Posted on 05/16/2014 8:34:57 AM PDT by SoConPubbie
1. Sen. Ted Cruz was born on Dec. 22, 1970 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada to a Cuban father and an American mother. When questions arose about his eligibility to run for president, Cruz released his birth certificate. From the article in The Dallas Morning News:
Dated a month after his birth on Dec. 22, 1970, it shows that Rafael Edward Cruz was born to Rafael Bienvenido Cruz, a “geophysical consultant” born in Matanzas, Cuba, and the former Eleanor Elizabeth Wilson, born in Wilmington, Del.
Her status made the baby a U.S. citizen at birth. For that, U.S. law required at least one parent who was a U.S. citizen who had lived for at least a decade in the United States.
She registered his birth with the U.S. consulate, Frazier said, and the future senator received a U.S. passport in 1986 ahead of a high school trip to England.
2. His father was imprisoned as part of Fidel Castro’s movement to overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in the 1950s. From a 2006 profile of then-Texas solicitor general Cruz by the Austin American-Statesman:
Cruz's father rarely spoke of his sacrifice. Cruz learned of it in bits and pieces from his grandparents, aunts and uncles. Rafael Cruz loathed oppression and was willing to die to end it. "He was a guerrilla, throwing Molotov cocktails and blowing up buildings."
Battista's soldiers beat the elder Cruz in prison, and only his own father's bribe freed him in 1957. While earning a degree in mathematics at UT, Cruz spoke to Austin business groups, lauding Castro's revolution. After the victory in 1959, hearing from relatives what Castro was doing, Cruz returned to those same business groups to apologize, Ted Cruz said.
"My father has been my hero my whole life," he said.
3. His education in conservatism came early on. His teacher from an after-school education program picked him to be part of a traveling show about the Constitution. From The Weekly Standard:
Story chose four or five of his best students, led by Cruz, to join a traveling troupe called the Constitutional Corroborators. He hired a mnemonic specialist to teach them how to memorize the text of the Constitution up through the Bill of Rights. (Who wants to memorize the Eleventh Amendment?) Armed with an easel and felt pens, with Mrs. Moore or another parent at the wheel, the corroborators drove throughout Texas and occasionally beyond to breakfasts, lunches, or dinners held by the Rotary Club or Kiwanis or the VFW or any other civic group with an open slot for speakers. While the audience sawed away at the Chicken a la King, the corroborators wrote out various articles of the Constitution word for word. When the meal was over they’d take questions.
“The people just loved them,” Mrs. Moore says. “They knew so much, people couldn’t believe it! And you had to be a very polished speaker. Ted really worked at it. He’d practice at home in front of the mirror to get everything just right.”
4. He was a champion debater during his undergraduate years at Princeton. But after one particular round, Cruz and his partner faced off against the other team in a different competition. From Slate:
Cruz competed against and lost to former White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee in the American Parliamentary Debate Association's 1991 Team of the Year* contest. (Cruz went on to win in 1992.) Goolsbee's debate partner, David Gray, recalled that after beating Cruz and his partner, David Panton, one team challenged the other to a pickup basketball game. As Gray remembers it, Goolsbee was matched up to guard Cruz, and proceeded to trash-talk Cruz up and down the court.
"Austan can be very, very funny. He kept challenging Ted to shoot the ball from outlandishly long places—'I bet you $20 you can't make a shot from right here,' " Gray said. "Austan would bait Ted to shoot, shoot, shoot, and it was not a good result for him. ... Ted couldn’t help himself from taking the shots." Princeton lost the game.
5. Cruz keeps a reminder in his Senate office of the first time he argued in front of the Supreme Court. From a GQ profile by Jason Zengerle:
But all along, what kept drawing my eye was a giant oil painting above the couch depicting Cruz as he delivered the first of his nine oral arguments before the Supreme Court. "I was 32 years old," he recalled. "It was abundantly clear we didn't have a prayer.... And I've always enjoyed the fact that as I'm sitting at my desk, I'm looking at a giant painting of me getting my rear end whipped 9-0." He gazed at the wall. It is an unusual painting: From the artist's vantage point, we see three other courtroom artists, each also drawing Cruz—so the painting actually features not one but four images of young Cruz before the bench. "It is helpful," he explained to me, "for keeping one grounded."
6. Cruz met a future Senate counterpart during a 2010 meeting of the Federalist Society in Washington. From the GQ article:
He'd been out of government for two years and was looking for a way back in, this time via election. The only real opening in Texas, though, was a U.S. Senate seat—an impossible reach for Cruz, who'd never even held elected office.
But at the meeting, he met someone who had pulled off that exact feat: Utah senator-elect Mike Lee. Like Cruz, Lee had been a creature of the conservative legal movement, having clerked for Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court. Like Cruz, he had left Washington to become a government lawyer back home. And like Cruz, he had never before run for office. But he rode the Tea Party wave of 2010 into the Senate, ousting an incumbent Republican by running to his right. After the Federalist Society meeting, Lee and Cruz took a long walk around the Capitol. "We talked about every conceivable political and constitutional issue," Lee recalls. "I concluded we were kindred spirits."
7. Cruz typically likes to wear a pair of cowboy boots he calls his “argument boots.” But he ditched them for his 21-hour speech on the Senate floor this week. From the Star-Telegram:
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., reminded him during the first hours of Cruz' crusade on the Senate floor against Obamacare to wear comfortable shoes.
Cruz said he remembered that Paul had touted comfortable shoes after the Kentucky senator's filibuster against drone use in the U.S. earlier this year.
"I will embarrassingly admit that I took the coward's way," said Cruz. The Texan wore black tennis shoes instead.
I can certainly understand someone NOT voting for Romney... ANOTHER RINO given to us by the GOP.
I FELT the same way but gave him my vote, if only to vote AGAINST the piece of crap who’s POTUS now. I actually thought Romney would win. I thought the American people had wised up some.
Silly me, stupid libs, who were complaining about obama prior to 2012, went right out and voted for him again! Their only argument was the poor choice on the GOP ticket.
I live in the Detroit area, so my vote doesn’t seriously count in a national election. We go democrat no matter what.
Local elections are WAY more important now. We really need to shape up on those and get some good folks into the system at the ground level. -and HOPE they don’t go RINO when/if they get to DC...
I just don’t know...
if you are happy with your vote then good for you.
Are you as happy with what has and is happening to our country since Jan 2013? and the effects of hat he as done just since Jan 2013 will linger and cause anguish to our nation for years and generations?
There was a way to prevent it.
You wouldn’t vote for Perry or West?
AS I said we should just agree to disagree
The harm that re electing the godless BO is causing more harm to more people than Romney’s changing of his views on abortion and gay marriage.
I think God is just just as concerned the plight of our nation and the harm being done to generations. God doesn’t have a narrow list of issues. He sees the whole picture and the good that can come of getting a conservative party back in power.
Perry would not be my first choice, due to his squishiness on the border issue.
Its just CRUCIAL that SOMEHOW the conservative wing of the GOP which is OVER 50% of us, coalesce behind the SAME conservative in the Primary, or the RINOs will win by default as they did with Romney in 2012.
HOW that can be accomplished is for brighter minds than mine but I would be more than willing to assist.
A POTUS can’t overturn a Supreme Court decision
a decision that has been in place for over 40 years
A POTUS and his party in power MIGHT be able to start a campaign to overturn the SCOTUS decision
although sadly that hasn’t happened.
A POTUS can issue EO’s affecting gay marriage . Romney has never indicated he would take any such action. His view has been that gay people deserve CIVIL unions. He never said he favored church unions for gay people.
Serious question; viewing reality do you think there is any chance of reversing what BO has done?
‘There are several ways it can be turned around legally “
Explain HOW that could be done without taking the WH , keeping the House and at least cutting into the Senate Dem numbers
a rebellion? Really?
Look it would be nice of everyone could stick ONLY to all their positions but that can never happen. You might favor 10 positions, the next guy favors 8 of your 10 but then favors 2 you disagree with etc etc etc
I think we ALL can agree on less federal government control. more state and local and for sure keeping as much gov’t out o our lives as possible
so you favor rebellion as I hope a last resort?
who will You kill in the name of your rebellion?
Romney was pro-abortion, he came out against the party’s pro-life platform, and ran pro-choice ads in Virginia, Wisconsin, and Ohio, and lost them.
He was in our face, and you think we should have made him head of the party, and president for up to 8 years, to reshape the GOP in his image?
bump
IIRC Romney campaigned on the fact that he would not be trying to change the SCOTUS decision
something no other POTUS has done either in over 40 years
But don’t forget that POS BO sated openly he not only believes in abortion for everyone including his daughters he thinks taxpayers should pay and he is for killing born alive babies
so I can’t understand why anyone would NOT vote for someone who had a chance when not voting made sure we got the POS for 4 more years
One can have all the convictions one wants but when ignoring the consequences of not voting allowed a baby killing evil POS to remain in office it is hard to admire those kind of convictions
Mitt Romney said himself that he was campaigning on “health” of the mother, which means pro-abortion, and disagreeing with the GOP’s pro-life platform.
Romney then ran pro-choice ads in three states, costing him those states.
When a lifelong and passionate promoter of abortion makes it part of his campaign, after winning the nomination by swearing that he had reversed his aggressively public pro-abortion position he had held since at least 1963, then he is in your face, and forcing you to make a hard decision, choose him and lose the pro-life movement, or not.
The hard reality NO one can dispute is that POS BO has done so much to destroy gamily life our security and the economic health of our country PLUS advanced evil practices with obamacare
I do not know how you can ignore that reality that is destroying us
by not voting or voting for a candidate who had no chance you if you were one and others like you made it possible foe the horror going on now in all parts of our lives.
I don’t know how you can ignore the reality of making the leader of the GOP, a man who’s lifelong political goal was to make it pro-abortion and anti-conservative, and who would have attained that goal as the president, and leader of the party.
Well Gee if YOU can ignore the destruction reelecting that POS is doing to our country- How can you ignore what is going on now??
but if you can ignore what not voting did it is not surprising you can ask such a meaningless question within the reality of what is going on NOW
You act like BO has done nothing harmful to every single aspect of our lives and our country
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