Ted Cruz Plays Hardball on Defunding Obamacare



(Photo by Gage Skidmore)

Rafael Eduardo "Ted" Cruz, junior United States Senator from Texas, is the darling of the Tea Party Movement and is one of the leading Republicans proposing the defunding of Obamacare.

Although Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada of a Cuban father and Irish-Italian American mother and is a citizen of Canada, little is mentioned about this part of his background. No Birthier Movement on Ted Cruz...he punches all the right buttons for the right wing G. O. P. faithful. He's a gun rights supporter, stands against additional background checks at gun shows, and voted against the Manchin-Toomey Amendment insuring that the legislation never got the sixty votes needed for cloture.

Although he took his senate seat in 2013, Cruz intends to be heard and some suspect he has his eyes on the Republican Presidential nomination in 2016. He challenged Chuck Hagel's nomination for Defense Secretary, blocked Senate Budget negotiations because of concerns over a debt ceiling hike and fought with FL Senator Marco Rubio over a bi-partisian immigration bill. Each of these actions gained him legion of fans within the right wing of the G.O.P.

Senators Cruz and Rubio both support defunding Obamacare as a condition of moving forward to fund the government. He calls his opponents the "surrender caucus", calling them "scared" to wage a fight. Cruz relishes intro-party warfare, pushing for party purity and advocates pulling the Republican Party further to the right. If the government is shut down due to lack of funding, the G.O.P. establishment believes the party will take the lion's share of blame and that such a move would be disastrous for the Republican Party.

Many people believe that Cruz's positions are not about principles or party, but rather about boosting his own brand and a possible future presidential bid. Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, along with party staple Karl Rove don't support Cruz's  position on defunding Obamacare. Mike Lee (R-UT) has the support of 12 other Senators against Cruz's "defund Obamacare push".

It'll be interesting to see how the struggle will play out and, if a government shutdown occurs based on G.O.P. strategies such as defunding Obamacare, if the American people will penalize Republicans at the polls.

More Obama Bashing Coming from Filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza

A new “documentary” from filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza ,  co-director and writer of the "2016: Obama's America”,  is to be released  July Fourth 2014. The film is in its early stages now and should be completed by June 2014. You can expect the film to be anti-Obama, as with every other work D’Souza produces.

D'Souza, 52, a native of Mumbai, India, came to the United States as a foreign student. He earned a degree from Dartmouth, gaining notoriety for his conservative writings and is the author of several influential and best-selling books, including "Letters to a Young Conservative" and "What's So Great About America."

 “America,” D’Souza said, will extol American exceptionalism, celebrate American values, and counter the vision offered by President Barack Obama. The new film will focus on D’Souza’s case against the Obama agenda. He said it is not intended as a sequel to ‘2016.’
In "2016," D'Souza used arguments made in his bestselling 2010 book "The Roots of Obama's Rage" to argue that Obama had deep-seated anger against the country he leads, a feeling that he absorbed from his father, a Kenyan who resented British colonialism. These are continuing themes of the Tea Party and Conservative Right.

D'Souza says his new film takes the next step, by offering a debate between the competing visions of America's 1776 Founding Fathers and "Obama's America," which he traces to “the radical upheavals of 1968”.

"2016" pulled in $33.4 million, the second-highest-grossing political documentary in history. Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11", released in 2004, grossed more than $222 million.

Michael Moore

D'Souza says he hopes supporters and conservatives will come out in droves to help it surpass liberal Michael Moore's film as the nation's top documentary on record. I'm sure he won't mind putting more coins in his own pocket.

D'Souza jokes of Moore, his outspoken movie-making counterpart on the left: "We have to dethrone the fat guy. It's too embarrassing to be right behind him. I sometimes joke that he's a symbol of the federal government, overweight and out of control. We want to give him a run for his money."

D'Souza adds: "Since Hollywood isn't going to give us any Oscars, it would be extremely satisfying to beat him at the box office."

One thing you can say about D'Souza, he has hit upon a theme in his books and movies that allow the Tea Party and the conservative right wing to feed their hatred of President Obama while keeping D'Souza's pockets lined with coins. He tapped right into the financial side of "the American Dream", know little of what America is really about.