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.

The Road to Freedom: Truman Ends Segregation in the Armed Forces

 

During the years 1947-1954, America struggled to preserve freedom in a dangerous world. The fight abroad led to renewed demands by Black Americans back home.

In 1947, Civil Rights Activist A. Philip Randolph, along with colleague Grant Reynolds, renewed efforts to end discrimination in the armed services, forming the Committee Against  Jim Crow in Military Service and Training, later renamed the League for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience Against Military Segregation. Randolph warned that “Discrimination and segregation in the Armed Forces is ...a grave threat... to the internal stability of our nation.”

Watching the Criminal Justice System: Matthew Weaver-Identity Theft

Twenty-two year old business major Matthew Weaver wanted the student president title at Cal State San Marcos. He wanted the $8,000 stipend that came with it and control of the $300,000 annual budget. He rigged the vote, got caught, and is heading to prison for one year.

Weaver admits to using small electronic devices that record a computer's key strokes to steal 745 passwords and then used that stolen information to cast 630 votes for himself and his friend who were also on the ballot.

Weaver pleaded guilty to felony charges, to stealing log in information for 700 fellow students so that he could cast phony votes to elect himself class president. He pleaded guilty to 3 counts of wire fraud, unauthorized access to a computer, and identity theft. Although he was sentenced to one year in jail, 27 months is the low end of the spectrum for federal identity theft cases.

Interestingly enough, Weaver's attorney felt his client's crimes really didn't warrant a felony conviction. "Mr. Weaver is a very bright guy and this was really, really stupid. But, does it warrant having a felony conviction for the rest of his life?"

The criminal justice system is full of prisoners who did something really stupid, like holding a small amount of marijuana for their personal use, that netted them a felony conviction. It seems to matter how the victim is "perceived" and how that perception result is light  or stiff penalties.

30,000 CA Prisoners Stage Hunger Strike

More than 12,000 California prison inmates are now taking part in a hunger strike launched to demand better conditions and a reduction in the use of solitary confinement, corrections officials and organizers said last Thursday.

The protest began Monday, when organizers said as many as 30,000 inmates refused food. By Thursday, a total of 12,421 prisoners had skipped nine consecutive meals -- the official definition of a hunger strike, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation -- and another 1,300 others have skipped work assignments or classes, prison officials reported.

Organizers say the strike is a resumption two similar protests in 2011, one of which lasted for three weeks.

Another Side of the Criminal Justice System: Colin Small-Let Off the Hook for Discarding Voter Registration Forms

The young Republican who grabbed national headlines after being arrested for throwing voter registration forms into a dumpster before the 2012 election won't be facing any legal consequences. (He tossed voter registration forms in the dumpster behind a strip mall down the street from the Republican headquarters.)

A judge in Virginia dropped several misdemeanor charges against Colin Small on Wednesday, meaning the 23-year-old will not face any penalties for discarding a number of voter registration forms. Felony charges were dropped back in April, but Small was still facing five misdemeanor counts until this week.

During a four-hour court hearing on Tuesday, Small's lawyer John C. Holloran argued that Small simply made a mistake and wasn't trying to purposefully prevent anyone from registering to vote. Small, a friend from college and Small's former tennis coach all testified.

While Small tossed eight voter registration forms, he was only charged with discarding four, because some of the voters were already registered and one was a felon and not allowed to vote. Holloran said the voters who were prevented from voting were Republicans and blamed Democrats for making Small's case seem like part of a conspiracy.

"It's amazing that common sense and wisdom and mercy don't have a more stellar place in our justice system," Holloran told The Huffington Post.

US Eugenics Victims Wait for Compensation

Much attention was been paid in recent years to America’s silent eugenics program. Originally conceived in the 1920s, eugenics was viewed by many as a way to alleviate economic pressure on welfare programs across the US by giving the state the right to remove individuals deemed unfit for reproduction from the gene pool. Of those labeled “feeble-minded” or “promiscuous” or victims of rape, tens of thousands were subjected to sterilization under the cold blade of the US government’s knife, often without consent or knowledge that the state had decided to deprive them of their ability to have children.