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NYT’s Flegenheimer Can’t Stand Cruz, But Adores Liberal Female Senators
Newsbusters.org ^ | September 9, 2017 | Clay Waters

Posted on 09/09/2017 4:11:02 PM PDT by Kaslin

The New York Times featured another jab at Senator Ted Cruz, a reliable target of liberal media loathing, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Reporters have been tittering at the thought of the fiscal conservative being obliged to change his tune to secure help for his home state of Texas, battered by Hurricane Harvey.

NYT reporter Matt Flegenheimer took his turn in Saturday's “Trump and Harvey Push Cruz to Adjust His Style.” The text box: “A fiscal conservative shifts to constituent service when disaster strikes his hometown.” The online headline was slightly smarmy: “Ted Cruz 2.0? Senator Adjusts With Trump in Office and Houston Under Water.”

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas was just getting going, summoning his down-home artillery from the Senate floor -- the faith-flecked tales, the weathered statesman’s gaze, the theatrical pauses deployed not so long ago before caucus-inclined Iowans.

“I rise today in support of heroes,” Mr. Cruz said sternly, “in support of unity and in support of love and compassion.”

These are not the three nouns most often associated with Mr. Cruz’s congressional life, which has included, among other stands, a vote against a relief measure for storm victims in New York and New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy.

But the forecast has changed. This week, it was time for Mr. Cruz, once perhaps the Capitol’s least compromising conservative, to push a massive federal aid package for his own state.

As he prepares for a re-election race next year, Mr. Cruz is facing perhaps his most meaningful challenge yet: helping to see that millions of constituents -- in his hometown, Houston, and beyond -- get the help they need in the costly years ahead. He is advocating billions in aid after a Senate career often focused on cutting spending and building a national following as an avatar of unbending dogma.

And it was here where another fellow Republican, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, joked that any homicide committed against Mr. Cruz would go unpunished, so long as the other 99 senators filled the jury pool.

Through less than five years in the body -- before a presidential run that few thought would last so long and after a humbling defeat that has spawned a kinder, gentler “Cruz 2.0,” as his staff frames it -- Mr. Cruz has undergone a handful of evolutions.

....

But Mr. Cruz’s turn as a unifier has been complicated, as ever, by a yearslong pursuit of conservative purity. After Hurricane Sandy lashed New York and New Jersey in 2012, Mr. Cruz joined more than 20 of his Texas colleagues, including Senator John Cornyn, in opposing a more than $50 billion relief package, arguing that the bill was loaded with projects unrelated to the region’s recovery.

Fact checkers have generally sided against Mr. Cruz’s suggestion that a large majority of the Sandy relief bill was directed at non-storm efforts. And lawmakers in the Northeast, most notably Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a fellow Republican, have taken particular delight in accusing Mr. Cruz of hypocrisy.

....

Mr. Cruz seems certain that the storm fallout will not test the bounds of his conservative orthodoxy, recalling in the interview that constituents had made a point of requesting federal assistance unencumbered by Washington pork.....

Flegenheimer let mean-spirited “humorist” Al Franken mock Cruz.

Democrats can be less subtle. Senator Al Franken of Minnesota devoted a full chapter of his recent book to Mr. Cruz, titling the section, “Sophistry.”

“Here’s the thing you have to understand about Ted Cruz,” Mr. Franken writes. “I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz.”

While his hostility to conservative Cruz leaked through, Flegenheimer has shown himself far more accomodating to liberal female Senate Democrats like Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, writing fawning myth-making profiles cultivating them for future glory.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: 2016presidential; alfranken; cyperalerts; doublestandards; fauxtahonawarren; hurricaneharvey; kamalaharris; mattflegenheimer; newyorkslimes; tedcruz
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1 posted on 09/09/2017 4:11:02 PM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Cruz’s father killed Kennedy. No wonder the libs hate him.


2 posted on 09/09/2017 4:31:07 PM PDT by Mr Ramsbotham (Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
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To: Kaslin

Any logical person would have been against the so-called disaster relief bill for Sandy in NY and NJ.

The bill was loaded with pork having no relation to Sandy, such as funds for fisheries in Alaska!


3 posted on 09/09/2017 4:38:53 PM PDT by octex
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To: Kaslin

Did you get the correct article? What does this Ted Cruz article have to do with “Fake News and the death of Christianity?”


4 posted on 09/09/2017 4:49:11 PM PDT by DeweyCA
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To: Kaslin

“Mr. Cruz joined more than 20 of his Texas colleagues, including Senator John Cornyn, in opposing a more than $50 billion relief package, arguing that the bill was loaded with projects unrelated to the region’s recovery.

“Fact checkers have generally sided against Mr. Cruz’s suggestion that a large majority of the Sandy relief bill was directed at non-storm efforts.”

So what exactly did the “fact checkers” find? That a small majority of the Sandy relief bill was all lard (like Gov. Crispy Kreme himself) instead of a large majority of it?

How about absolutely clean relief bills with exactly 0% of the funding going to non-relief related matters?


5 posted on 09/09/2017 4:51:39 PM PDT by SharpRightTurn (Chuck Schumer--giving pond scum everywhere a bad name.)
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To: Kaslin
Not a big fan of Ted Cruz, but the media nut-jobs are happiest when they think Conservatives have been injured, and they can game them politically. If they can trash their political representatives in the process, so much the better.

Cruz has done nothing wrong here. He has represented his constituents in line with his duties of office. I support his actions. As for what happened with Hurricane Sandy, the best time to address that was when it was in the news and all the facts were on the table. I don't know what other things were tossed into that bill to make it unacceptable to Cruz, so I won't criticize him now as the media is want to do.

The idea Texans are Conservatives and they've had major damage and losses, just thrills the media. The idea they may/or have access(ed) government disaster relief, causes them great glee, as they see it as a hypocritical move. I don't.

Texans pay taxes like everyone else. Conservatives believe in paying reasoned taxes. They do not agree with over-taxation.

Go Texans! Go Cruz, when it comes to helping them.

As for the media..., oh wait, there's some of them now.


Popularity trails Trump By Wide Margin...

6 posted on 09/09/2017 5:07:00 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (One man's DACA, is 330 million other men's caca.)
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To: Kaslin
Thanks for posting, Kaslin.

Thomas Jefferson's views on the importance of a free press are well known. Nevertheless, Jefferson was well aware of the dark under belly of a segment of the press which might set itself up, as he called it, "to serve the ministers" of a "despotic government."

Note that in the last of the following quotations on the subject, Jefferson noted, "But the fact being once established, that the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood," he declared, "I leave to others to restore it to its strength by recalling it within the pale of truth."

"[A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper." --Thomas Jefferson to G. K. van Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785. (*) ME 5:181, Papers 8:632

"[I have seen] repeated instances of the publication of what has not been intended for the public eye, and the malignity with which political enemies torture every sentence from me into meanings imagined by their own wickedness only... Not fearing these political bull-dogs, I yet avoid putting myself in the way of being baited by them, and do not wish to volunteer away that portion of tranquillity, which a firm execution of my duties will permit me to enjoy." --Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 1807. ME 11:226

"Conscious that there was not a truth on earth which I feared should be known, I have lent myself willingly as the subject of a great experiment, which was to prove that an administration, conducting itself with integrity and common understanding, cannot be battered down even by the falsehoods of a licentious press, and consequently still less by the press as restrained within the legal and wholesome limits of truth. This experiment was wanting for the world to demonstrate the falsehood of the pretext that freedom of the press is incompatible with orderly government. I have never, therefore, even contradicted the thousands of calumnies so industriously propagated against myself. But the fact being once established, that the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood, I leave to others to restore it to its strength by recalling it within the pale of truth. Within that, it is a noble institution, equally the friend of science and of civil liberty." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Seymour, 1807. ME 11:155


As Jefferson rightly observed, and as today's sorry examples provide ample evidence, "the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood."
7 posted on 09/09/2017 5:40:09 PM PDT by loveliberty2
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To: Kaslin

Does the headline match the story at the link?

Anyway, if not, no biggie, this is a good story as well that folks might have missed otherwise.


8 posted on 09/09/2017 5:59:11 PM PDT by BeadCounter
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To: Mr Ramsbotham

You believe anything you hear, don’t you?


9 posted on 09/09/2017 6:19:28 PM PDT by Kaslin (Politicians are not born; they are excreted -Civilibus nati sunt; sunt excernitur. (Cicero))
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To: DeweyCA

No I didn’t, I don’t know what happened. I asked the admin moderator to put the correct title in. Thanks for letting me know


10 posted on 09/09/2017 6:22:03 PM PDT by Kaslin (Politicians are not born; they are excreted -Civilibus nati sunt; sunt excernitur. (Cicero))
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To: BeadCounter

No it doesn’t, Thanks for letting me know. I don’t know what happened, but I asked the admin moderator to correct the title


11 posted on 09/09/2017 6:24:41 PM PDT by Kaslin (Politicians are not born; they are excreted -Civilibus nati sunt; sunt excernitur. (Cicero))
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To: loveliberty2

Thanks for your reply with another excellent find


12 posted on 09/09/2017 6:26:29 PM PDT by Kaslin (Politicians are not born; they are excreted -Civilibus nati sunt; sunt excernitur. (Cicero))
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To: Kaslin

What’s the big news here? No one except a few paid propagandists like Lyn’ Ted.


13 posted on 09/09/2017 7:07:44 PM PDT by Reno89519 (Drain the Swamp is not party specific. Lyn' Ted is still a liar, Good riddance to him.)
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To: Kaslin
After Hurricane Sandy lashed New York and New Jersey in 2012, Mr. Cruz joined more than 20 of his Texas colleagues, including Senator John Cornyn, in opposing a more than $50 billion relief package, arguing that the bill was loaded with projects unrelated to the region’s recovery.

Hurricane Sandy never hit New York or New Jersey.

14 posted on 09/09/2017 7:47:46 PM PDT by VeniVidiVici (Democrats want to teach anal sex in school. Republicans want to teach gun safety.)
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To: Mr Ramsbotham

I didn’t know you wrote for the NYTs. At least we know your real name now.


15 posted on 09/09/2017 8:51:45 PM PDT by Yorlik803 ( Church/Caboose in 2016)
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To: Kaslin
You believe anything you hear, don’t you?

When I hear it from fellow conservatives, I sure do.

16 posted on 09/10/2017 12:50:35 AM PDT by Mr Ramsbotham (Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
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To: Yorlik803
I didn’t know you wrote for the NYTs. At least we know your real name now.

I got my information from a reliable source.

17 posted on 09/10/2017 12:52:08 AM PDT by Mr Ramsbotham (Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
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To: All

From what I can tell, the Enquirer just said Cruz’s father helped Oswald pass out those “hands off Cuba” pamphlets in New Orleans. One almost wonders, if the Cruzes find this allegation so despicable, they should sue the Enquirer.


18 posted on 09/10/2017 2:59:30 AM PDT by BeadCounter
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To: BeadCounter

Sue? No, during the campaign when the accusations came out and questions started, Cruz quickly dropped out of the campaign. Leaves you to wonder what he knew or discovered?


19 posted on 09/10/2017 3:06:35 AM PDT by Reno89519 (Drain the Swamp is not party specific. Lyn' Ted is still a liar, Good riddance to him.)
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To: Mr Ramsbotham

Deep throat!


20 posted on 09/10/2017 3:56:05 AM PDT by Yorlik803 ( Church/Caboose in 2016)
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