Canadian Born Texas Senator Ted Cruz: Eligible, Or Not For U.S. President? Experts: SCOTUS Ruling Required.

Born in Canada to a Cuban father & American mother, Republican Presidential hopeful Senator Ted Cruz renounced his Canadian citizenship only last year (2014).

ref: http://www.scribd.com/doc/229039536/Canadian-Renunciation-Letter

To be certain, as a graduate of Princeton undergrad & Harvard Law, Ted Cruz is no dummy. So for him to assert he didn’t know he was a Canadian citizen is not merely disingenuous, it’s fallacious on its face. Plainly put, it’s a blatant lie.

ref: http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/11/politics/ted-cruz-canada-citizenship/
ref: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20130818-ted-cruz-born-a-citizen-of-canada-under-the-countrys-immigration-rules.ece

U.S. Department of State circular on United States citizenship

The U.S. Department of State specifically writes that citizenship via “jus sanguinis,” i.e., by bloodline, “is not

Strategy Advice 101 for @Griffith2014

Alabama is a deeply “red” state (some say “redneck,” which may also be accurate), which is to say, that the state has historically voted Republican for the past several years; all of the state’s top office holders are Republicans, and both houses of the legislature are similarly controlled by Republicans.

The website 270ToWin.com had this remark about the state’s political alignment: “Alabama became a GOP stronghold starting in 1964, voting for Democrats only in 1968 and 1976 (for native son George Wallace and Jimmy Carter, respectively). The initial shift was largely in response to white conservative voter uneasiness with the civil rights legislation that was passed in the mid-1960s, which was effectively exploited by the Republicans’ “Southern Strategy.” In 2012, Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama by about 22%, almost identical to John McCain‘s margin of victory in 2008.”

Frankly, the Democratic party in Alabama has been virtually decimated, and there are very few candidates identifying themselves with the party. Many state office-holders are running unopposed, including other Federal seats, including incumbent United States Senator Jeff Sessions.

Taking a clue from the George Wallace playbook (Wallace was a STRONG and almost constant campaigner), there are 67 reasons why I wouldn’t give Parker Griffith a strong chance at winning the governorship.

For example, has he

Presidential Geography: Alabama & Mississippi – Two very solidly Red(neck) states

To be certain, this ain’t your daddy’s Republican party.

It’s a party hijacked by radicals – genuine radicals – whose solitary bent is the destruction of government. Tear down this, destroy & eliminate this, that and the other, shift responsibility to the states for various programs, knowing full well that they do not, and will not have the ability to fully or appropriately fund them because tax rates continue to decline… it’s a “Starve the Monster” approach which has been taken – quite literally.

We have experienced already the devastating effects of it – significant tax cuts and a 10-year long war which has driven up the deficit, a BIG BUSINESS Bailout resulting from financial deregulation, which has cost jobs, houses, increased homelessness & bankruptcies, and off-shoring of American manufacturing.

And all this is predicated – so they purport – to be symptomatic of “a welfare state” that rewards so-called “welfare queens” who have children precisely to obtain more welfare money (a genuine misnomer if ever there was one)

But the biggest question is: What’s for dessert?

I don’t think we want to know.

—

FiveThirtyEight – Nate Silver’s Political Calculus
October 11, 2012, 6:24 pm

Solid South Reversed, but Still Divided by Race

By MICAH COHEN

We continue our Presidential Geography series, an examination of each state’s political landscape and how it’s changing. Here is a special two-in-one look at Alabama, the Yellowhammer State, and Mississippi, the Magnolia State. FiveThirtyEight spoke with Marvin King Jr., an assistant professor of political science at the University of Mississippi; Natalie Davis, a professor of political science at Birmingham-Southern College; Jess Brown, a professor of political science and justice studies at Athens State University; and William H. Stewart, a former political science professor at the University of Alabama.

One recurring theme in the states we have profiled so far has been the exodus of Southern whites from the Democratic Party, yielding a striking transformation. The Solid South — so named for the regional hegemony of Democrats — has been reversed, and states that were once Democratic from top to bottom are becoming (or already are) equally Republican.

The evolution has progressed particularly far in the Deep South, but Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas are all at different stages.

Arkansas is

Mitt Romney shoots off his Foot-In-Mouth Disease… again.

There are so many hilarious headlines that could be written.

What an utter idiot.

The Secret Service can protect him from others, but they can’t protect Mitt from his own political suicide.

More signs of President Obama’s re-election.

Oh… and be certain to read the comments following the story.

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Romney’s statement perfectly undiplomatic

Mitt Romney makes remarks on the attack on the US consulate in Libya (Reuters)September 12,

2012 6:41 pm, by Edward Luce

There are moments that can indelibly brand a politician and Mitt Romney may just have met his.

U.S. Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney makes remarks on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya, in Jacksonville, Florida September 12, 2012. REUTERS/Jim Young (UNITED STATES – Tags: POLITICS ELECTIONS)

The alacrity – and brittle certainty – with which the Republican nominee responded to the violence against US diplomats on Tuesday night offers a snapshot of why his candidacy has failed to attract true believers. On Wednesday morning, Hillary Clinton read out a sombre statement condemning the killing of Chris Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans. Forty minutes later, Barack Obama followed suit. Both focused on Mr Stevens’ tragic death.

In between Mr Romney squeezed in an openly political press conference in which he called the Obama administration’s response “disgraceful” and said it “should never apologise for America.” His condolences were brief and dutiful. The exercise was based on the strained allegation that Mr Obama had sought to mollify the protestors in Egypt (the US embassy in Cairo issued a statement that had not been approved by the White House).

In a race between two more evenly matched candidates, Tuesday night’s significance would have been to inject a foreign policy dimension into an almost wholly domestic campaign. That may be one outcome. But Mr Romney has

Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital

How the GOP presidential candidate and his private equity firm staged an epic wealth grab, destroyed jobs – and stuck others with the bill

by: Matt Taibbi

Mitt Romney illustration / Illustration by Robert Grossman

The great criticism of Mitt Romney, from both sides of the aisle, has always been that he doesn’t stand for anything. He’s a flip-flopper, they say, a lightweight, a cardboard opportunist who’ll say anything to get elected.

The critics couldn’t be more wrong. Mitt Romney is no tissue-paper man. He’s closer to being a revolutionary, a backward-world version of Che or Trotsky, with tweezed nostrils instead of a beard, a half-Windsor instead of a leather jerkin. His legendary flip-flops aren’t the lies of a bumbling opportunist – they’re the confident prevarications of a man untroubled by misleading the nonbeliever in pursuit of a single, all-consuming goal. Romney has a vision, and he’s trying for something big: We’ve just been too slow to sort out what it is, just as we’ve been slow to grasp the roots of the radical economic changes that have swept the country in the last generation.

The incredible untold story of the 2012 election so far is that Romney’s run has been a shimmering pearl of perfect political hypocrisy, which he’s somehow managed to keep hidden, even with thousands of cameras following his every move. And the drama of this rhetorical high-wire act was ratcheted up even further when Romney chose his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin – like himself, a self-righteously anal, thin-lipped, Whitest Kids U Know penny pincher who’d be honored to tell Oliver Twist there’s no more soup left. By selecting Ryan, Romney, the hard-charging, chameleonic champion of a disgraced-yet-defiant Wall Street, officially succeeded in moving the battle lines in the 2012 presidential race.

Like John McCain four years before, Romney desperately needed a vice-presidential pick that would change the game. But where McCain bet on a combustive mix of clueless novelty and suburban sexual tension named Sarah Palin, Romney bet on an idea. He said as much when he unveiled his choice of Ryan, the author of a hair-raising budget-cutting plan best known for its willingness to slash the sacred cows of Medicare and Medicaid. “Paul Ryan has become an intellectual leader of the Republican Party,” Romney told frenzied Republican supporters in Norfolk, Virginia, standing before the reliably jingoistic backdrop of a floating warship. “He understands the fiscal challenges facing America: our exploding deficits and crushing debt.”

Debt, debt, debt. If the Republican Party had a James Carville, this is what he would have said to win Mitt over, in whatever late-night war room session led to the Ryan pick: “It’s the debt, stupid.” This is the way to defeat Barack Obama: to recast the race as a jeremiad against debt, something just about everybody who’s ever gotten a bill in the mail hates on a primal level.

Last May, in a much-touted speech in Iowa, Romney

Mitt Romney chooses Paul Ryan as running mate; Damage Control begins

Paul Ryan, ‘Brown Noser’? The Wikipedia Edit Wars Begin for Romney’s Running Mate

By Megan Garber

Aug 11 2012, 9:13 AM ET

Now that his candidacy is official, Paul Ryan’s Wikipedia page will become a battle ground.

Paul Ryan’s classmates vote him “Biggest ‘Brown-Noser.'” pic.twitter.com/P2DrIncJ Photo via Twitter via @ryanlizza – Washington Correspondent for The New Yorker, Contributor for CNN

In high school, Paul Ryan’s classmates voted him as his class’s “biggest ‘brown noser.'” This little tidbit is a source of delight for political opponents of the Wisconsin representative-turned-Romney-running mate; to his supporters, in general, it’s an irrelevant piece of youthful trivia.

But it’s also a tension that will play out, repeatedly, in the most comprehensive narrative we have about Paul Ryan as a person and a politician and a policy-maker: his Wikipedia page. Late last night, Politico reports — just as news of the Ryan choice leaked in the political press — the first substantial edit to that page removed an extant “brown noser” mention:

removing prom king and brown noser from article –see discussion on “talk” page

But then another user put the “brown noser” mention back in. Because: relevant!

And then another user removed it again, explaining:

Removed unnecessary statement from Early Life about … “Brown Noser.” This is not needed in article is not common in such brief survey sections.

As of this writing, “brown noser” stands. As does a maybe-mitigating piece of Ryan-as-high-schooler trivia: that he was also voted prom king. But that equilibrium could change, again, in an instant.

Now that Ryan’s confirmed,

Can al-Qaeda fund U.S. federal elections & candidates? Yes.

As things exist now, in conjunction with the Supreme Court’s decision on the People United case, there are no limitations on money that comes from 501(c)4 organizations. The category of such organizations under IRS rules 501 (c)(4) exist precisely and exclusively for the promotion of social welfare.

While they are allowed to donate to political contributions (under 40% of their revenue) they have typically NOT been checked by the IRS or other governmental oversight entities, and by law, 501(c)(4) organizations are not required to disclose their donors publicly. Such organizations have also recently been misused and abused by International Terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda, to provide a source of funding for their nefarious means. In essence, they’re being misused and abused to facilitate money laundering.

In 2010, a bill (the DISCLOSE Act) was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives that addressed identification of donors to organizations involved in political advocacy, but the Senate Republicans filibustered and prevented a vote on the bill.

Why Republicans – who in the past supported such DISCLOSURE – are now balking at passage of this law is incomprehensible.

—

Senate Republicans Block Campaign Donor Disclosure Bill

By Jonathan D. Salant on July 17, 2012

The U.S. Senate didn’t advance legislation that would require nonprofit groups to reveal who donates the millions of dollars they spend on campaign ads.

Yesterday’s vote on the Democratic proposal was 51-44, with 60 required to advance it. The measure, opposed by Republicans, is a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010 that removed limits on independent spending by corporations and labor unions. Democrats said they would seek another vote today.

Groups that kept their donors secret

News: Mitt Romney to attempt to buy November General Election

Among political observers of all stripe, there is broad consensus that the ruling handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, will continue to negatively affect the political process.

Some years ago I held that the only way to completely eliminate the corrupting influence of money in our political process was to allow donations – even in unlimited amounts as Super PACs do – and to place all funds in one pool, and divide the funds equally among all candidates. By so doing, candidates and incumbents would not have to be concerned with raising money for election campaigns. In essence, what we have now is a perpetual campaigning process in which elected officials continuously attend functions where money is raised, and in some cases transferred personally. Many of them have publicly expressed great distress at the time it takes away from their ability to govern and to perform the duties and responsibilities for which they were elected.

In essence, what we would have is a public/private partnership pool, which could have the best of both worlds.

Candidates could

What does Mitt Romney have to hide?

Mitt Romney provided 23 years of tax returns to the John McCain camp when the Arizona senator was considering potential running mates for the 2008 Presidential election.

Now, he’s balking at providing those same documents to Americans whom he is asking to support him.

Why?

Mitt Romney, Mr. 1% - Cartoon (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

Romney using ethics exception to limit disclosure of Bain holdings

By Tom Hamburger, Thursday, April 5, 1:10 PM

Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney, whose wealth has become a central issue in the 2012 campaign, has taken advantage of an obscure exception in federal ethics laws to avoid disclosing the nature and extent of his holdings.

By offering a limited description of his assets, Romney has made it difficult to know precisely where his money is invested, whether it is offshore or in controversial companies, or whether those holdings could affect his policies or present any conflicts of interest.

In 48 accounts from Bain Capital, the private equity firm he founded in Boston, Romney declined on his financial disclosure forms to identify the underlying assets, including his holdings in a company that moved U.S. jobs to China and a California firm once owned by Bain that filed for bankruptcy years ago and laid off more than 1,000 workers.

Those are known only because Bain publicly disclosed them in government filings and on the Internet. But most of the underlying assets — the specific investments of Bain funds— are not known because Romney is covered by a confidentiality agreement with the company.

Several of Romney’s assets — including a large family trust valued at roughly $100 million, nine overseas holdings and 12 partnership interests— were not named initially on his disclosure forms, emerging months later when he agreed to release his tax returns.

There is no indication that Romney is violating any rules, and his advisers note that his reports have been certified by the Office of Government Ethics, which reviews the disclosures required of presidential candidates.

Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said

The Impact of the Flat Tax Reform on Inequality

Some assert that everyone should pay the same rate of taxes, claiming that one “flat rate” would solve many problems.

I beg to differ.

The inequality of the so-called “flat tax” is quite simply, self-evident, because given that the cost of living is indexed similarly, the one whom has more income and wealth does not use as much to live, whereas the less fortunate and less wealthy use a greater percentage of their income to make ends meet.

Put another way, if it costs $500 annually to live, and you make $1000, that’s 50% of your income.

If it costs $500 annually to live and you make $10,000 that’s 5% of your income.

Who, then, does a flat tax benefit?