Robert Waldmann — Bizarro World

Health insurers confess to be being held hostage by Wall Street against their will. Some GOP senators react.

Capitalism at its "finest."

Angry Bear

Bizarro World
Robert Waldmann

Neil W. McCabe — Sen. Ted Cruz to ‘Storm Congress’ Rally: It Is Time to Repeal Obamacare, ‘We Are Out of Excuses’

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz revved up hundreds of Tea Party activists at Wednesday's "Storm Congress" rally against the American Health Care Act crafted by Speaker Paul Ryan (R.-Wis.) to stabilize health insurance markets, rather than repeal the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Obamacare....

Breitbart News

Sen. Ted Cruz to ‘Storm Congress’ Rally: It Is Time to Repeal Obamacare, ‘We Are Out of Excuses’
Neil W. McCabe

Also

Donald Trump: ‘I’m 100 Percent Behind’ Obamacare Replacement Plan
Charlie Spiering

Mallory Shelbourne — Cruz predicts 'pitchforks and torches in the streets' if GOP doesn't deliver

“If we’re given the White House and both houses of Congress and we don’t deliver, I think there will be pitchforks and torches in the streets. And I think quite rightly,” he told ABC’s “This Week.”

You betcha!

The Hill
Cruz predicts 'pitchforks and torches in the streets' if GOP doesn't deliver
Mallory Shelbourne

Andrew Prokop — Ted Cruz dropped out because Donald Trump was shredding his reputation

Vox
Ted Cruz dropped out because Donald Trump was shredding his reputation
Andrew Prokop

Ted Cruz drops out. finally. Trump is now the nominee.

Ted Cruz finally dropped out.

Donald Trump is now the nominee. He is free to go after Hillary full bore now. He will shred her.

Trump will be the next president.

Emily Atkin — After Scalia Death, Ted Cruz Says 2016 Election Should Be ‘A Referendum On The Supreme Court’

The single-issue candidate.

Before Scalia’s death, Cruz had repeatedly made the Supreme Court a centerpiece of his campaign, promising to create the most conservative bench in history if elected. He has said that changing the ideological makeup of the Supreme Court would be a huge priority for him as president — and that he would “spend whatever political capital is necessary” to appoint the most reliably conservative justices he could find.

“We are one justice away from the Supreme Court concluding that nobody in this room and no American has an individual right to keep and bear arms,” Cruz told a packed town hall meeting in Iowa last month. “We are one justice away from the Supreme Court striking down every restriction on abortion, and mandating unlimited abortion on demand, up until the time of birth, partial birth, with taxpayer funding, and no parental notification whatsoever. We are one justice away from the Supreme Court ordering veterans memorials torn down all over this country if they contain any acknowledgement of God Almighty.”

Think Progress
After Scalia Death, Ted Cruz Says 2016 Election Should Be ‘A Referendum On The Supreme Court’
Emily Atkin

John Kiriakou — Trump’s Impeachable Offense

But torture isn’t just bad policy. It’s against the law.

First, the federal Torture Act stipulates that if an American soldier, CIA officer, or anybody else acting on behalf of the government waterboards a prisoner, he risks up to 20 years imprisonment. The McCain-Feinstein Amendment Congress passed last year reiterated the ban on torture, including waterboarding.

Second, our country is a signatory to the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Waterboarding a prisoner is against international law and could subject the torturer — or the person ordering or approving the torture — to international sanctions, including prosecution in international courts.

In the early part of the last decade, torture fans in the George W. Bush Justice Department — most infamously in a legal opinion by attorneys John Yoo and Jay Bybee — twisted the law itself into contortions to argue that certain forms of torture were permissible. Al-Qaeda, they said, was a “non-state actor,” not a country. As such, its members should receive none of the protections of international law.

That argument was specious on its face. Absolutely nothing in U.S. law says that there are two sets of rules — one for countries and one for terrorist groups. The law is the law, whether we like it or not — including international conventions adopted by the United States.

Trump is no the only candidate calling for "taking the gloves off." So have Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina.

John Kiriakou is the only person imprisoned by the US so far in the torture scandal — for blowing the whistle on torturers. 

This is a national disgrace that has cost the US dearly in credibility and soft power.

Truthdig
Trump’s Impeachable Offense
John Kiriakou

David Glasner — How not to Win Friends and Influence People

Some history, some economics, some politics and some ideology. Covers a lot of ground.

Uneasy Money
How not to Win Friends and Influence People
David Glasner | Economist at the Federal Trade Commission

Jason Ditz — Pentagon Blasts Ted Cruz’s Proposals That Would Lead To ‘Apocalyptic War’

This is the second time in as many days the Pentagon has faulted a presidential candidate’s policy suggestions.

Significant because the military ordinarily stays clear of politics. Apparently the generals have decided that the loose cannon on deck need to be secured.

Mint Press News
Pentagon Blasts Ted Cruz’s Proposals That Would Lead To ‘Apocalyptic War’
Jason Ditz | Antiwar

Robert Parry — Cruz Threatens to Nuke ISIS Targets

Republican presidential campaign rhetoric is red-hot regarding Islamic terrorism, with Sen. Cruz suggesting the use of nuclear weapons to see “if sand can glow in the dark,” a threat even more troubling than Donald Trump’s call to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the U.S., writes Robert Parry.

Consortium News
Cruz Threatens to Nuke ISIS Targets
Robert Parry

Jonathan Allen — Bernie Sanders's ideas are so popular that Hillary Clinton is running on them

Overton window shifting left?
Vox
Bernie Sanders's ideas are so popular that Hillary Clinton is running on them

Jonathan Allen

And populism may "in".

Can Ted Cruz's hawkish populism actually win?

Zack Beauchamp

Simon Maloy — Ted Cruz’s frightening gun fanaticism: When a presidential contender encourages armed insurrection

As incredible as it sounds, there’s an argument going on right now between two Republican senators (and, potentially, two Republican candidates for the presidency) over whether the American citizenry should be ready to fight a war against the federal government. The two senators in question are Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, and they can’t seem to agree whether the Second Amendment serves as bulwark against government “tyranny.”

It all started with a fundraising email Cruz sent making the case that “The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution isn’t for just protecting hunting rights, and it’s not only to safeguard your right to target practice. It is a Constitutional right to protect your children, your family, your home, our lives, and to serve as the ultimate check against governmental tyranny — for the protection of liberty.” TPM’s Sahil Kapur asked Graham what he thought of his Texan colleague’s view of the Second Amendment, and the South Carolina senator was not impressed. He even invoked the Civil War, which should make Cruz’s people plenty upset. “Well, we tried that once in South Carolina,” Graham said. “I wouldn’t go down that road again.”

This view of gun rights that casts personal firearm ownership as a check on the abuses of government doesn’t make a great deal of practical sense, and it betrays a lack of faith in our democratic institutions. But it’s become increasingly popular among high-level Republican officials who quite literally scare up votes by telling voters they’re right to keep their Glocks cocked just in case the feds come for them. Iowa’s new Republican senator Joni Ernst famously remarked that she supports the right to carry firearms to defend against “the government, should they decide that my rights are no longer important.”

The obvious question raised by statements like those from Cruz and Ernst is: when does the shooting start? What is the minimum threshold for government “tyranny” that justifies an armed response from the citizenry? In 2014, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy was ready to start a shooting war with the feds to defend his illegal grazing practices, and he garnered the support of top-level Republican officials (they only abandoned him after he started wondering aloud whether black people would be better off as slaves).

It’s an important question because Republicans and conservatives – Ted Cruz included – tend to throw around terms like “tyranny” sort of haphazardly when criticizing policies and politicians they disagree with.…

Off the deep end. Feel like your living in a world gone mad?

Salon
Ted Cruz’s frightening gun fanaticism: When a presidential contender encourages armed insurrection
Simon Maloy

Pema Levy — Meet Ted Cruz's Karl Rove: "He Leaves a Path of Destruction"

As you probably noticed, the 2016 presidential race "officially" began on Monday with the announcement of Ted Cruz. Is Jeff Roe the new Lee Atwater and Karl Rove? 

As Cruz's 2016 rivals will soon find out, Jeff Roe is infamous for his "ruthless" tactics.

Looks like US politics is headed further into the gutter.

What is interesting, though, is that there are two candidates with Latin ties. Cruz's father is Cuban, and Jeb Bush's wife is Mexican. It will be interesting to see how the GOP base handles that given the level of bias if not bigotry that has been exhibited.

Mother Jones
Meet Ted Cruz's Karl Rove: "He Leaves a Path of Destruction"
Pema Levy

William Hogeland — Ted Cruz and Patrick Henry

Ted Cruz misrepresents Patrick Henry. For US history buffs and those interested in American History and contemporary US politics.

Hysteriography
Ted Cruz and Patrick Henry
William Hogeland

Obama Urges Net Neutrality, Ted Cruz Lashes Out Against Net Neutrality, Calls It 'Obamacare For The Internet'

The battle begins.

The Huffington Post

Obama Urges FCC To Set 'Strongest Possible Rules' To Protect Net Neutrality

Dana Liebelson

Ted Cruz Lashes Out Against Net Neutrality, Calls It 'Obamacare For The Internet'

Ashley Alman

Digby — Tea Party’s great dunce-off: How Ted Cruz is quietly kicking Rand Paul’s butt

The real Tea Party.

At the time the Tea Party allegedly sprang up out of nowhere the country was still reeling from the war in Iraq and a financial crisis that shook the economy to its core, so it naturally marketed itself around economic issues. Therefore, the Tea Party was assumed to be populated by people who cared little about social issues and defense and instead signaled the beginning of a new, highly motivated libertarian faction in the GOP. But polling showed the Tea Party largely overlapped with the Christian Right and the traditional Republican hawks. In fact, they are the same people.

And it must be noted that the right wing of American politics is inherently reactionary and always animated by certain impulses, however they might be identified at a particular time. As sociologist Theda Skocpol, author (with Vanessa Williamson) of the book “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism,” described them:

They are overwhelmingly older, white, conservative-minded men and women who fear that “their country” is about to be lost to mass immigration and new extensions of taxpayer-funded social programs (like the Affordable Care Act) for low- and moderate-income working-aged people, many of whom are black or brown. Fiscal conservatism is often said to be the top grassroots Tea Party priority, but Williamson and I did not find this to be true.

Salon
Tea Party’s great dunce-off: How Ted Cruz is quietly kicking Rand Paul’s butt
Digby

David Edwards — Ted Cruz: Obama is ‘lawless’ and senators must ‘render judgement’ on impeachment (via Raw Story )

Ted Cruz: Obama is ‘lawless’ and senators must ‘render judgement’ on impeachment (via Raw Story )

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) opened the door over the weekend to impeaching President Barack Obama because he said that the commander in chief had been “lawless.” In an interview published on Saturday, Newsmax’s Steve Malzberg asked Cruz what could be…

---

David Edwards — Rafael Cruz: LGBT rights and evolution are communist brainwashing lies to kill God (via Raw Story )

Rafael Cruz: LGBT rights and evolution are communist brainwashing lies to kill God (via Raw Story )

Rafael Cruz, the father of tea party-backed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), has warned Americans that equal rights for LGBT people and the theory of evolution are essentially communist lies that are being used by the American government to destroy the family…

---

Travis Gettys — Ted Cruz’s father wants to send Obama ‘back to Kenya’ and install son as ‘political savior’ (via Raw Story )

Ted Cruz’s father wants to send Obama ‘back to Kenya’ and install son as ‘political savior’ (via Raw Story )

When conservative activists compared Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) last week to Jesus Christ, it wasn’t the first time the first-term Republican senator was described in religious terms. The tea party favorite’s father, the Cuban-born evangelical minister…

---

Laura Clawson — Cruz Caucus plots next Republican hostage taking ... of its own party

More on the GOP civil war from the trenches. High stakes game played by newbies to Congress and the political process. They think they are smashing success so far, and apparently so does their constituency. How this will play outside the base remains to be seen. Previously, candidates would through red meat to the base well in advance of the election and then with a wink-wink, run to the center. Seem that is ruled out by these purists. Previously, this would get you smacked down by the leadership. But these are different times.

Daily Kos
Cruz Caucus plots next Republican hostage taking ... of its own party
Laura Clawson