mykeystrokes.com

"Do or Do not. There is no try."

“Flag Remains A Point Of Tension”: Confederate Cavalry Robocalls For Cruz

South Carolina has a solid track record of picking the GOP presidential nominee. But if one conservative group has any say in it, the nation’s first Southern primary won’t be a cakewalk for Donald Trump.

According to the Post and Courier, a last minute robocall released by pro-Ted Cruz forces paints the New York real estate titan as a carpetbagger who does not understand their way of life. Trump currently boasts a sizeable lead in nearly every poll and is expected to trounce his opponents in the Palmetto State primary on Saturday, but candidates like Cruz can still hope to narrow the gap.

Courageous Conservative Political Action Committee released a pre-recorded message that all but accuses Trump of attempting to burn through Dixie like General William Tecumseh Sherman. Alluding to the 2015 fight that brought down the Confederate flag, the caller says, “People like Donald Trump are always butting their noses into other people’s business.”

“People like Trump,” of course meaning people with “New York values” who won’t fight for the brand social conservatism one might find in places like Rock Hill or Bethune. The downing of the Confederate flag remains a point of tension for many who believe it embodies their heritage and who reject the notion that it has racial implications.

“Trump talks about our flag like it’s a social disease,” the voice goes on to say.

Pollsters at fivethirtyeight.com give Trump a 78 percent chance of winning. Cruz comes in at a measly 10 percent and—after winning the Iowa caucus—this may be his last opportunity to prove that his candidacy is viable. Despite his recent rise in national polling, the Texas senator appears to be locked in a race for second with at least five in other candidates in South Carolina, particularly Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

The pro-Cruz PAC wants South Carolinians to know that Trump isn’t on their side and that he agreed with removing the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds.

“Put it in a museum, let it go,” the announcer says, parroting Trump.

Bu the truth is there may not be much that can stop Trump at this point. The pro-Cruz robocall feels like a Hail Mary pass in the fourth quarter, on a fourth down with four seconds left on the clock.

 

By: Goldie Taylor, The Daily Beast, February 19, 2016

February 20, 2016 Posted by | Confederate Flag, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz | , , , , , | 2 Comments

“Nothing Or Nothing At All”: Trump Or Cruz, It Sucks To Be A Republican Senator

If, as seems reasonable, Greg Sargent is correct that the spectacle of Senate hearings on an Obama-nominated Supreme Court Justice will empower hardliners Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, the Republican Establishment has a powerful incentive not to allow them.

At this point, though, we’re almost to the point where the Establishment should just give up on the prospect of having anyone other than Trump or Cruz as their nominee. We’ll soon know more when we get the results from South Carolina’s primary, but right now it looks very likely that Trump will win there, possibly in a walk, and that Cruz will come in second place. Among the also-rans, only Marco Rubio seems to be showing any life. And, after watching him get eviscerated by Chris Christie in New Hampshire, do the Republicans really want to hitch their wagon to the remote hope that Rubio will surge to win the nomination and then prove a match for the Democrats’ candidate?

Part of the problem with this whole plan to reject any Obama Supreme Court selection is that the Republicans are looking so unlikely to get their act together in time to win in the fall.

We can debate where this whole subject falls on the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t scale, but I’m not convinced it helps the Republicans’ cause in November to simply refuse to consider any nominee by declining to give them the courtesy of a hearing and a vote. The logic of it is that the Republican base will be so dejected if partisan control of the Court is lost before the election that they won’t turn out. If, on the other hand, they think control hangs in the balance, they will turn out in droves. They won’t turn out to vote for a nominee they might hate or distrust, but they’ll turn out to keep the Court from flipping to a liberal majority.

That makes a lot of sense, and I’m sure that they would experience different turnout numbers depending on which road they take. But base mobilization is more of a midterm strategy than a general election strategy. The Republicans have only succeeded in winning the popular vote once in the last twenty-eight years (in 2004), and they barely won the Electoral College that year. They need to change the shape of the electorate in their favor, because their base just isn’t big enough.

And, consider, since 2012 they’ve definitely done damage with their prospects with Latino and Asian voters. They’ve further alienated the academic/scientific/technical/professional class with their anti-science lunacy. They’ve lost the youth vote over a variety of issues, including hostility to gay rights. They’re doing everything they can to maximize the black vote. Muslims will vote almost uniformly against them despite sharing some of their ‘family values.’ Women won’t be impressed if Cruz or Rubio are the nominees because they both oppose abortion including in cases of rape or incest. They’ll be unimpressed with Donald Trump because he’s a sexist, womanizing boor. I don’t think any of these groups will be more favorably inclined to the Republicans if they block Obama’s nominee without a hearing.

Realistically, as this point they almost have to go with Trump because his fame and lack of orthodoxy will change the shape of the electorate. It’s not likely to change it favorably, and many life-long Republicans will bolt the party, perhaps never to come back. But it will change it.

Unless John Kasich catches fire there’s no hope of the GOP rebranding in a way that will undo the massive amount of damage they’ve done with the persuadable middle. Jeb would present a softer face to the party, but there’s no way a Bush is winning the general election in 2016.

The way I see it, the best deal the Republicans are going to get is right now. Obama will compromise with them. He might pick a relatively moderate Justice if he has assurances that they’ll be confirmed. People have mentioned Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, for example, who is a pro-choice Republican. He might pick someone older, like George Mitchell. He might pick a colleague of theirs. I think Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is his best option. The Republican senators like her and she’s no radical.

But, if they lose the general election, which the wise among them must know is becoming almost a certainty, they’ll also lose a bunch of Senate seats. They’ll be in a much weaker position to block Clinton or Sanders’s nominee or (if necessary) nominees. And they’ll probably have to deal with a nominee who is further to the left and much younger.

Why not use their considerable power now to get some real concessions rather than roll the dice on Donald Trump or Ted Cruz being our next president?

And, as Greg Sargent points out, who knows who Trump would nominate? He was pro-choice until he decided he needed to pretend otherwise if he wanted to win the Republican nomination. Why trust him?

So, it’s really down to Ted Cruz.

Cruz or nothing.

That’s how they want to go.

Except they universally loathe Ted Cruz with the heat of a thousand supernovas.

It sucks to be a Republican senator.

 

By: Martin Longman, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, February 18, 2016

February 19, 2016 Posted by | Donald Trump, Establishment Republicans, Ted Cruz, U. S. Supreme Court Nominees | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“It Will Be Easy To Replace Antonin Scalia”: In Terms Of Quality In A Supreme Court Justice, He Will Be Easy To Replace

Antonin Scalia’s unexpected death came as a shock to me—and not just because I had plans until recently to go hiking this weekend in Big Bend, Texas, where the justice died. Scalia has been a fixture on the Supreme Court for my entire legal career, and he didn’t seem to be going anywhere. During Barack Obama’s presidency, he hunkered down: no way would a Democrat appoint his successor. The right adored him as much as the left reviled him. He was the Court’s most colorful personality since William “Wild Bill” Douglas retired in 1975. Scalia’s family will miss him, and they are surely hurting right now. They have my sympathies. But as the tributes roll in and Scalia’s impact on the Court comes into focus, I predict a consensus will emerge that he has damaged the institution he served for so many years.

It is ironic that Scalia died during this particular presidential campaign, because he strongly resembled two leading Republican hopefuls: Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Like Trump, Scalia was larger than life. He took his elbows with him wherever he went. The more outrageous his rhetoric, the more his fans lapped it up. Scalia trashed his colleagues’ writing, calling it “preposterous” and compared it to “the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie”; their reasoning was “patently incorrect” and “transparently false.” With his low punches and salty talk, Scalia coarsened the Court—just as Trump has coarsened the presidency. As the much more restrained John Paul Stevens said to one of Scalia’s biographers, “I think everybody respects Nino’s ability and his style and all the rest. But everybody on the Court from time to time has thought he was unwise to take such an extreme position, both in tone and in the position.”

Like Ted Cruz, Scalia possessed a rare intellect. (Cruz, a former Supreme Court law clerk and appellate lawyer, was a big fan.) Scalia was for a time the Court’s most persuasive voice on technical matters like jurisdiction and procedure. He was an unquestionably talented writer. No justice had a quicker wit. Yet, also like Cruz, Scalia proved ineffective within the constraints of an organization, where cooperation and pragmatism tend to produce results. His strident behavior alienated the people around him. “Screams!” wrote Justice Harry Blackmun on a draft Scalia dissent in 1988. “Without the screaming, it could have been said in about 10 pages.” When a very junior Scalia commandeered an oral argument in 1987, Justice Lewis Powell whispered to a colleague on the bench, “Do you think he knows that the rest of us are here?” Scalia seemed to make a special point of picking on Anthony Kennedy, the Court’s swing voter for the past ten years, and an essential member of any 5-4 coalition. His inability to hold his fire or to build consensus meant that he was assigned few important majority decisions in the later years of his career.

I will remember Scalia mainly for the ugliness that permeated his opinions. He once wrote with astonishing callousness that it is not unconstitutional to execute an innocent person if that person has received a fair trial. He described affirmative action as “racial discrimination,” and mocked the notion that it could help students achieve “cross-racial understanding.” (No one squeezed more sarcasm out of a quotation mark.) A devout Roman Catholic, Scalia harbored a particular scorn for “the homosexual agenda,” writing in a paper-thin third-person: “Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive.”

Scalia had been slipping lately. He made a spectacle of himself before journalists, flipping his chin at them and giving needlessly provocative speeches. He openly flouted the Court’s recusal traditions, going on a hunting trip with Dick Cheney and then refusing to recuse himself from a suit against the vice president. He engaged in an unseemly public spat with Judge Richard Posner, going so far as to call Posner a liar after Posner panned Scalia’s latest book. The invective in his opinions and his behavior at oral argument had become truly outrageous, and caused many a citizen to associate the Supreme Court with cheap partisan point-scoring. It has been a long fall for what had been one of the most trusted institutions in government.

Scalia was a character, and he will be hard to forget. But in terms of quality in a Supreme Court justice, he will be easy to replace.

 

By: Michael McDonnell, Contributor, Ten Miles Square, The Washington Monthly, February 14, 2016

February 15, 2016 Posted by | Antonin Scalia, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, U. S. Supreme Court | , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

“Does Ted Cruz Think He’s The Messiah?”: Cruz’s Role Is To “Take Dominion” Of The Governmental “Mountain”

When Ted Cruz announced his candidacy for president, many assumed he would quietly distance himself from his father, Rafael Cruz, since the elder Cruz has long been extreme in his religious views, and outspoken in proclaiming them.

But the opposite has been the case. Rafael Cruz has been the senator’s primary surrogate on the campaign trail, particularly with the evangelical voters who are now Ted Cruz’s base. The two have frequently spoken together, prayed together, campaigned together—even shot highly awkward “slice of life” videos together.

The reason Ted Cruz might be reluctant to embrace his father so publicly is that Rafael Cruz subscribes to what is known as dominionism, which holds that Christianity should exercise “dominion” over all of society, not just the traditional boundaries of religion.

Historically, dominionism began as an offshoot of Christian Reconstructionism, the sect founded in the 1960s by defender-of-slavery R.J. Rushdoony that seeks to replace secular law with Biblical law, stonings and all. More moderate versions of Reconstructionism began to take hold in the New Christian Right, which began in the 1970s as an effort to re-engage evangelicals in politics and fight back against the sexual revolution and the civil rights movement. Dominionism was one such version.

The etymological and Scriptural roots of dominionism are God’s command that Adam and Eve should “have dominion over all the earth” and Isaiah 2:2, which says, “Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains.” Those “mountains” are interpreted not literally but figuratively (evangelicals are actually only selectively literalistic) as referring to the “seven mountains” of society, specifically family, religion, arts and entertainment, media, government, education, and business.

And since an overwhelming majority of evangelicals—more than 75 percent, according to recent surveys—believe that the “latter days” are already here, the time for dominion is now. Hence the recent flood of Christian movies like Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, Christian businesses like Hobby Lobby, and Christian politicians like Pat Robertson.

Rafael Cruz’s new book, A Time for Action: Empowering the Faithful to Reclaim America, makes this theology quite clear. In it, he writes, “The Bible tells us that we are the salt of the earth and light of the world… Doesn’t that suggest that our influence should touch every area of society—our families, the media, sports, arts and entertainment, education, business, and government?”

Notice that not only did Cruz state the dominionist view in general, but he listed the specific “seven mountains” in which dominionists believe.

(Notably, Cruz has not appeared to have signed on to a more radical version of dominionism called the New Apostolic Reformation, which believes literally that the Earth is controlled by a hierarchy of demons under Satan’s authority, and that Christians must engage in “spiritual warfare” against them. Though the NAR sponsored Rick Perry’s 2011 prayer revival The Response and now have outsize influence in Christian Zionism, many conservative Christians believe it to be a kind of cult.)

Rafael Cruz’s views of his son’s role in all of this are literally messianic. When Ted was 4 years old, Rafael says that he told him “You know, Ted, you have been gifted above any man that I know and God has destined you for greatness.”

Of course, lots of parents have high expectations for their children, though perhaps not that high. Rafael Cruz, however, has a very specific, messianic role in mind. Consider the following sermons given on Aug. 26, 2012, at the Irving, Texas, megachurch of Christian Zionist Larry Hugh—the entire service and sermons are available online.

First, surrounded by Jewish symbols including a menorah, a Jewish star on the lectern, and a shofar in his hand, Pastor Huch noted that 2012 would be the year of “divine government—that God will begin to rule and reign. Not Wall Street, not Washington, but God and God’s people will begin to rule and reign.” (According to Huch, this was because of the numerological significance of the number 12, not the Mayan calendar.)

Then he said, “I know that’s why God got Rafael’s son elected—Ted Cruz, the next senator. But here’s the exciting thing… in a few weeks begins that year 2012, and this will begin what we call the End Times transfer of wealth… When gentiles begin to receive this blessing, they will never go back financially through the valley again. They will grow and grow and grow… We will usher in the coming of the messiah.”

Next, Rafael Cruz took the stage. He noted that in the Bible, “the king and the priest complemented each other.” He then complained (as he has many times) that most churches are focused only on the “priestly anointing” but that most should take on the role of kings going to battle: “The battlefield is the marketplace… go to the marketplace and take dominion… that dominion is not just in the church, it is over every area: society, education, government, economics.”

Citing the Book of Proverbs, Cruz preached that “the wealth of the wicked is stored for the righteous. And it is through the kings, anointed to take dominion, that that transfer of wealth is going to occur.”

(Incidentally, Methodist scholar Morgan Guyton has provided a brilliant theological takedown of the sermon from a Christian point of view, including close readings of the Biblical Hebrew and Greek.)

Dominionism is both mundane and profound. On the mundane level, it’s not so different from the prosperity gospel, which holds that (contra what Jesus had to say) God wants you to be rich. “God’s going to open up that multimillion contract,” Cruz preached in Irvine. “God’s going to open up that promotion at work.”

But on the profound level, Ted Cruz’s role is to “take dominion” of the governmental ‘mountain,’ thus effectuating a Bernie Sanders-like “wealth transfer,” except not from the 1 percent to the 99 percent, but from the wicked to the righteous. Even the cover of Rafael Cruz’s book makes this clear, with its picture of a church looming over a much-smaller American flag.

Unsurprisingly, all this is a mission from God. Rafael Cruz has said that at a prayer session in 2013 or 2014, “It was as if there was a presence of the Holy Spirit in the room and we all were at awe… And Ted, all that came out of his mouth, he said, ‘Here am I Lord, use me. Here am I Lord, I surrender to whatever Your will for my life is.’ And it was at that time that he felt a peace about running for president of the United States.”

Rafael Cruz’s worldview is deeply informed by (and sometimes copied word-for-word from) the pseudo-history of David Barton, who now directs Ted Cruz’s SuperPAC, which has raised over $30 million from just four extremely wealthy individuals, and who was previously the chair of the Republican Party of Texas.

Before spending billions to elect Ted Cruz, Barton wrote a series of books on the founders of the United States, all roundly condemned by actual historians. For example, his book on Thomas Jefferson, a noted deist who was suspected of atheism in his lifetime, suggests that Jefferson was in fact a pious, evangelical-style Christian. That book was voted “the least credible history book in print” by the History News Network website, and was pulled by its publisher, but is now available from World Net Daily, the far-right conspiracy website.

And in 1995, when challenged by historian Robert Alley, Barton admitted that there were no primary sources for 11 quotes he attributed to Madison, Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. Even Barton’s Biblical quotations are erroneous.

Yet despite all of this, Barton’s view is now commonplace on the far right: The United States was founded as an explicitly Christian nation, by Christians, with Christian principles dictating public policy.

Indeed, Barton’s ministry, WallBuilders, has now formed a network of pastors called the “Black Robe Regiment,” based on a British slur for pastors who supported the American Revolution—and who, it is alleged, “presented what the Bible said about taxes, education, laws, public policy, good government, and the military.”

It’s easy to see how Barton’s bogus, revisionist history connects with Rafael Cruz’s dominionism. First, Barton is himself a dominionist: he said in 2011 that “If you can have those seven areas, you can shape and control whatever takes place in nations, continents and even the world.”

Second, now dominionism is not about creating a new republic but restoring the America that once was. As Cruz writes in his new book, “although many people think otherwise, the concept of separation of church and state is found nowhere in either the Declaration of Independence of the Constitution or the United States of America.” Dominion is thus restorationism.

Third, Cruz has often echoed Barton’s own ideas, including that our system of taxation is contrary to the Bible and that public education is a communist plot invented by John Dewey (who in reality was a fierce anti-communist, but never mind). (The modern homeschooling movement was pioneered by Rushdoony.)

Finally, as weird as dominionism may sound to non-Christians, it is now well within the mainstream of the Christian Right. Prior to the Cruz family, its political standard-bearers were Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry.

Now, everything I’ve said so far is about Rafael Cruz, not Ted Cruz. We don’t really know how much of this Ted believes. But it is interesting that even anodyne statements by Ted Cruz can be read in multiple ways, the classic indicator of dogwhistling. For example, Sen. Cruz wrote an epilogue to Rafael Cruz’s book, in which he said, “If our nation’s leaders are elected by unbelievers, is it any wonder that they do not reflect our values? … If the body of Christ arises, if Christians simply show up and vote biblical values, we can restore our nation.”

Read one way, this is just a Christian version of “make America great again.” Read another way, “restoring our nation” has a very specific dominionist meaning of one believes that America was once a Christian quasi-theocracy. And not many candidates describe their campaign as trying to get the body of Christ to arise.

Whatever Ted Cruz’s religious views, however, those of his father are relevant in their own right. He stumps for his son all the time, Barton has his hands on some of the largest purse strings in Republican politics, and many of Ted Cruz’s supporters are animated by a theological vision of America that will restore “kings” to power at the End of Days, of whom Cruz is apparently one.

The word “dominionism” may not roll of the tongue of political pundits, but given its shocking ambitions, maybe that’s part of the point.

 

By: Jay Michaelson, The Daily Beast, February 14, 2016

February 15, 2016 Posted by | Christian Right, Dominionism, Rafael Cruz, Ted Cruz | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“Latino Voters Not Loving Cruz, Rubio”: These Two Have Taken To Casting Other Latino Immigrants As The Outsiders

It’s striking that in a presidential season with two viable Latino contenders, discussion of Hispanic voters has been negligible.

This will change as the primaries move to states with larger Latino populations, Nevada being first up. In those states, Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio will come under questioning for ethnic loyalty.

This scrutiny will do them no favors. While some may imagine that Cruz or Rubio would get a boost in the general election from being the first Hispanic presidential nominee, either one would only help to hand the White House to the Democrats. The reason is simple: They continue to spurn other Hispanics.

Here we have two children of immigrants trying to get elected by demonizing immigrants. Indeed, Rubio and Cruz embody a reality that they and their party deny: Latinos become Americanized very quickly.

Both men are very close to their immigrant roots, one generation away. Yet both men are highly assimilated. Rubio’s love of rap music and respect for Pitbull, N.W.A., Tupac and Nicki Minaj, is often cited. Cruz, raised in Texas and the son of an evangelical preacher, has a penchant for Western attire and after 9/11 switched his preference from classic rock to country music.

This is not exceptional for Latino families, whether they are legally in the United States or not. Assimilation happens; it’s an unstoppable force of our society.

Neither man speaks with an accent; only Rubio is bilingual. Latino immigrant families shift from Spanish, becoming monolingual in English by the third generation. They follow the same pattern, the same fluid rate of language acquisition, as previous immigrant groups, be they European or Asian. In fact, some studies suggest that language shifts are now occurring faster for Latinos, due to technology.

But to appeal to a GOP base that is positioned as anti-immigrant, these two have taken to casting other Latino immigrants as the outsiders, as resistant to becoming Americanized, as unworthy of opportunities to right their immigration status, whether that be by legislation or executive order.

On the campaign trail this year, only one message is permissible to Republican candidates: Latinos are to be feared and deported. Build the wall! Secure the borders! End birthright citizenship!

Never mind that migration from Mexico has dramatically slowed and that illegal migration peaked nearly a decade ago.

Some ascribe Rubio’s and Cruz’ lack of sympathy to being of Cuban descent. Cubans enjoy a huge advantage over other immigrants. If they can reach U.S. soil, they have an easy path to permanent legal status within a year. It’s a leftover policy from the Cold War, when many were fleeing the persecution of communist repression, although that wasn’t the case with either of the senators’ families.

Increasingly, that connection to yesteryear is fraying. Cuban-Americans are moving away from their once steadfast ties to the GOP.

Interestingly, Rubio probably got a taste of the non-Cuban immigrant experiences. He spent a portion of his teen-age years in Las Vegas, where his father found work as a bartender. The young Rubio was often assumed to be Mexican-American and counted many Mexican-American schoolmates as his closest friends. It’s reasonable to assume that he knew kids who had parents or other family members who were in this country without legal status.

Perhaps that experience is what led Rubio to join the Gang of Eight, a group of senators who authored the last sane proposal for immigration reform, in 2013.

Now he tries to scrub that fact from his record.

A record 27.3 million Latinos will be eligible to vote this election cycle. Nearly half, 44 percent, will be millennials, according to Pew Research Center. Data crunchers believe that the eventual winner of the 2016 presidential election will need to draw at least 40 percent of Hispanic votes.

Immigration obviously isn’t the only issue of interest to Latinos; it isn’t even the most important. Jobs, the economy, education rank very high too.

However, it is a kind of gut-level test about attitudes. Rubio, especially, with his shifting to attract right-wing votes, has jilted Latino voters who would like to like him.

Given their current posturing on immigration, neither Rubio nor Cruz has a chance.

The backlash is coming. A group of high-profile Latino celebrities, including Benjamin Bratt, America Ferrera, George Lopez and Zoe Saldana, organized to call on the GOP presidential candidates to end their anti-immigrant fear-mongering.

Guitarist Carlos Santana, in a statement, underlined the plea this way: “It’s never too late to graduate from the university of fear!” Sadly, it may be if you are seeking the Republican nomination.

 

By: Mary Sanchez, Opinion-Page Columnist for The Kansas City Star; The National Memo, February 12, 2016

February 14, 2016 Posted by | Immigrants, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz | , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »