. Senator Cruz is going to introduce legislation next week. Mario Trujillo of The Hill reported:
Cruz: Strip citizenship from Americans in ISIS Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is slated to introduce legislation next week that would revoke the U.S. citizenship of anyone fighting or providing support to terrorist groups working to attack the United States. Cruz said he is filing the Expatriate Terrorist Act in reaction to the threat posed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). It would provide another level of protection to prevent foreign fighters from re-entering the United States, he said. “Americans who choose to go to Syria or Iraq to fight with vicious ISIS terrorists are party to a terrorist organization committing horrific acts of violence, including beheading innocent American journalists who they have captured,” Cruz said in a statement. “There can be no clearer renunciation of their citizenship in the United States, and we need to do everything we can to preempt any attempt on their part to re-enter our country and carry out further attacks on American civilians.”
This is a very interesting development considering what's happening in the UK.

Senator Ted Cruz has been on a roll lately and he seems to be picking up steam as he goes. Conor Finnegan of CNN reported...
Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has won another straw poll, boosting his national profile and elevating his name among potential 2016 presidential contenders. The firebrand freshman senator and tea party favorite was among a handful of 2016 hopefuls speaking at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans this week. Cruz finished in first place in the annual conference's presidential straw poll at 30.33%. Dr. Ben Carson, a Fox News commentator and conservative activist, finished in second with 29.38% while Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, was third with 10.43%. Fox News host and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Texas Governor Rick Perry rounded out the top five, at 5.06% and 4.90%, respectively... Cruz's address was among the most popular. He was interrupted several times by cheers and standing ovations - especially when he told the crowd he was "convinced" the Republican Party would retake control of Congress in the midterm elections this fall.
The influence of Ted Cruz was felt in another Texas election recently. FOX News Latino reported...

That's what Ted Cruz tweeted about this Branco cartoon that ran at Legal Insurrection in October, Branco Cartoon – Delay and Conquer. How far we've come...

I've known him from the blogosphere, where he ran The Wolf Files. Now he's running for Senate in Kansas. This radio ad, in which mention is made of him being "The Next Ted Cruz" is sure to get attention, as it has at The Hill:
Milton Wolf is quickly claiming the Ted Cruz mantle in his primary against Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). The Senate hopeful and second cousin to President Obama, Wolf is launching his first radio ad ahead of the August primary featuring former Kansas Rep. Jim Ryun (R) touting Wolf as “the next Ted Cruz.” Ryun is chairman of the conservative group the Madison Project, which has endorsed Wolf. Senate Conservatives Fund has also backed Wolf. “You see, Milton Wolf is a doctor, not a politician, and they’re already calling him the next Ted Cruz [R-Texas],” Ryun says in the ad, a reference to an article in The Week examining whether he's trying to follow in Cruz's footsteps. He goes on to praise Wolf’s conservative credentials and his proclaimed goal of repealing and replacing ObamaCare. “You wanna drive President Obama crazy? Send Dr. Milton Wolf to the U.S. Senate,” Ryun says at the end of the ad.

https://twitter.com/realmyiq2xu/status/417410251936104448 (Featured image source: YouTube)...

It will stand the test of time. Those who were willing to stand against Obamacare despite all the name calling, and who are proven to have been correct. Obama and Democrats now are scrambling to delay various portions of the Obamacare rollout, even though such delays when...

This morning Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois held a US Senate hearing nominally on the subject of Stand Your Ground laws. Here I'll just share an overview of the testimony, along with my own general observations. (More detailed posts will likely follow.) [caption id="attachment_69289" align="alignnone" width="450"]US Senate hearing: "Stand Your Ground:  Civil rights and Public Safety Implications of the Expanded Use of Deadly Force" US Senate hearing: "Stand Your Ground: Civil rights and Public Safety Implications of the Expanded Use of Deadly Force"[/caption] My first general observation is that the anti-SYG folks were, as experience would suggest, big on emotion and small on actual facts, law, or data. One of the anti-SYG witnesses, Professor Sullivan from Harvard Law School, did raise some actual data--but when these were utterly destroyed by the later testimony of Dr. John Lott and Elliot Shapiro of CATA, Professor Sullivan was swift to discount the use of data (which he himself had introduced into the testimony) and instead focus on the "real people" behind the data. In sharp contrast, the testimony of the pro-SYG speakers was focused and direct. Second, the anti-SYG folks persistently conflated the legal concept of Stand Your Ground with utterly discrete legal concepts, such as presumptions of reasonableness and civil/criminal immunity.

The repeated promises that you could keep your doctor and health plan never had a basis. These were false promises of historic magnitude, and the ramifications are that the "Dem Party is F****d" and Democrats "will own this problem forever." One of the benefits of Ted Cruz's defund effort is that most Republicans can say we tried our best, but the Democrats and the Democrats alone are the reason your life has been messed up. Our hands are clean. The loss of health plans was not just a coincidence, however, or a mere byproduct of health plan mandates requiring people to buy coverage they don't want or need (although that was a root cause). Rather the Obama administration passed regulations that guaranteed people would lose their health plans.  As I've always said, watch the regs. The mechanism was to eviscerate so-called grandfathering of older plans. If there was even the slightest change in the plan, even an change in a co-pay, the grandfathering was lost under the regulations. Since details of plans change all the time, and people buy new plans, the regulations guaranteed that millions, and likely tens of millions, of people would not be able to keep their plans, and as a result in many cases, lose their doctors from networks. NBC reports, Obama admin. knew millions could not keep their health insurance [original link dead, new url here, see Update No. 2]:
Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC NEWS that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.”

David Frum at The Daily Beast, and Alex Pareene at Salon.com, each write about Elizabeth Warren and Ted Cruz, and 2016. Frum sees a Warren run ending in defeat at the hands of the Clinton machine, How Ted Cruz Can Win in 2016: Democrats liked Hillary personally. But...

Ted Cruz appeared today at the Values Voters Summit. The big news was that he got heckled and gave it back. Here's the clip.  (The full video is here.) [video embed removed because causing problems, so go here to view video]...

I realize I have re-posted this a number of times. The original post was November 11, 2008, a week after Obama's first election.  Because I knew we had elected Door No. 2. Watching Ted Cruz and others on the floor of the Senate tonight, I have to...

Senator Ted Cruz is currently "filibustering" on the Senate floor to #MakeDCListen on defunding Obamacare.  According to various pundits and outlets, this is not technically a filibuster of course, but Professor Jacobson explains that a vote for cloture is a vote for Harry Reid. Live Twitter feed at bottom of post. Update: It's over. By Senate rule, the new Senate "day" started at noon, and Cruz lost the floor. He spoke for almost 22 hours. [caption id="attachment_65901" align="alignnone" width="503"](Ted Cruz concluding filibuster by Senate Rule at Noon, September 25, 2013) (Ted Cruz concluding filibuster by Senate Rule at Noon, September 25, 2013)[/caption] https://twitter.com/michellemalkin/statuses/382898126975025152 https://twitter.com/DanaBashCNN/status/382901983000027136

Ted Cruz was on the floor of the Senate today making the case about defunding Obamacare and keeping the government open. While he may not be successful, as even Mitch McConnell abandoned the cause and the sniping from Republicans continues -- even as to his eligibility...

Tonight on Special Report with Bret Baier both Tucker Carlson and Charles Krauthammer were excoriating Cruz over the issue of Obamacare defunding.  That's fine. If you think he's wrong or foolish or whatever, make the case. But as part of their arguments each brought up that Cruz...