Rafael Cruz, father of Senator Ted Cruz, is a shameless liar
Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.
Proverbs 12:22
By Patrick
Junior Senator Ted Cruz recently got into a lot of trouble, as the mastermind behind the infamous "shutdown" which could have caused a global economic catastrophe, if the USA had defaulted (read: Debt Deadline Approaches: Here’s What Would Happen If U.S. Defaults).
But there is also a second fact that political observers recently became aware of: Ted Cruz is not alone. If you want Ted Cruz, you also get his father Rafael Cruz, who currently tours the country, giving outrageous speeches in which he spews hate and lies. His primary target is President Obama, and just a few days ago, some particularly shocking quotes by Rafael Cruz were highlighted by David Corn at Mother Jones, in an article which thankfully received a lot of attention.
Quote from Mother Jones:
In April, Rafael Cruz, the father of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), spoke to the tea party of Hood County, which is southwest of Fort Worth, and made a bold declaration: The United States is a "Christian nation." The septuagenarian businessman turned evangelical pastor did not choose to use the more inclusive formulation "Judeo-Christian nation." Insisting that the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution "were signed on the knees of the framers" and were a "divine revelation from God," he went on to say, "yet our president has the gall to tell us that this is not a Christian nation…The United States of America was formed to honor the word of God." Seven months earlier, Rafael Cruz, speaking to the North Texas Tea Party on behalf of his son, who was then running for Senate, called President Barack Obama an "outright Marxist" who "seeks to destroy all concept of God," and he urged the crowd to send Obama "back to Kenya."
David Corn quoted from a speech which Rafael Cruz gave to the North Texas Tea Party on September 12, 2012. The original clip with this half-hour speech by Rafael Cruz has subsequently been deleted from youtube. However, not only were some key excerpts for example shown at MSNBC, but a substantial portion of the speech is also still available on youtube.
Watch the report by Chris Matthews at MSNBC:
Interestingly, there is more: Although the whole speech from September 12, 2012 has now been deleted from the internet, I already downloaded the full clip even before David Corn published his article at Mother Jones. I did this in preparation for our own post about Rafael Cruz, which we published on October 3. Today I looked at this speech again in order to check whether there are more "nuggets" to discover. It should come as no big surprise that this effort was successful!
Rafael Cruz exposes himself as a shameless liar: While many of his "facts" are just "extremist opinions", which are difficult to "fact-check" in the traditional way, he also makes some factual statements about President Obama in this speech which are open for scrutiny. Rafael Cruz claims that Barack Obama never uses the word "Creator" when Obama recites the Declaration of Independence, and that he never uses the words "under God" when he recites the Pledge of Allegiance. These claims by Rafael Cruz are shameless lies, and the truth can easily be discovered. Apparently Rafael Cruz thought that his Tea Party audience is gullible enough to believe this nonsense (and they probably are).
Actually, Rafael Cruz gets it wrong in two different ways. He, the self-described great American patriot is apparently not aware that the Declaration of Independence uses the words "by their Creator", and not "by our Creator", as Rafael Cruz wrongly quotes in his speech. Apparently Rafael Cruz himself, who inexplicably became an American citizen only in 2005, which is no less than 48 years after he left Cuba, is not fully familiar with this important American document.
But most importantly, his main claims about President Obama are outrageous lies. Rafael Cruz just regurgitates with great conviction some long-debunked nonsense which seems to be pretty popular among radical right-wingers, as "RightWingWatch" already exposed in 2012 ("How Many Times Does Obama Have to Say 'Endowed by Their Creator' Before the Right Will Stop Lying?").
The truth is easy to prove. I created the following video clip, which contrasts the claims by Rafael Cruz in his speech on September 12, 2012 with the real quotes by Barack Obama (special acknowledgement again to RightWingWatch).
Watch:
Rafael, the bible does not like liars. Do you, an evangelical pastor, really act according to the bible? Or is it all just a political game for you? You should make up your mind, and fast.
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Further reading at Politicalgates:
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UPDATE:
The conservative non-profit organization "FreedomWorks" conducted a radio-interview with Rafael Cruz in February 2013, in which he explains in more detail his "official" life story: How he fought for Fidel Castro for four years (!), at the age of 14 to 18, how he was imprisoned and tortured, how he then somehow escaped to the USA, how he didn't speak English, still got a place at an university in Texas, then went briefly back to Cuba (?), but apparently was so appalled by Castro's version of communism that he promptly returned to the USA, disappointed about the "hope and change" that Fidel Castro had promised.
He conducted the interview with an ultra-conservative female host, who obviously thinks that government healthcare is the embodiment of evil, and who marvels how great it was how in the past when US citizens, after they got sick, first turned to their "families", then their "churches", then their "communities", and only then to the "government." Rafael Cruz, whose son Ted enjoys the luxurious Goldman Sachs-healthcare plan, immediately agreed with her. Oh, the good old days! Cruz also says in the interview that people turn into "slaves of the government" when they accept Government handouts or use any other services.
Daddy Cruz also has more incredibly original thoughts. He further says in the interview that that Democratic Party today follows "socialist policies", which are "not the policies which made America great." He also claims that America turned to Socialism when Carter was elected, and that Ronald Reagan then magically fixed the economy already in his first year. I guess Reagan waved his magic wand!
Listen to the interview:
When you search for speeches by Rafael and Ted Cruz, you find that they very often spoke at events by "FreedomWorks." These fake conservative grassroot organizations are really the cancer of America. They are the secret armies of the billionaires, and today you don't need "real" armies on the streets any more, what you need is an "online army".
Wikipedia duly notes: "Volunteers - 600,000 online activists"
These are the kind of brainwashed people who leave these crazy right-wing comments on the internet everywhere.
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The "official" life story of Rafael Cruz is full of huge holes. We will continue to investigate.
Media outlets published in the past a number of very informative articles about Ted and Rafael Cruz. One of the most detailed is an article called "Cruz's life defies simplification" by the Houston Chronicle from October 2012. Some interesting details can be found there.
Quote:
He (Ted Cruz) was born in Alberta while his parents were working abroad as pioneering computer programmers in the energy exploration business. He obtained citizenship as a newborn through his American mother. Yet he favors building a border wall, boots on the ground and greater militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border.
He's opposed to the Dream Act to help immigrant children who arrived here illegally. Yet his father, grandparents and aunt emigrated to Texas and benefited from U.S. policy and programs that grant legal permanent residence to virtually any Cuban admitted to the U.S. after January 1959.
(...)
(Ted) Cruz insists he's looking no further ahead than November. If elected, that accomplishment would be a tribute to his father, who as a teenager arrived in Austin to attend UT with only $100 sewn in his underwear and washed dishes at 50 cents an hour to cover expenses.
"To have suggested to that 18-year-old boy washing dishes that his son might serve as a U.S. senator would have been unimaginable," Cruz said. "That's the opportunity America offers. That's freedom."
Both of Cruz's parents got scholarships that covered tuition but paid their own expenses in college. As a married couple, they co-founded two different seismic data processing businesses. They were working in Alberta oil fields when Ted was born in 1970, returning to Houston in 1974 when a slump hit and they sold their first company.
Interesting! So Father Cruz wasn't opposed to the government when he benefited from its policies.
Also, Daddy Cruz in reality got a much softer start in the USA than he wants his Tea Party audiences to believe. He boasts about the apparent hardships he faced after entering the USA at any given opportunity with his "I started off as a dishwasher" tale.
However, that students in the USA get their tuition paid and then have to work to cover living expenses strikes me as pretty normal. I heard a lot of these stories in the past. Our readers, many of whom have studied decades ago, can certainly provide more insights.
There is definitely much more to discover about Rafael Cruz. There are many, many open questions. We will keep digging!
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UPDATE 2:
For a long time, Ted and Rafael Cruz were silent when others published false stories about how Rafael Cruz "escaped Fidel Castro" - which completely distorted the truth.
In 2011, the "Dallas Morning News" didn't let them get away with this apparent "lying by staying silent" (h/t BanditBasheert):
But what the stumping GOP Senate candidate hadn’t clarified, until asked by The Dallas Morning News this week, was that his father departed for the U.S. in 1957, more than a year before Fidel Castro came to power.
“Y’all know my heart,” Ted Cruz told the Austin Republican Women last month. “My dad fled Cuba. He was imprisoned and tortured as a teenager, and came to Austin penniless, seeking freedom. The reason I’m running is simple. He fled oppression once. And you have my word that I’ll fight every day to protect freedom here, so that none of us have to flee oppression a second time.”
Cruz hasn’t incorrectly described when his father fled from Cuba, as has U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. According to the Washington Post, Rubio said on three occasions since 2006 and on his official Senate website that his parents came to the U.S. after Castro’s forces overthrew Batista in January 1959. They actually arrived here in May 1956, the Post said.
Cruz, though, has remained silent as journalists and political activists incorrectly placed his father among the many Cubans who left the island nation after Castro took power, rather than as someone who fought on the same side as Castro to topple a rightist dictator, though he departed for Texas before the revolution succeeded.
“He was a guerilla, throwing Molotov cocktails and blowing up buildings,” Ted Cruz told the Austin American-Statesman for a profile published in January 2006.
Earlier this month, Liberty Institute president Kelly Shackelford introduced Cruz to 3,000 Christian conservatives at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C., as “the next great conservative hope.”
“He’s the combination of the intellectual skill and principle of [Utah GOP Sen.] Mike Lee and the story, the personal story of a Marco Rubio — his dad having escaped Fidel Castro, came into the United States, working as a dishwasher,” Shackelford said.
Last month, a Houston Chronicle political blog described Cruz as “a Cuban American whose family escaped from Castro tyranny.”
In an interview Monday, Cruz professed not to be aware of confusion about when his father, Rafael Cruz, left Cuba.
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