Ted Cruz A Man Of Principle?

Introduction:

I've said often that I don't think Ted Cruz can win against Hillary. Mostly because of his bad tax plan and his cruel deportation plan.

Democrats never talk about his tax plan, because they know if he wins the Republican nomination, Hillary will skewer him like a shish-ka-bob over it.

(I won't digress here, but will write more about his tax plan later.)

Anti-"open borders" folks throw around the terms "amnesty" and "open borders" as cuss words against Marco Rubio, without ever defining them.  Most of them truly do not even understand what he advocates. But more importantly they don't understand the insidious horror that Ted Cruz is advocating.

He cloaks his deportation plan in the guise of "rule of law" and "breaking the law has consequences", but actually his plan activates the decimation of hundreds of thousands of families of, (yes, illegal) immigrants, through deportation, ignoring the U.S. citizenship of children born here of illegal immigrant parents, calling for the firing of immigrant employees and the disruption of the companies they work for, and harm to the economy throughout the shake-up shake-down.

And all because he must demonize bringing illegals "out of the shadows" to win this Republican nomination -- even though he is on record (and video) saying he SUPPORTED bringing them "out of the shadows" when working on George W. Bush's comprehensive immigration plan, and as recently as 2013, during the hearings on his amendment to the Gang of 8.

I've tried to avoid saying the following, because if Cruz were to get the nomination, I would certainly support him over Hillary Clinton, but I must say the following:


Ted Cruz has no problem being flatly, blatantly, obviously, and deliberately DISHONEST, in order to win the nomination and the Presidency.

This is very disappointing, as are some of his policy recommendations. But just as disappointing are his supporters, who seem to have their fingers in their ears, and their eyes closed, yelling, "La, la, la, la! I can't hear you!", whenever this obvious character defect of their candidate is brought up.

IMPORTANT SIDENOTE: The very fact that Ted hired his campaign manager, Jeff Coe, should make you wonder about Ted Cruz. Google "Jeff Coe" if you're interested. He is VERY well known as a sleazy lowlife campaigner. Ironically, he was the campaign manager for Ted's opponent in his Senate race, and put out a flyer accusing Ted of being unpatriotic because Ted had a client in private practice, which was a Chinese company convicted of stealing blueprints from an American company. Ted worked on the appeal to get the Chinese company off. It could have lost Ted his Senate race. It was an unfair smear against Ted, but he seems to have thought, "Wow! That's the kind of campaign manager I need. A takes-no-prisoners sleaze-bag!" And he hired Jeff Roe.

The Lies:

With that introduction, here is just a sampling of Cruz's dishonesty. This is only a sampling, mostly relevant to Marco Rubio, directly or indirectly (important, because I believe Rubio CAN beat Hillary). Cruz has also told several lies about what Donald Trump CURRENTLY advocates, by using outdated information on what Trump used to advocate. I haven't bothered with most of these, because I'm not supporting Trump, and personally don't believe Trump really believes much of what he currently advocates anyway.

These are in no particular order, and I may add more later, as "Updates". I've numbered them for reference purposes:

1. CRUZ SAYING RUBIO WANTED TO DRAFT WOMEN INTO COMBAT - LIE

Cruz: "It was striking that three different people on that stage came out in support of drafting women into combat in the military,"

Truth: Rubio said in that debate that he was good with women signing up with Selective Service, but elaborated by saying that he was in favor of a voluntary military, not a draft, and even if there was a draft, he opposed drafting women into combat against their will.

Cruz lied.

2. CRUZ SAYING HE NEVER SUPPORTED LEGALIZATION OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS - LIE

Cruz: [In the 2013 Gang of 8 amendment hearings]: They would still be eligible for legal status and indeed, under the terms of the bill, they would be eligible for LPR [Lawful Permanent Resident] status as well so that they are out of the shadows, which the proponents of this bill repeatedly point to as their principal objective, to provide a legal status for those who are here illegally to be out of the shadows.

And so I would urge people of good faith on both sides of the aisle if the objective is to pass common sense immigration reform that secures the borders, that improves legal immigration and that allows those who are here illegally to come in out of the shadows, then we should look for areas of bipartisan agreement and compromise to come together.

and so I would urge everyone on this committee to roll up our sleeves and fix the problem in a humane way that secures the border, gets serious about fixing that problem, that expands and improves legal immigration and that does not unfairly treat legal immigrants by removing a path to citizenship but allowing as this legislation does a legal status for those who are here illegally.

Truth: Cruz was either telling a lie in 2013, when he said he wanted comprehensive immigration reform and to legalize illegal immigrants, bringing them “out of the shadows”, or he is lying now, saying he never supported legalization.

Cruz lied.

3. CRUZ “APOLOGIZING” TO BEN CARSON, SAYING HIS CAMPAIGN ONLY PASSED ON WHAT CNN HAD ALREADY REPORTED – LIE

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/feb/06/ted-cruz/ted-cruz-falsely-says-cnn-first-said-ben-carson-wa/

Bottom line: CNN reported that Carson was going to Florida the day after the debate, instead of New Hampshire (which was true). Cruz’s crew tweeted and emailed that Carson “will stop campaigning after Iowa”, and to go get Carson’s voters before they vote.

Cruz lied.

4. CRUZ SAYING THE HEALTH CARE PLANS OF TRUMP, HILLARY AND BERNIE ARE ALL IDENTICAL – LIE

I’m not going to spend any time defending Trump, because I don’t think he should be President, but the subject here is Cruz lying.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/31/ted-cruz/ted-cruzs-false-claim-trump-clinton-and-sanders-ha/

Bottom line: even Hillary’s and Bernie’s plans are far from identical, let alone Trump’s admittedly unclear plan, which is not single payer (like Bernie), not Obamacare (like Hillary), which he says he would repeal, and includes health savings accounts.

Cruz lied.

5. CRUZ SAYING RUBIO CALLED OBERGEFELL (SAME-SEX MARRIAGE) RULING “SETTLED LAW” – LIE

Cruz: Said Rubio said that the ruling “is the settled law of the land and we must … surrender and move on,”

Truth: Rubio specifically said (1) that it was NOT “settled law”, but could be changed, (2) that he was against it, and for man/woman marriage, (3) that marriage should be left to the States, (4) that he would appoint originalist Justices who would uphold the Constitution, since Obergefell was a bad decision, constitutionally.

Rubio did say (correctly) that for now, anyway, the Court decision is in effect the law of the land. This is not only true, but Ted Cruz knows it’s true, yet encouraged states to ignore the ruling.

(Reference http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/02/16/fact-check-cruz-distorts-rubios-stance-gay-marriage/80455074/# )

Cruz lied.

6. CRUZ IMPLYING THAT RUBIO WASN’T FULLY ON BOARD WITH DEFUNDING PLANNED PARENTHOOD - LIE

Rubio and Cruz were both co-sponsors on a bill from Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) to prohibit federal funding for Planned Parenthood. The legislation failed to advance when blocked by Democrats on a cloture vote.

So Cruz tried to get an amendment through that tied Planned Parenthood to the Iran Nuclear deal. It was such a non-starter that it failed in a voice vote, so there was not even a roll-call vote to put Senators on record. (Translation: it was a grand-standing move by Ted to look good.)

By the way, if it had passed (which again, it had NO chance of doing), it would have shut the government down, which would have quickly opened back up, and Planned Parenthood would still not be defunded, because a bill to do so would be vetoed by Obama. Stupid grandstand by Ted.

But Ted used that to say that Rubio did not want to use Congress’s “constitutional authority to defund Planned Parenthood."

Here’s what Bobby Jindal said about it: "Yesterday, Ted Cruz stood in front of hundreds of pro-life Christians and lied about Marco Rubio. Marco has always been passionately committed to the pro-life cause and has repeatedly voted to defund Planned Parenthood."

Cruz lied by implication.

7. CRUZ SAYING THAT RUBIO WOULD NOT RESCIND OBAMA’S EXECUTIVE AMNESTY ORDER

Cruz: “Marco Rubio has gone on Univision and said in Spanish, ‘No, no, I wouldn’t rescind amnesty...'"

Even when Cruz technically tells the truth, he often lies by what he leaves out.

He has said repeatedly that Rubio told Univision, in an interview, that he would not rescind Obama’s amnesty order “on his first day in office”. Although this is technically true (regarding "first day"), it leaves out the parts where Rubio said that the Obama order “must go”, but that it couldn’t be done “immediately” because of the disruption for those who were already benefitting from it. (And that’s if a Court didn’t already get rid of Obama’s unconstitutional order).

Cruz’s charge implies clearly that Rubio wants to keep the order intact for good. A lie.

Cruz lied.

UPDATES (For sadly, I'm sure there will be some):