President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan met with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas in Houston and then flew off to visit leaders in Latin America, seeking to promote her island’s cause as it gets positive signals from President-elect Donald J. Trump.
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Taiwan's President Meets With Ted Cruz in the U.S., and China Objects - 0 views
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Ms. Tsai was looking to expand her ties to the Republican Party as it takes control of the White House and keeps its grip on Congress.
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“We discussed our mutual opportunity to upgrade the stature of our bilateral relations in a wide-ranging discussion that addressed arms sales, diplomatic exchanges and economic relations.”
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“The People’s Republic of China needs to understand that in America we make decisions about meeting with visitors for ourselves,” Mr. Cruz said.
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The United States does not maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan as a result of negotiations with Beijing that led to Washington’s recognition of the People’s Republic of China in 1979.
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China has warned Mr. Trump against making changes to the One China policy after he takes office on Jan. 20. The warning came in response to a phone call between Ms. Tsai and Mr. Trump after his November election victory, the highest-level exchange between American and Taiwanese leaders since the end of diplomatic relations
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“Cruz is influential above and beyond many senators, given his performance in the last election campaign. It makes sense to add Cruz, whatever his relationship is going to be with the Trump administration.”
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Beijing’s influence in Latin America and the Caribbean is growing, and it is expected to achieve recognition from more countries, as China is the wealthier benefactor.
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While American leaders have vowed to defend Taiwan from attack, the United States is not legally bound to do so, despite what Mr. Cruz said. Advertisement Continue reading the main story
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Beijing opposed any contact between Taiwan’s leader and “anyone from the U.S. government,” saying it threatens to hurt ties between Beijing and Washington.
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“The U.S. is Taiwan’s most important ally and friend, and it occupies a special place in the hearts of the Chinese people,”
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Ms. Tsai's stop in Houston preceded visits to El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, four of the 20 countries, along with the Vatican, that maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan rather than China. Last month, São Tomé and Príncipe, an island nation off the west coast of Africa, severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
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Donald Trump and the Death of the Republican Party - The Atlantic - 0 views
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Where were you the night Donald Trump killed the Republican Party as we knew it? Trump was right where he belonged: in the gilt-draped skyscraper with his name on it, Trump Tower in Manhattan, basking in the glory of his final, definitive victory.
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To his left, stopped for the night, was the golden escalator he’d ridden down when he announced his campaign last June with a rambling, unscripted address that invoked the “rapists” he said were pouring over the Mexican border, beginning what would be an uninterrupted series of shocks to the political system.
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“We want to bring unity to the Republican Party,” Trump said. “We have to bring unity—it’s so much easier.”
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David Brooks had proclaimed “a Joe McCarthy moment,” adding, “People will be judged by where they stood at this time.” They had stood athwart Trump’s nomination, yelling, “Stop!”—but the Republican voters had ignored them, and now they feared their party was lost.
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He would “go after” Hillary Clinton. He would attack trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement. He would build up the military and take care of veterans and “bring back jobs” for everyone, including the Hispanics and African Americans. “Our theme is very simple: It’s Make America Great Again,” he said. “We will start winning again, and you will be so proud of this country.”
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After Trump exited, the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” came on the speakers—a fitting message from the newly minted Republican nominee to his party’s old elites.
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At campaign stops, Cruz was taunted by Trump supporters: “Indiana doesn’t want you!” one shouted. Trump, Cruz told the man plaintively, “is playing you for a chump.”
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“Ted Cruz helped create an environment where populist demagoguery would flourish on the right. Of course, he, no doubt, assumed he would be the beneficiary of this,” the conservative commentator Matt Lewis wrote. In the end, he added, “the revolution had turned on Ted Cruz, too.” And Trump, sensing the party’s weakness, steered into the breach.
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There were no Kasich supporters moved to vote strategically, no former loyalists of Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio. Cruz, it was clear, had not managed to broaden his appeal. It was the establishment’s revenge on the man some regarded as “Lucifer in the flesh.
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?A couple of weeks ago, he managed not to say anything bizarre for several days in a row, and even read from a sheet of notes at a few of his rallies. His ragtag, disorganized campaign, of which he has always been the undisputed chief strategist, finally hired a real-deal consultant. He gave a well-mannered victory speech that referred to “Senator Cruz” instead of his habitual “Lyin’ Ted.”
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Trump’s approval rating among Republicans, he noted, is now positive by a 20-point margin, a sharp reversal from a couple of months ago, and a recent general-election poll had him narrowly beating Clinton.
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Some of his supporters see him as a new kind of Republican reformer, one whose lack of loyalty to the party frees him to adopt more popular positions that can attract nontraditional GOP voters.
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Jill McMillan, a 57-year-old environmental-health worker from Elkhart, told me Trump was the only candidate who made her feel safe, protected from the dangers of the world.
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shared by Javier E on 12 Jan 16
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The Brutalism of Ted Cruz - The New York Times - 0 views
www.nytimes.com/...the-brutalism-of-ted-cruz.html
conservativism nationalism candidate 2016 presidency election politics evangelical culture
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in his career and public presentation Cruz is a stranger to most of what would generally be considered the Christian virtues: humility, mercy, compassion and grace.
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Cruz’s behavior in the Haley case is almost the dictionary definition of pharisaism: an overzealous application of the letter of the law in a way that violates the spirit of the law, as well as fairness and mercy.
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Cruz’s speeches are marked by what you might call pagan brutalism. There is not a hint of compassion, gentleness and mercy. Instead, his speeches are marked by a long list of enemies, and vows to crush, shred, destroy, bomb them
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Cruz lays down an atmosphere of apocalyptic fear. America is heading off “the cliff to oblivion.” After one Democratic debate he said, “We’re seeing our freedoms taken away every day, and last night was an audition for who would wear the jackboot most vigorously.”
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The fact is this apocalyptic diagnosis is ridiculous. The Obama administration has done things people like me strongly disagree with. But America is in better economic shape than any other major nation on earth. Crime is down. Abortion rates are down. Fourteen million new jobs have been created in five years.
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Obama has championed a liberal agenda, but he hasn’t made the country unrecognizable. In 2008, federal spending accounted for about 20.3 percent of gross domestic product. In 2015, it accounted for about 20.9 percent.
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But Cruz manufactures an atmosphere of menace in which there is no room for compassion, for moderation, for anything but dismantling and counterattack. And that is what he offers
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the lack of any positive emphasis, any hint of reform conservatism, any aid for the working class, or even any humane gesture toward cooperation is striking.
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Cruz’s programmatic agenda, to the extent that it exists in his speeches, is to destroy things: destroy the I.R.S., crush the “jackals” of the E.P.A., end funding for Planned Parenthood, reverse Obama’s executive orders, make the desert glow in Syria, destroy the Iran nuclear accord.
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Ted Cruz didn’t come up with this hard, combative and gladiatorial campaign approach in isolation. He’s always demonstrated a tendency to bend his position — whether immigration or trade — to what suits him politically
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This approach works because in the wake of the Obergefell v. Hodges court decision on same-sex marriage, many evangelicals feel they are being turned into pariahs in their own nation
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Evangelicals and other conservatives have had their best influence on American politics when they have proceeded in a spirit of personalism — when they have answered hostility with service and emphasized the infinite dignity of each person. They have won elections as happy and hopeful warriors. Ted Cruz’s brutal, fear-driven, apocalypse-based approach is the antithesis of that.
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shared by nolan_delaney on 18 Jan 16
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A guide to what Ted Cruz wants to abolish, bar or change - The Washington Post - 0 views
www.washingtonpost.com/...wants-to-abolish-bar-or-change
ted cruz change bar politics election republican
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Ted Cruz: Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views
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Ted Cruz swatted away the idea that Donald Trump's conversion to Republicanism was genuine, saying that Trump's late-life change to conservatism was in no way similar to that of another former Democrat, Ronald Reagan.
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Cruz, who has shed all caution about attacking Trump after months of playing nice, also continued to assail Trump's giving history to Democrats
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"I disagree with Donald," Cruz said. "We need a leader who is prepared to do what is ever needed to keep this country safe, and that typically doesn't include spending your time on Twitter."
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Ted Cruz Falsely Suggests CDC Guidelines Are Why He Won't Wear A Mask On TV | HuffPost - 0 views
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Were you worried that Sen. Ted Cruz might run out of new ways to act like a jerk?Never fear. He always comes through in the clutch.
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“Uh, when I’m talking to the TV camera I’m not going to wear a mask,” Cruz said, adding that all his Senate colleagues have been immunized.
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Cruz then snidely suggested that going maskless was “the whole point of a vaccine,” and implied he was following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance by not practicing social distancing or wearing a mask in public.
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There are quite a few problems with Cruz’s comments. For starters, CDC guidelines recommend that people who’ve been vaccinated should still wear masks and practice social distancing when in public.
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“For now, fully vaccinated people should continue to [...] take precautions in public like wearing a well-fitted mask and physical distancing,” reads a March 8 post on the CDC website.
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Ted Cruz, Attacking Donald Trump, Uses Transgender Bathroom Access as Cudgel - The New ... - 0 views
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As Senator Ted Cruz of Texas seeks every possible edge to stop Donald J. Trump, he has seized on a once-obscure issue with a proven power to inflame conservatives: letting transgender women use women’s bathrooms.
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a state with many social conservatives that is all but a last stand for him in his fight to deprive Mr. Trump of the Republican presidential nomination.
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Mr. Cruz has alternated between mockery and outrage nearly every day in highlighting Mr. Trump’s stance
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Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both agree that grown men should be allowed to use the little girls’ restroom
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The topic could surface in July at the Republican convention, where a fight is already brewing in the platform committee to overturn the party’s historical objection to same-sex marriage.
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Social conservatives in Indiana have been on high alert since last year, when Gov. Mike Pence and fellow Republican lawmakers amended a so-called religious freedom law
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He said Mr. Cruz’s attack on Mr. Trump was meant to show that Mr. Trump is a liberal who supports the right of transgender people to “choose the bathroom that aligns with their identity that day.”
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But it was North Carolina that thrust the issue into the nation’s consciousness last month, after state lawmakers passed a law prohibiting transgender people from using a public restroom that does not correspond to the gender on their birth certificate.
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She added that 85 to 90 percent of sexual assault victims know their attackers. “Pay attention, read the news, get an understanding,” she said. “This whole argument about going to the bathroom is just ridiculous.”
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Ted Cruz Keeps Up Pressure on Donald Trump; Bernie Sanders Takes 2 on 'Super Saturday' ... - 0 views
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Senator Ted Cruz scored decisive wins in the Kansas and Maine caucuses on Saturday, demonstrating his enduring appeal among conservatives as he tried to reel in Donald J. Trump’s significant lead in the Republican presidential race.
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In Democratic contests, Hillary Clinton scored a commanding victory in Louisiana, the state with the most delegates in play on Saturday, while Senator Bernie Sanders won the Nebraska and Kansas caucuses, according to The Associated Press. The results did not alter the contours of a race in which Mrs. Clinton maintains a significant delegate lead.
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The biggest stakes were on the Republican side, and the voters sensed it; turnout in Kansas, for example, was more than double that of 2012. Mr. Cruz won 48 percent of the vote there, while Mr. Trump received 23 percent, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida won 17 percent and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio won 11 percent. The results were tighter in Maine, but Mr. Cruz still easily defeated Mr. Trump there by 13 percentage points. With Mr. Trump’s victories coming by smaller margins, Mr. Cruz had the biggest delegate haul of the day, appearing to net at least 15 more than the front-runner.
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“I think what it represents is Republicans coalescing, saying it would be a disaster for Donald Trump to be our nominee and we’re going to stand behind the strongest conservative in the race,” Mr. Cruz told reporters in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, one of four states with Republican contests on Tuesday.
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Mr. Trump’s losses underlined his continued vulnerability in states that hold time-intensive caucuses: He has lost five of seven such contests. He has performed far better in states holding primaries, which require less organization, and some of which also allow Democrats and independents to vote in Republican races.
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The results suggested that a substantial number of Republicans were still uneasy about Mr. Trump: He finished above 40 percent in just one state. It was an indication that the growing campaign to deny Mr. Trump the nomination may not be a pointless exercise. The Stop Trump campaign was joined last week by Mitt Romney, who delivered a blistering attack on the Republican front-runner, portraying him as a threat to the party and the nation. And Mr. Trump reinforced questions about his candidacy at a debate on Thursday by making a barely veiled reference to his penis.
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Whether he has incurred significant damage will be better known on Tuesday, if Mr. Kasich and Mr. Cruz can compete in Michigan and Mr. Cruz can threaten him in Mississippi.
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Mr. Trump’s comments about building a wall along the border with Mexico and about illegal immigrants causing crime have drawn demonstrations almost everywhere he goes, and that was true in Wichita, too. Trump supporters in the caucus line engaged in shouting with several dozen protesters, many of them Hispanics, who make up 20 percent of the city’s population. Trucks with Mexican flags hanging out the windows and Latin music blaring from the speakers cruised slowly past the line.
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Ted Cruz did not disclose major bank loans during his Senate run - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views
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Ted Cruz failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans from the nation's largest banks when he ran for the Senate in 2012, a potential violation of federal election rules.
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"It's a matter of semantics in terms of listing that that was a loan and we're asking the FEC what we need to do to update it, if anything."
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When asked by CNN's Dana Bash how he squared his image with the large loan from Goldman Sachs, Cruz played up the hard decision to pour their income into the Senate run.
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"Heidi and I when we ran for Senate, we made decision to put our liquid net worth into the campaign."
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Federal election records show Cruz extended loans of more than $1 million to his campaign during the 2012 cycle.
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Campaign aides on Wednesday were publicly treating the fracas lightly, sharing other examples of #CruzCrimes
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At Republican Debate, Taunts and Quips as Rivals Battle - The New York Times - 0 views
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The debate turned from a reality show into a comedy as Mr. Trump mused that if he chose Mr. Cruz as his running mate, Democrats would sue to challenge Mr. Cruz’s eligibility — as they would, he said, if Mr. Cruz won the presidential primary.
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Mr. Cruz gave his most aggressive performance so far as he sought to protect the support he has built among social conservatives and evangelical Christians
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not only over issues like imposing tariffs on Chinese goods and fighting the Islamic State, but also over matters of character and integrity that drew some of the hardest punches of the race so far.
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In many ways, it was the darkest debate of the campaign, as the Republicans tried to paint the grimmest possible portrait of an America in decline economically
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Mr. Rubio and Mr. Christie, along with Jeb Bush and John Kasich, are vying to emerge as the leading candidate of mainstream Republicans, yet they struggled to be heard on Thursday night.
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After months as Mr. Trump’s closest ally in the race, Mr. Cruz pointedly noted that Mr. Trump had dismissed questions in the fall about Mr. Cruz’s constitutional eligibility given his birth to an American mother living in Calgary, Alberta.
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— Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas sharply attacked each other on Thursday night over the Canadian-born Mr. Cruz’s eligibility to be president and Mr. Trump’s “New York values,” shedding any semblance of cordiality as they dominated a Republican debate
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“I hate to interrupt this episode of ‘Court TV,’ ” he said, drawing laughs and applause. He then sought to refocus the conversation on President Obama’s shortcomings and what he said was a need to revive the country, safe terrain for Republican primary voters.
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Mr. Cruz seemed more comfortably in command with his needling of Mr. Trump, who was booed frequently. But then he was asked to elaborate on his suggestion earlier in the week that Mr. Trump embodied “New York values.”
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“I think most people know exactly what New York values are: socially liberal, pro-gay marriage, pro-abortion, focused on money and the media,” he said.
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recalled the way that New Yorkers suffered, grieved and recovered from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — drawing applause even from Mr. Cruz.
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“And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everyone in the world watched and loved New York and New Yorkers. And I’ll tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made.”
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Mr. Bush — who had his best debate last month when he doggedly criticized Mr. Trump, but saw little bounce in his poll numbers in New Hampshire — took another pass at Mr. Trump when he urged him to “reconsider” his proposal for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country.
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Analysis: Too late to stop Trump? As he glides, other candidates fall back in debate - ... - 0 views
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Donald Trump sailed above the other candidates, who mostly engaged in round-robin fighting that left each of them wounded and him largely unscathed.
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the sixth in a nomination contest that has defied predictions, left a GOP establishment that fears disastrous repercussions from a Trump nomination no closer to finding a way to head him off, with the first balloting now a little more than two weeks away.
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Trump repeatedly dismissed the nuanced arguments of his peers in favor of the blunt and forceful assertions that have made the billionaire the party’s national front-runner.
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"I will gladly accept the mantle of anger," he made clear that he understands what many of his establishment foes still seem not to — that much of what they see as weaknesses in his campaign are the wellsprings of its support
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His opponents, by contrast, often acting with visible desperation to attract attention as voters start making up their minds, seemed mostly intent on fighting among themselves. That precluded any single candidate from rising above the others.
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New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made."
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Republicans typically pick as their nominee the person who placed second the last time out, but this race has been nothing the party has seen before.
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"I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa," Cruz said, "but the facts and the law here are really quite clear."
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Trump responded by citing a contrary view by Cruz’s former Harvard professor and jocularly suggested he was concerned lest there be complications if he picked Cruz as his vice presidential nominee.
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"Edward Snowden is a traitor. And if I am president and we get our hands on him, he is standing trial for treason," Rubio said
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“Radical Islamic terrorism was not invented 24 months ago,” he said, citing precursors to the Islamic State.
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Ted Cruz Goes on Multipronged Attack Against Donald Trump - First Draft. Political News... - 0 views
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Disparaging Donald J. Trump’s temperament, questioning his beliefs and even knocking his polling numbers, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas laid into Mr. Trump in earnest on Saturday and abandoned any reluctance to take on his popular Republican rival.
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It was a remarkable turn for a candidate who, less than a week ago, was resisting opportunities to tweak Mr. Trump even as he raised questions about Mr. Cruz’s eligibility for the presidency because of his Canadian birth.
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On Saturday, Mr. Cruz said it was “curious” that Mr. Trump had aligned himself with left-leaning officials in New York in calling for the apology. “It does raise the question of, O.K., if you are offended at my pointing out how much the failed policies have hurt New Yorkers, then which of those policies do you agree with?” Mr. Cruz said.
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Mr. Cruz acknowledged that Mr. Trump had begun to sound “fairly conservative” on the campaign trail, but he said voters were “far more discerning.”
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Opinion | Never Forget What Ted Cruz Did - The New York Times - 0 views
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Ted Cruz, try to pull yet another fast one on the American people as he fought — not long before the certification process was disrupted by a mob of Trump supporters storming the Capitol and forcing their way into the Senate chamber — to challenge the election results.
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Mr. Cruz cited the aftermath of the 1876 presidential election between Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden. It was contentious and involved actual disputes about voter fraud and electoral mayhem, and a committee was formed to sort it out.
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Mr. Cruz has been able to use his pseudo-intellectualism and his Ivy League pedigree as a cudgel. He may be a snake, his supporters (might) admit, but he could go toe to toe with liberal elites because he, too, went to Princeton (cum laude), went to Harvard Law School (magna cum laude), was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Mr. Cruz was not some seditionist in a MAGA hat (or a Viking costume); he styled himself as a deep thinker who could get the better of lefties from those pointy headed schools. He could straddle both worlds — ivory towers and Tea Party confabs — and exploit both to his advantage.
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he supported a lawsuit from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (under indictment since 2015 for securities fraud) in an attempt to overturn election results in critical states (it was supported by other Texan miscreants like Representative Louie Gohmert).
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t happened, for instance, after he supported a lawsuit from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (under indictment since 2015 for securities fraud) in an attempt to overturn election results in critical states (it was supported by other Texan miscreants like Representative Louie Gohmert).
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But maybe, just maybe, Mr. Cruz has finally overreached with this latest power grab, which is correctly seen as an attempt to corral Mr. Trump’s base for his own 2024 presidential ambitions. This time, however, Mr. Cruz was spinning, obfuscating and demagoguing to assist in efforts to overturn the will of the voters for his own ends.
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I’m curious to see what happens with Mr. Cruz’s check-writing enablers in Texas’ wealthier Republican-leaning suburbs. Historically, they’ve stood by him. But will they want to ally themselves with the mob that vandalized our nation’s Capitol and embarrassed the United States before the world? Will they realize that Mr. Cruz, like President Trump and the mini-Cruz, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, would risk destroying the country in the hope of someday leading it?
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Opinion | Toxic Masculinity Is Now Petulant Vulnerability - The New York Times - 0 views
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It hasn’t disappeared, of course, but in the years since #MeToo, many men have been trying to drop the stoicism and anger that have long warped masculinity.
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For better or worse, everyone you know is watching “Ted Lasso.” The strong, silent type is losing some of his allure.
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vulnerability was having a cultural moment — as the topic of popular TED talks and the focus of groups invested in helping men evolve, such as The ManKind Project and Evryman
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What is real vulnerability? Brené Brown, a researcher whose work on vulnerability has made her a celebrity, defines it as “uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure” in her 2013 book “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.”
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Classic toxic masculinity was on full display when those would-be heroes rallied to “save America” on Jan. 6, but some became hapless patsies once they were held accountable. Their capes became baby blankets.
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my hope has begun to diminish as I’ve watched male vulnerability curdle into something toxic: Let’s call it petulant vulnerability.
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If true vulnerability means accepting change, personal fallibility and the human condition of reliance on others, petulant vulnerability feigns emotional fragility as a means of retaining power.
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Even as men’s groups committed to positive change gain prominence, our society still broadly enforces traditional masculinity norms and restrictions
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online there are plenty of spaces where extremely toxic behavior is encouraged and applauded — some of which also deploy the language of vulnerability. In incel forums, for example, rather than working through the pain of being sexually rejected, men lash out at the women they feel they deserve — occasionally resulting in horrific violence.
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“Men cannot change if there are no blueprints for change,” bell hooks wrote in her 2005 book “The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love,” where she uses feminist thinking to show men how to overcome their conditioning.
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GOP debate: Donald Trump-Ted Cruz 'bromance' is over - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views
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Trump and Ted Cruz clashed Thursday in their sharpest -- and most personal -- encounters of the campaign season
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The 2.5-hour event sponsored by Fox Business Network was filled with testy exchanges between the seven candidates on stage.
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Cruz forcefully responded to Trump's accusations that he isn't eligible to be president because he was born in Canada -- a controversy that Trump has only recently embraced. Read More
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Cruz noted that some of the more extreme theories on the topic would conclude that someone can only become president if both parents were born in the United States. Under that standard, Cruz noted
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"We rebuilt downtown Manhattan and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made."
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"Unfortunately, Gov. Christie has endorsed many of the ideas that Barack Obama supports," the Florida senator said.
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Two years ago, he called me a conservative reformer that New Jersey needed. That was before he was running against me."
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While there has been plenty of animosity between Trump and most of his rivals, the billionaire businessman and Cruz have been on largely friendly territory for much of the campaign season.
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Fiorina's candidacy has largely been defined by memorable debate performances. And even though she was dropped from the prime-time stage at the debate, she still delivered. Right out of the gate, she dealt a sharp personal attack on Clinton, the Democratic front-runner.
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Only Republican Voters Can Stop Donald Trump Now - The New Yorker - 0 views
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Thursday night, Donald Trump stepped off a stage at the North Charleston Coliseum, in South Carolina,
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Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush, who took their shots at the billionaire from New York, the other candidates seemed to have given up any hope of standing up to him.
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fter the debate finished, Ari Fleischer, George W. Bush’s former spokesman, estimated on Twitter that Trump now had a sixty per cent chance of getting the nomination. That’s just one person’s opinion, of course, but it reflects a widespread fatalism in the Republican establishment
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a loan from Goldman Sachs to help fund his 2012 Senate campaign, during which he had portrayed himself as an enemy of Wall Street and Wall Street bailouts
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Rather than disowning his words, or correcting them to make it clear that he wasn’t trying to insult millions of people, Cruz doubled down, saying
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There followed a lengthy interchange, in which Cruz displayed the verbal skills that made him a champion debater in college, and Trump was reduced to claiming he had only brought it up to spare the Republican Party
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“I’ve spent my entire life defending the Constitution before the U.S. Supreme Court. And I’ll tell you, I’m not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump.”
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Unfortunately for him, he appeared to let it go to his head. Trump, as the boxing promoter Don King sagely noted some time ago, is a counter-puncher:
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“You know, back in September, my friend Donald said that he had had his lawyers look at this from every which way, and there was no issue there.
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And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched, and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made.
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. One of those clapping for him, the cameras showed, was Cruz. Evidently realizing that he had exposed himself to being cast on the wrong side of 9/11,
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This was Trump’s best moment in any of the debates. From then on, Cruz and Trump mostly left each other alone and concentrated on the other candidates. In another notable exchange later in the debate, on immigration and taxes,
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First and foremost, this issue has to be now, more than anything else, about keeping this country safe,”
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aying that he never wrote a check to Planned Parenthood or supported the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
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We’re running for the Presidency of the United States here,” Bush said. “You cannot make rash statements and expect the rest of the world to respond as though, well, it’s just politics.”
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So is playing to the prejudices and fears of his supporters, and hinting that dark things are asunder, which justify drastic and possibly authoritarian measures.
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“There is something going on and it’s bad,” he said. “We have to get to the bottom of it. We need security.”
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“But if I become President, I couldn’t care less about my company. It’s peanuts. I want to use that same up here,”
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I have Ivanka and Eric and Don sitting there. Run the company kids, have a good time. I’m going to do it for America.”
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Donald Trump: Ted Cruz 'Acts Like Robin Hood,' Jeb Bush 'Ashamed of His Last Name' - Br... - 1 views
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Trump also touted how he has spent the least amount on his presidential campaign, but is sitting at the top of the polls, explaining that he can do the same budgeting for the country.
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“Jeb has spent $69 million so far…wouldn’t it be great if he could give that money to the wounded warriors instead of wasting it,” Trump added. “He’s essentially at the bottom of the barrel.”
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Trump said his lead gives him an edge on media appearances. “They call it earned media,” he told the crowd.
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He said under his administration he would have “the people that know how to do it” in charge. “They’re using people that gave campaign contributions,” he said of the current administration.
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He vowed that if elected President of the United States, he wouldn’t make terrible negotiations like President Obama.
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“Obama is the worse negotiator I’ve ever seen, except when it comes to negotiating with the Republicans then he’s a great negotiator,” Trump jabbed
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“They only released them for one reason…they’re waiting for 150 billion dollars,” Trump said about Iran.
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He also slammed the recent exchange on Saturday of at least four Americans who were kept in Iran for at least seven Iranians who were being detained or charged in the United States.
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“The wall is peanuts,” Trump said, adding that Mexico makes a fortune from the United States. “So, we’re going to build a wall and Mexico is going to pay for the wall.”
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Toward the end of his speech, Trump criticized fellow GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), but the room of Tea Party supporters didn’t approve and booed his comment.
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“He’s a very nice guy…[but] he didn’t report his bank loans…say whatever you want, he didn’t report bank loans,” Trump said of Cruz.
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Amnesty is not immigration reform - 0 views
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While most of the country will spend the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday remembering the peaceful nature and civil rights successes lodged by the late leader, voting rights advocates say this is a dark time for them.
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Many might spend Monday reflecting on King's 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march to push for voting equality for black Americans,
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Also, 33 states now have Voter ID laws in place with increased identification requirements for people seeking to cast ballots
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“I anticipate arrests, in and outside the Capitol,” Brooks said. “Congress allowing the Voting Rights Act to be gutted has disrupted our democracy … so our democracy should get back to functioning as it should.”
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What many view as the gutting of the Voting Rights Act has prompted civil rights advocates to take action. A coalition of 100 organizations including the NAACP will stage a string of protests
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controversial one for civil rights advocates, who maintain that some groups of Americans, including older people and minorities, are less likely to have the sort of identification that would be required.
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"We are making it very clear that we're protecting the right to vote, insuring the integrity of the right to vote and getting out the vote. This is not all of us registering people to vote and waiting for November with polite patience."
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Rights that had appeared to be resolved as matters of controversy in American politics are unfortunately once again up for grabs. It’s hard to imagine what’s more American than insuring the right to vote for all Americans, and what could be more un-American than impeding it?”
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The most boisterous exchange in Thursday night's Republican debate was not over terrorism, guns or the economy. It was over Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s eligibility under the Constitution
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“Democrats are going to be bringing a suit,” Trump predicted, adding, “There’s a big question mark on your head.”
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Cruz is as American as anybody born on U.S. soil. And Trump, by suggesting that the Constitution’s “natural born” citizen clause could actually keep Cruz out of the White House, is trying to eliminate an oppone
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the founders wrote that only "a natural born citizen" is eligible to be president. They did not define the phrase further.
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Cruz was born in Canada, but there is no doubt that he is an American citizen because his mother was a U.S. citizen.
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1787, the founders feared that some foreign-born interloper, perhaps from England, might come to the USA and seek the presidency for nefarious reasons
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candidacies of others have been challenged on this point. Former Michigan governor George Romney, who was born in Mexico to two American parents and ran for the 1968 GOP nomination, was threatened with legal action before he dropped out for other reasons.
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The overwhelming weight of legal scholarship is on Cruz’s side. Many scholars assert that an infant born to an American parent, regardless of location, acquires citizenship “at birth” and therefore passes the “natural born” test
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They argue that the meaning of “natural born” should be viewed in the context of the 1700s, when where you were born was the controlling factor.
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In 2008, a bipartisan Senate resolution was passed by unanimous consent, asserting that McCain was indeed a “natural born” citizen
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If the problem can't be fixed legislatively, a constitutional amendment would be necessary. Those are hard to pass, as Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, discovered after he introduced one in 2003 that would have allowed anyone who has been a citizen for 20 years, and is otherwise eligible, to become presiden
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There have been several legislative attempts to overhaul U.S. immigration policy over the past decade. All of them failed
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how immigration affects the economic, social and national security interests of the American people — was, at best, an afterthought.
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Immigration has taken center stage in the 2016 campaign because many Americans have come to recognize that it is a policy without any definable public interest objective
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institutionalizes the government’s failure to protect the interests of the American people, and encourages still more illegal immigration.
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amnesty benefits illegal aliens, it does not promote any public interest. Nearly half of all adult illegal aliens have not completed high schoo
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high-productivity, high-earning workers. What it will do, over time, is make them eligible to add to the 51% of immigrant-headed households in the U.S. that rely on some form of welfare.
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Amnesty would also exacerbate the already alarming erosion of America’s middle class, as former illegal aliens would be eligible to compete legally for all U.S. jobs and petition for millions more similarly skilled relatives to join them here.
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Donald Trump goes to Liberty U. - CNN.com - 0 views
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Other presidential candidates, including Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush and Bernie Sanders, have addressed Liberty students in recent months. So did Ted Kennedy in 1983. But Trump is the only one of them asked to speak on the King holiday. As Falwell Jr. told the Lynchburg News & Advance, "We chose that day so that Mr. Trump would have the opportunity to recognize and honor Dr. King on MLK Day.
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In a Bicentennial rally held on July 4, 1976, he told his followers that "this idea of 'religion and politics don't mix' was invented by the devil to keep Christians from running their own country."
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. "All the moral issues that matter today are in the political arena," Falwell said. "There's no way to fight these battles except in that arena."
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"The Religious Right did not start because of a concern about abortion," says Ed Dobson, who as an associate pastor at Falwell's church, was present at the founding of the Moral Majority. "I sat in the non-smoke-filled back room with the Moral Majority, and I frankly do not remember abortion ever being mentioned as a reason why we ought to do something.
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"In one fell swoop," writes political scientist Corey Robin, "the heirs of slaveholders became the descendants of persecuted Baptists, and Jim Crow a heresy the First Amendment was meant to protect."
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Falwell would repudiate his segregationist past and his movement would pivot from race to "family values." Yes, abortion was murder and homosexuality was unnatural. But each also undermined family life.
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Trump, who has been married three times and derives his language more from the vulgarities of bathrooms than from the niceties of the pulpit, has also taken stances on key cultural issues, including abortion and gay rights, that are at odds with the Republican Party's white evangelical base.
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al candidates, including Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush and Bernie Sanders, have addressed Liberty stud
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With this promise in sight, it seems like a good time to revisit what Falwell Sr. said about King before and after he co-founded the Moral Majority in 1979 as a "pro-life, pro-family, pro-moral, and pro-American" organization.
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This ruling stripped tax-exempt status from all-white private schools formed in the South in reaction to the Brown v. Board of Education mandate to desegregate public schools.
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Their intent was safeguard children from secularization, not racial integration, but their schools had been unfairly and illegally targeted by a federal government hell-bent on making secular humanism the nation's false faith.
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"There was an overnight conversion," recalled Paul Weyrich -- the conservative strategist who coined the term "moral majority" -- as conservative Christians realized that "big government was coming after them as well."
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Similarly, feminism was dangerous because it confused the distinct roles men and women and boys and girls were to play in the "traditional family," which Falwell and his fellow travelers understood to be of a singular sort: one male breadwinner and one female homemaker, married, with children, living under one roof and the patriarchal authority of the man of the house.
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Nonetheless, he does have a story to tell that resonates not only with white evangelicals' complaints about the decline of a Christian America, but also with the broad contours of the Christian story, which runs from The Fall in Eden to redemption at the hands of the crucified and resurrected Christ. Both of these narratives get going with a fall from grace and point toward an upcoming revival.I know many evangelicals, and Trump is not one of them.