Study finds religious beliefs have an enduring influence on senators' legislative behavior. New research provides evidence that the personal religious beliefs of United States Senators influence their legislative behavior. The study was published in The Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion. “I became interested in the topic of the influence of religion on politics after moving to the US from Israel. What I found particularly interesting is how the US had seemed like a country in which there is a clear separation of church and state, and yet religious discourse still dominates many aspects of its politics,” said study author Daniel Arnon of Emory University “I became curious whether the avenue through which religion entered politics was primarily from the bottom-up — through constituents’ demands and political representation of religious constituents — or whether the mechanism was more top-down — through the religious preferences of the legislators.”
“As other research has shown, the religious landscape in the US has been changing in the last few decades. Ted Cruz claims his health care plan protects sick Americans. Nope. Getty Images One of the first things that virtually every health policy expert noticed about the latest version of the Senate health care bill was that it would effectively shunt Americans with pre-existing conditions into their own separate insurance market, where they could potentially face sky-high premiums. This was thanks to a provision negotiated by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who demanded it in return for his support. Cruz, of course, claims his amendment would do no such thing. Those talking points are pure bunk. As I wrote Thursday, the Cruz amendment would allow insurance companies to sell unregulated, low-cost coverage plans that could be priced based on customers' health as long as they also offered plans that complied with all of Obamacare's rules and requirements—such as the ban on charging more to customers with pre-existing conditions.
Cruz says there's nothing to fear. This is deeply deceptive. The insurance industry agrees with the skeptical reading of Cruz’s measure. Ted Cruz claims his health care plan protects sick Americans. Nope. PolitiFact Sheet: Understanding Ted Cruz’s health care amendment and pre-existing conditions. Among the most significant changes to the Senate GOP health care bill is a move championed by Sen.
Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to free insurers from the tight regulations under Obamacare. The crux of the change is this: If an insurance carrier in a state offers at least one plan that complies with the current Obamacare regulations, it can offer other plans that don’t. The result would be cheaper health insurance for people who are happy to buy less coverage than current rules allow. Young men wouldn’t have to pay for maternity care, for example. Healthy people in general would gain because insurance companies could set premiums based on health status, something they can’t do today.
Cruz said the bill "ensures consumers have the freedom to choose among more affordable plans that are tailored to their individual healthcare needs. " The conservative Heritage Foundation estimated that Obamacare rules have increased average premiums for young people by 16.5 percent. The insurance market before and after. Ted Cruz's Pants on Fire claim that health care law is nation's 'biggest job-killer'
To a man, the seven candidates on the stage at the Republican debate in Des Moines, Iowa, oppose Obamacare. When Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was asked what he would do for the millions of people who have gained health insurance thanks to the program, Cruz was quick to describe his take on the health care law’s failings. "First of all, we have seen now in six years of Obamacare that it has been a disaster," Cruz said. "It is the biggest job-killer in this country. Virtually from the moment the Affordable Care Act was first debated, its critics have warned that it would wreck the economy. Now Cruz is claiming that the critics were right, and it all has come to pass. Only that’s not true, either.
The government’s labor surveys give us a pretty good window into the number of people working in any given month. The numbers run against Cruz’s statement. Not only has the number of jobs gone up, but the number of unwilling part-timers has gone down. Our ruling Cruz turned familiar data upside down. Ted Cruz’s Father Worked With Supplements Maker Sued by Investors. Asked about Rafael Cruz’s work for Mannatech, the Cruz campaign said that he had been a salesman and consultant for the company, but that he had never tried to sell its products in Mexico. It said the allegation in the lawsuit was “not an accurate representation of what happened,” without elaborating. Rafael Cruz did not respond to written questions submitted to the campaign. Mr. Cruz’s memoir makes only brief reference to what he did after his own business, which analyzed seismic data for oil companies, dried up.
“We were in dire need of income, so I began working for a company that required extensive travel,” Mr. Cruz wrote. “Monday through Friday I worked in Mexico, opening an office, and then I flew home for the weekend.” The Cruz campaign said he had never traveled to Mexico for Mannatech, but it did not say what company he was working for at the time. Photo Mr. “I didn’t have an involvement with them,” Mr. The depth of Mr. Like Mr. Through his wife, Mr. Mr. Mr. Mrs. Ted Cruz's Father Suggested His Son Is 'Anointed' to Bring About 'End Time Transfer of Wealth' US Senator Ted Cruz speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill October 16, 2013 in Washington, DC "The pastor [Huch] referred to Proverbs 13:22, a little while ago, which says 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.
" - Rafael Cruz, August 26, 2012 Rafael Cruz' dominionist sermon given August 26, 2012, at the New Beginnings Church of pastor Larry Huch, in Irving, Texas has already received considerable scrutiny due to an excellent Huffington Post commentary by Methodist Associate Pastor Morgan Guyton, who noted the explicitly dominionist nature of pastor Cruz' sermon, which concerned the divine mandate for believers, with anointing of "kings" in their respective spheres, to take control over all sectors of society.
Cruz spoke of "Kings who are anointed to go to war, win the war, and bring the spoils of war to the priests. " Pastor Cruz could not have made himself more clear: Ted Cruz an ‘Outsider’ Like Sanders? In his speech after losing the New York primary, Sen. Ted Cruz claimed that he and Sen. Bernie Sanders are “outsiders” who “don’t find our fuel in bundlers and special interests. But rather directly from the people.” But Cruz’s comparison to Sanders is a bit of a stretch. Sanders opposes super PACs that can raise unlimited amounts of money from big donors. But five super PACs working to elect Cruz have raised more than $1 million each, including four Keep the Promise super PACs that have raised $42.8 million largely from a small number of big donors in the energy and finance industries.Cruz’s national finance committee offers “bundling benefits” based on how much fundraisers bring in to the campaign.
Cruz compared himself to Sanders, the populist independent senator running for the Democratic nomination, in a concession speech in Philadelphia on the night of the New York primary. Cruz, April 19: This is the year of the outsider. Pro-Cruz Super PACs Cruz Bundlers Small Donors. Nobody Likes Ted Cruz- Ted Cruz, not Donald Trump, is the candidate we really should fear. The 2016 Republican primary is now essentially a two-man race. Donald Trump has tallied an astonishing 678 delegates, while Ted Cruz, the dogmatic, far-right Texas Republican, who apparently gets along with no one in his own party, has garnered 423. Even though John Kasich, former governor and the last great hope for moderates, won his home state of Ohio, his candidacy is mathematically dead in the water; his only hope is to pull some remarkable trick at a contested convention.
For Cruz as well, it’s still an uphill battle. But depending on the outcomes of subsequent primaries, other Republican leaders may yet rally to his side. As CBS News put it: “Cruz may be the only candidate who can beat Trump in the delegate count before the convention.” This is the mainstream party’s worst nightmare. Cruz is the most rock-ribbed, deep-right candidate ever to have a strong national showing in a modern US presidential race. Ted the destroyer God’s country. Obnoxiousness Is the New Charisma. Photo IN a typical presidential campaign, the most successful candidates lay claim to leadership with their high-mindedness.
They reach for poetry. They focus on lifting people up, not tearing them down. They beseech voters to be their biggest, best selves. Not the two front-runners in this freaky Republican primary. They’re unreservedly smug. If you’re not with them, you’re a loser (Donald Trump’s declaration) or you’re godless (Ted Cruz’s decree, more or less). Obnoxiousness is the new charisma. Sure, we’ve had contenders like them before. Cruz just finished up a dominant week, besting Trump in a poll of California Republicans, drawing swarms of reporters to his bus tour through Iowa, prompting ever surer predictions of triumph in that state. He “has plainly become the candidate to beat in the caucuses,” Jonathan Martin and Matt Flegenheimer wrote in The Times, sketching a scenario in which “he could also quickly become something else: the de facto party nominee.” Shivers indeed. Ted Cruz Isn't Crazy – He's Much Worse. In no particular order, Texas senator and Republican presidential aspirant Ted Cruz has: said acts of Christian terrorism stopped centuries ago, forgetting the Ku Klux Klan and the shooting in Colorado last week; claimed he has never met an anti-abortion activist who advocates violence, despite being endorsed by one just days before; dismissed the need for Planned Parenthood because there isn't a shortage of "rubbers" in America; and made an offhand comment that Colorado mass shooter Robert Dear could be a "transgendered leftist activist.
" All this in just the last week. Cruz also has a favorite line he likes to use, which appears on the stump and in his book. "For a long time, the left has had two caricatures of conservatives: that we are either stupid or evil. I take it as a backhanded compliment that they have, to some extent, invented a third category for me: 'crazy.'" Ted Cruz is far from crazy, which is the essential Ted Cruz problem. There you go. Well, I talked to some folks. The Brutalism of Ted Cruz. Photo In 1997, Michael Wayne Haley was arrested after stealing a calculator from Walmart. This was a crime that merited a maximum two-year prison term. But prosecutors incorrectly applied a habitual offender law. Neither the judge nor the defense lawyer caught the error and Haley was sentenced to 16 years. Eventually, the mistake came to light and Haley tried to fix it. Some justices were skeptical.
The case reveals something interesting about Cruz’s character. Traditionally, candidates who have attracted strong evangelical support have in part emphasized the need to lend a helping hand to the economically stressed and the least fortunate among us. But Cruz’s speeches are marked by what you might call pagan brutalism. Cruz lays down an atmosphere of apocalyptic fear.
As the Republican strategist Curt Anderson observed in Politico, there’s no variation in Cruz’s rhetorical tone. The fact is this apocalyptic diagnosis is ridiculous. Cruz exploits and exaggerates that fear. Ted Cruz's bigoted robocall in South Carolina. Sorry, David Brooks: In all his sadism, Ted Cruz is the true face of the Christian right. Sometimes David Brooks writes something so completely out of touch with reality that the reader’s heart breaks at the pathos of it all, like you’re watching a baby duck with a broken wing trying to fly. Then you remember that he’s paid handsomely by The New York Times and given one of the largest platforms in the country to spout of his ill-informed opinions, and it’s right back to be angry again. So it is with Brooks’ latest column, titled “The Brutalism of Ted Cruz,” a piece that so hilariously misunderstands the motives of Christian conservatives that it leads one to wonder if Brooks has ever, in all his travels, met a single member of this tribe that his beloved Republican Party relies on for votes.
“Cruz’s behavior in the Haley case is almost the dictionary definition of pharisaism,” Brooks writes, “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.” This much is true. Perhaps. Welcome To Karmaland: Natalie Maines Of The Dixie Chicks Expertly Trolls Ted Cruz. Late last year Ted Cruz was asked a question during a debate. The question was about the Middle East, specifically if we should preserve dictatorships in the region or promote democracy, which dillholes like Cruz love to say they cherish as much as baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie. Here’s what Teddy Boy had to say: Yes, Cruz actually said he would: Carpet-bomb ISIS into oblivion, testing if sand can glow in the dark.
That’s a quick and cheap applause line in front of a Republican audience, but it only serves to prove how utterly ignorant Cruz is when it comes to all things military. Cruz, it should be pointed out, comes from a long line of tough-talking Texans who start endless wars which cost thousands of American lives, trillions of dollars, and leave the invaded country worse than it was before the United States arrived. Back in 2003, as the Iraq war was about to begin, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks had this to say at a concert: Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all.
Ted Cruz’s Stone-Age Brain and Yours - BillMoyers.com. Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks during a campaign rally at the Siena Community Center on December 17, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) This post originally appeared at TomDispatch. After Senator Ted Cruz suggested that the United States begin carpet bombing Islamic State (IS) forces in Syria, the reaction was swift. Hillary Clinton mocked candidates who use “bluster and bigotry.” A US Air Force Boeing B-52 from the 320th Bomb Wing dropping bombs over Vietnam.
When CNN’s Wolf Blitzer objected that Cruz’s proposal would lead to lots of civilian casualties, the senator retorted somewhat incoherently: “You would carpet bomb where ISIS is — not a city, but the location of the troops. By almost any standard Cruz’s proposal was laughable and his rivals and the media called him on it. How to explain this? You might think that this is because the conflict in Yemen is off our national radar screen. Why Cruz’s Numbers Went Up.
Anyone but Ted Cruz. You’re evaluating candidates for an open job in your company, and you come across one who makes a big impression. He’s clearly brilliant — maybe smarter than any of the others. He’s a whirlwind of energy. And man oh man can he give a presentation. On any subject, he’s informed, inflamed, precise. But then you talk with people who’ve worked with him at various stages of his career. No, scratch that. They loathe him. They grant him all of the virtues that you’ve observed, but tell you that he’s the antithesis of a team player. Do you hire this applicant? No way. And that’s why voters should be wary — very wary — of Ted Cruz. He’s surging. Photo More and more Republican insiders talk about a battle between Cruz and Marco Rubio for the nomination, or about a three-way, if you will, among Cruz, Rubio and Trump. And in the voices of these insiders I hear horror, because Trump and Cruz are nasty pieces of work. Cruz will work overtime in the months ahead to persuade you otherwise.