Can any other politician lie with the gall, the unflappability, and the effortlessness of Senator Ted Cruz? The man is a serial offender, a recidivist of the highest order. His penchant for subtefuge even caught the attention of Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly who asked Cruz if she thought his high unfavorability rating was costing he and the party. Cruz is viewed unfavorably by roughly 40% of the people, as opposed to the 30% who view him favorably with the rest being undecided. When Fox News turns on you and you are a fellow Republican, look out!
Cruz openly identifies with the Tea Party movement which may help to explain his motivation. The Tea Party movement seems to expect lies from their candidates because speaking the truth is supported by facts and data, which is so often irrelevant to their arguments.
Cruz seems to differentiate a lie from the truth by believing it to be truthful when he smiles knowingly and speaks with "passionate sincerity," even if he's just totally invented the facts. According to Politifact, which tracks a politician's record for "publicly-asserted falsehoods," Cruz registered a remarkable 56 percent of all statements they've looked at as being not true.
"Cruz told a CPAC crowd, for example, that Democrats issued an ominous threat to the Catholic Church: "Change your religious beliefs or we'll use our power in the federal government to shut down your charities and your hospitals." Politifact naturally deemed this "both incorrect and ridiculous.""
He bluntly claimed that "the jurisdictions with the strictest gun control laws, almost without exception ... have the highest crime rates and the highest murder rates." This statement is not true.
Cruz denies climate change as well, describing it as a "front by power-hungry politicians to control people's lives." Well, one tends to trust scientists more than power-hungry politicians who are bought and paid for by the oil industry! Two west Texas brothers who made their billions selling a fracking company gave the Ted Cruz super PAC a record-setting $15 million dollars in August of this year. The man's demagoguery goes unchecked!
If not for his constant, unceasing lying, Cruz, given his Hispanic heritage, might be able to help the Republican party grow as a Big Tent party. And despite his myriad falsehoods, he is no simpleton. The man graduated cum laude from Princeton University. While at Princeton, he was a champion debater, which explains his surreal ability to spin false narratives into something resembling the truth. Cruz then graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude. Given his impressive academic credentials, why he has so little respect for the truth is inexplicable.
Senator Ted Cruz engineered the government shutdown in 2013. He organized a cabal of senators to refuse to pass a budget unless Obamacare was de-funded. As the public anger grew more intense, he tried to blame the government shutdown on Democrat Harry Reid and President Obama. With his characteristic hypocrisy, Cruz proposed just funding those areas of government which were popular, like the national parks, knowing that President Obama would refuse on principle. Of course, then he tried to shift the blame for the shutdown to the president.
According to an article in the Huffington Post by Cody Cain:
"In one example, Mr. Cruz advocated for a line-item funding for veterans, and since Mr. Obama had declined to fund any individual line-items as a general matter, Mr. Cruz then publicly accused Mr. Obama of being against veterans. This, of course, was utterly absurd, but Mr. Cruz grandstanded it shamelessly."
Cruz learned nothing from the inevitable backlash against Republicans after the first government shutdown. This time he vows to shut down the government over the funding of Planned Parenthood, another ideological distraction from serious business. Cruz is just getting started on his lobbying effort to recruit others to his ill-fated cause.
Even many Republicans argue he is staging this sideshow to gain publicity for his presidential campaign and what an expensive political advertisement it will be! Rating agencies such as Moody's Analytics and Standard and Poor's estimate the first government shutdown cost between $23 and $24 billion in lost economic output, or "0.6 percent of projected annualized GDP growth."
"Senior Republican sources say that most senators are treating Cruz like "kryptonite" after his verbal attacks on McConnell and the poor returns from the 2013 Obamacare fight." He is called the most hated man in Washington.
Not to worry, Cruz says: This time it would all be on President Barack Obama if government funding lapses. "President Obama has embraced the radical position ... to try to shut down the entire federal government if this one private organization does not get taxpayer money," Cruz said. "It is only in the twisted, inverted logic of the Washington Beltway that anyone other than Barack Obama would bear responsibility for that shutdown."
Cruz should know about "twisted, inverted logic," for he is a leading authority on the subject! It would all be humorous, if the man's demagoguery was not so dangerous and contemptible. The only ones who would welcome a Cruz presidency are fact-checkers and late night comedians!