Today's GOP: The Inmates are Still Running the Asylum - UPDATE: Daniel Schulman's book on the Koch Brothers

by Sunnyjane

The Republican Tea Party is in disarray, and oddly enough, that's a good thing.  It's a little late in coming, but hey, at least the moderate Republicans have become frustrated with the Baggers and the Democrats are becoming bolder in calling them out on it.  More citizens who have always proudly aligned themselves with conservatives are stepping out of that dark hole and seeing the light of liberal policies.

We constantly fight that battle here at Politicalgates.  Let's see what others are saying on the issues in succinct and sometimes humorous ways -- ways that make you nod and think, That's right!

Gun Control

As governor, Ronald Reagan was all for gun control when the Black Panthers were making uncomfortable noises about armed revolution for social change in the 1970s.  Then Reagan decided to run for president in 1980 and reversed course and said citizens should be well-armed.  The NRA endorsed him.  He was shot by John Hinkley two months after his inauguration.  A lesson learned?  Unfortunately, NO.

See Ronald Reagan, above.

Energy Independence

One of the biggest Drill, Baby, Drill fallacies in this country is that by sucking oil out of every available piece of land in North America that we will decrease our dependence on foreign oil by standing next to the rigs and pumping it directly into American gas tanks.

Canada is particularly keen to run the XL Pipeline right smack-dab through America's heartland.  You get that, right?  Americans assume all the risk, Canada and the Kochs get all the money   From the Ogallala Aquifer in Nebraska through Native American sacred tribal lands, somewhere that sucker is going to spring a devastating leak; it's too late then.  And Americans benefiting from the pipeline?   Really?  Here's the truth...

Let's sail, boys, before these idiots figure out they've been lied to!

Immigration Reform -- or the Lack Thereof

One Montana county Tea Party group wants absolutely nothing to do with candidate Drew Turiano.  It seems Mr. T has gotten into a lot of trouble with this bunch for slinging around a heap of racial slurs, aimed primarily at Hispanics.  It is his contention that the U.S. should not just adopt a pathway to citizenship, but should also just send undocumented immigrants -- and their American-born children -- back to where they came from, via Operation Wetback.  [Note to Mr. Turiano: It's illegal to do that, you ignorant creep.] 

Of course, he's not the only GOP asshole to use the term wetback.  So have Don Young in Alaska and Chris Mapp in Texas because in both cases, it's perfectly normal.  Does this sound like your teenager saying, But Mom, everybody says it! 

Priorities, priorities, priorities.

Equal Pay for Women

   

     














  

Now, About the IRS Targeting the Republican Groups

Oh, and that Imperial President and His Executive Orders?

The Far-Right and Voting Rights

It's always dangerous when Tea Partiers start using big words.  You  know, like constitution and sovereignty, for example.  Rep. Ted Yahoo Yoho of Florida is no exception.  He loves his pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution, but has obviously never read it.  He cares about the sovereignty of this country, but has no idea that it necessitates a moral imperative to do right by its citizens.  Yoho was recently heard opining that only property owners should be allowed to vote.  Um, I recommend checking out the 15th Amendment, Congressman.  Oh, and he's awfully fond of voter ID laws.

Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi

And we'll take it all the way to 2016, if necessary!

Climate Change?  No Such Thing!

They don't know where babies come from, either.

Raising the Minimum Wage?  No, No, NO!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

End Note

+++

UPDATE (by Patrick):

I received an email-message by Daniel Schulman, a senior editor in the Washington bureau of "Mother Jones", in which he promotes his new book about the Koch brothers which was published yesterday, called "Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America's Most Powerful and Private Dynasty", and it is my great pleasure to bring this email-message to your attention:

Hi everyone,

Excuse the email blast, but I wanted to alert you that my biography of the Koch brothers, Sons of Wichita, hit book stores this week. I poured the past (almost) three years of my life into this project, so needless to say I'm pretty excited to see this book leave my computer's hard drive for the real world. The early reviews have been great. Vanity Fair calls Sons of Wichita "never less than engrossing" and "a stylishly written saga." The American Prospect says "despite Schulman’s often-superb eye for the revealing and/or juicy detail…he never stoops to caricaturing his subjects as the Koch Ness Monsters of popular lore." If you'd like a preview, Vanity Fair published a short excerpt on Monday that chronicles my surreal visit with the elegant, elusive, eldest Koch brother, Frederick. Mother Jones published a longer excerpt Tuesday that covers the brutal legal battles among the four Koch brothers. (You can also catch me on NPR's Fresh Air today chatting about the book with Terry Gross. See here for air times in your neck of the woods.)

It takes a village to launch a book, so I'd certainly appreciate your help in spreading the word. Tell your friends. Tell your neighbors. Talk loudly about it at crowded places where strangers will overhear you. Tweet it. Tumble it. Facebook it. Forward this email to anyone you can think of. Anything helps. And, if you're so inclined, buy a copy of the book. You can purchase it online from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or via iBooks. It should also be available at your local book store (and if it isn't, ask them why not!). If you do buy the book, please make sure to let me know what you think.

Best regards—and thanks,

Dan Schulman

I also want to use this opportunity to promote my video-clip about the Koch Brothers from 2011, which features the secret recording of one of their super-secret meetings:

NEW VIDEO: Rafael Cruz, father of Senator Ted Cruz, caught lying on tape about President Obama, trying to discredit Obama's Christian beliefs - Watch the video evidence! - UPDATES: Some inconvenient facts about Rafael Cruz

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.

+++

Further reading at Politicalgates:

Ted Cruz's father Rafael Cruz in taped speech: Suggests that Barack Obama is a "Muslim", says that Obamacare provides "suicide counseling" and that the "RINO's" should be replaced by "Constitutional Conservatives" - In earlier interview Rafael Cruz says that his son is "destined for greatness", and explains how he politically educated him

+++

The radical religious friends of Senator Ted Cruz: Anointed by Dominionists who want to "wage war to restore America to our Judeo-Christian heritage" - The overlooked religious extremism of the new rising star of the GOP

+++

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.

+++

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!

+++

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.

+++++

Please Note: If you like our post and our ongoing efforts, please don't forget that we also have a tip jar. Many thanks! :-) We haven't made a donation request for a year and a half. So it's about time, isn't it? ;-)

The 47%

by Blueberry T

Justice is served.

In September, the Romney/Ryan campaign was rocked by a Mother Jones report on disparaging comments that Mitt Romney made about 47% of the American people.  Romney’s 47% remark clumsily and wildly inaccurately equated Obama’s core supporters with those not paying federal income taxes and those who have benefited from government assistance.  Romney labeled this group of proclaimed moochers the “47%.”  

After the revelation by MoJo, Romney first doubled down on the remark, but later walked it back and admitted it was a “mistake.”  His “mistake” was being truthful for one of the few times during the campaign (albeit not in public).  Thanks to the secret videographer and others, people finally heard what Romney really believes about a large number of Americans.  The truth was told; the damage was done.  (Note that the tape also had a number of other damnable statements  that did not get as much attention as they deserved, including the comments about slave labor conditions at a Chinese factory that Patrick reported on during the RNC, several weeks before the MoJo article appeared.)  

Romney’s recent comments about President Obama winning votes of blacks, Hispanics and young voters because he gives them “gifts” proves that the 47% comment was not a mistake; it reflects what Mitt Romney really believes.  He, with his very privileged life, massive wealth and advantages that he gained through his status rather than his abilities, is so out-of-touch that he does not know how far from reality his dismissive attitudes toward many Americans are.  Many Republicans, who extolled his virtues mere weeks ago, are roundly criticizing this latest remark.  

Never mind that it is the GOP that has showered the wealthy, Big Oil, banks and other constituencies with massive taxpayer giveaways.  

Now, finally, there is poetic justice.  It turns out that the “47%” to which Mitt Romney disparagingly referred, in the video released by Mother Jones in September, actually represents Mitt Romney voters.  Our reader Linda1961 alerted us that Wikipedia now reports Romney’s percentage of the vote has fallen below the 47.5% threshold, following the consistent downward trend since Election Day.  Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) of the Cook Political Report, who has been keeping a detailed spreadsheet of all the vote counts, shows the total at 47.503%, and the trend is continuing downward, meaning that Romney's vote total will round to 47% of the presidential ballots that were cast.

This outcome restores my faith in divine retribution!  ;-D

And in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I want to express my huge gratitude to AnneOnyMouse670 and to James Carter IV, as well as MoJo, for their actions that made this information publicly available, to Patrick and Kathleen and our readers for our community's progressiveness, and for everyone who VOTED, especially those who overcame serious obstacles to do so. 

UPDATE:  Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report now reports that "the moment that many have been waiting for has arrived," as his spreadsheet total now shows Romney below 47.5%.  

The GOP's Radical Anti-Woman Agenda - Why Women Must Vote On Tuesday

By Kathleen

Posted on Facebook by Democracy for America:

"Thinking of not voting this election? Think again. Make your voice heard against this radical anti-women agenda"

Graphic from Mother Jones Facebook

Democracy for America reposted the above graphic which appeared in an article published today at Mother Jones which simply and brilliantly in graphic style illustrates eleven good reasons why women in particular need to vote on Tuesday. This election is a vital one for women. If you haven't had time to vote please do so as soon as you can.