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Ted Cruz to announce presidential bid Monday
By Theodore Schleifer : March 21, 2015 : Updated: March 21, 2015 11:02pm
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Photo By File PhotoTed Cruz on foreign policy
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Photo By Conner Radnovich/Houston ChronicleWhen Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, wasn't too busy taking jabs at President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, he briefly revealed his own foreign policy plans at a luncheon in Washington D.C. on Tuesday. Here's what we learned.
Source: Bloomberg View
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Photo By File/Associated PressIn response to Russia
Develop and deploy an anti-ballistic missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
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Photo By JOSEPH SYWENKYJ/STRIn response to Russia
Approve pending applications for the export of natural gas to the Ukraine.
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Photo By British Ministry of Defence/Associated PressIn response to Islamic State fighters
There needs to be a "serious, concerted, real bombing campaign" against the militant group.
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Photo By Scott Nelson/Getty ImagesIn response to Islamic State fighters
Cruz has called for ground troops and support for armed Kurdish fighters in the area. He said the U.S. should "go in with overwhelming response and we should get the heck out."
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Photo By ANDREW QUILTY/New York TimesIn response to America's role in the world
Repeating his stances from earlier, Cruz says the U.S. military is not some "democratic utopia" builder for foreign nations.
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Photo By Dmitry Brushko/Associated PressIn response to Russian President Vladmir Putin
Against a "KGB thug," Cruz says the U.S. should lead from the front and never show weakness.
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Photo By Majid Asgaripour/ASSOCIATED PRESSIn response to a nuclear Iran
Again reiterating his belief that an Iran with nuclear capability is the "gravest threat" to the U.S. right now, Cruz says he would adopt a harsher sanctions program against the nation.
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Photo By File PhotoThings Ted Cruz has said about science.
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Photo By Mayra Beltran/Houston ChronicleSen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is the new head honcho of the Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness. Here's what Cruz has said about other science-related topics.
H/T: Gizmodo
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Photo By SAUL LOEB/StaffOn NASA's core mission"Almost any American would agree that the core function of NASA is to explore space. That’s what inspires little boys and little girls across this country … and you know that I am concerned that NASA in the current environment has lost its full focus on that core mission [by allocating too much of its budget on Earth sciences]."
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Photo By Craig Hartley/FreelanceOn climate change
"The last 15 years, there has been no recorded warming. Contrary to all the theories that they are expounding, there should have been warming over the last 15 years. It hasn't happened."
Source: CNN
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Photo By Al Goldis/STFOn climate change
"I am always troubled by a theory that fits every perfect situation. You know, back in the '70s - I remember the '70s, we were told there was global cooling. And everyone was told global cooling was a really big problem. And then that faded."
Source: CNN
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Photo By Andy Wong/STFOn climate change
"It is not - you know, you always have to be worried about something that is considered a so-called scientific theory that fits every scenario. Climate change, as they have defined it, can never be disproved, because whether it gets hotter or whether it gets colder, whatever happens, they'll say, well, it's changing, so it proves our theory."
Source: CNN
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Photo By Yekaterina Pustynnikova/HOEPOn threats from space
"I was disappointed that Bruce Willis was not available to be a fifth witness on the panel. There probably is no doubt that actually Hollywood has done more to focus attention on this issue than perhaps a thousand congressional hearings could do."
Source: The LA Times
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Photo By Smiley N. Pool/Houston ChronicleOn de-funding NASA
“This legislation does not violate the Budget Control Act. The authorizing committees are free to set their agency budgets, and that includes NASA. Authorization of appropriations has no impact on the BCA limits.”
Source: The Space Review
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Photo By Smiley N. Pool/StaffOn NASA
“It’s critical that the United States ensure its continued leadership in space.” -
Photo By Kim GamelOn his dad's view of evolution
"Some folks have decided to try to go after him because they want to take some shots at me. But I think the critics are better off attacking me. My dad has been my hero my whole life."
Source: CBS News
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Photo By Pat Sullivan/APTed Cruz's dad on evolution
“There is nothing scientific about evolution. Evolution is one of the strongest tools of Marxism because if they can convince you that you came from a monkey, it’s much easier to convince you that God does not exist.”
Source: RightWingWatch
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Photo By Rex C. Curry/File PhotoNotable Ted Cruz social media post.
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Photo By Mayra Beltran/Houston ChronicleSee the Ted Cruz social media posts that lit a fire to Facebook and Twitter
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Photo By Twitter / FacebookSenator Ted Cruz took this street artist's rendering of him shirtless and tattooed in stride.
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Photo By Twitter / FacebookOf course Cruz, like many other politicians, took part in 2014's ALS ice bucket challenge fad.
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Photo By Twitter / FacebookIndependence Day allowed Cruz to reiterate his personal beliefs to followers.
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Photo By Twitter / FacebookHobby Lobby's controversial 2014 was a flashpoint for Cruz supporters. (Source: Politiwoops)
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Photo By Twitter / FacebookSome tweets get deleted for one reason or another, though, with no explanation. (Source: Politiwoops)
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Photo By Twitter / FacebookCruz's took to Facebook to congratulate Craig Biggio on his Hall of Fame election.
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Photo By Twitter / FacebookSome tweets get deleted for one reason or another, though, with no explanation. (Source: Politiwoops)
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Photo By Twitter / FacebookOf course on Facebook posts like this get shared thousands of times over.
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Photo By Twitter / FacebookSome tweets get deleted for one reason or another, though, with no explanation. (Source: Politiwoops)
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Photo By Twitter / FacebookAnything with a call to share and a quote usually gets shared all around Facebook within minutes.
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Photo By Twitter / FacebookSome tweets get deleted for one reason or another, though, with no explanation. The tiger rug might have rubbed some the wrong way. (Source: Politiwoops)
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Photo By Twitter / FacebookSometimes simple things like hashtags and images have caught fire on Twitter.
Sen. Ted Cruz plans to announce Monday that he will run for president of the United States, according to his senior advisers, accelerating his already rapid three-year rise from a tea party insurgent in Texas into a divisive political force in Washington.
Cruz, scheduled to speak Monday at a convocation ceremony at Liberty University in Virginia, will not form an exploratory committee but rather launch a presidential bid outright, said advisers with direct knowledge of his plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity because an official announcement had not been made yet. They say he is done exploring and is now ready to become the first Republican presidential candidate.
Over the course of the primary campaign, Cruz will aim to raise between $40 million and $50 million, according to advisers, and dominate with the same tea party voters who supported his underdog senate campaign in 2012. But the key to victory, Cruz advisers believe, is to be the second choice of enough voters in the party's libertarian and social conservative wings to cobble together a coalition to defeat the chosen candidate of the Republican establishment.
The firebrand Texan may have few Senate colleagues who will back his White House bid, but his appeal to his party's base who vote disproportionately in Republican primaries could make him competitive in Iowa and beyond.
Yet critics of Cruz argue that he will have trouble raising high-dollar donations from traditional contributors, will land few endorsements from the nation's political establishment and be unable to escape comparisons to President Barack Obama, who also ran for president in his first Senate term. And if he advances to a general election, Cruz trails likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton solidly in early public opinion polls.
"I don't consider him a mainstream candidate, and usually to win you've got to be inside the 45-yard lines," said Greg Valliere, a political adviser to Wall Street firms who believes that if Cruz did earn the nomination, he would not win more than a dozen states in the general election. "The enthusiasm for him will be tremendous in maybe a third of the party, but another third of the party will be strongly opposed and another third of the party will be wary."
Senior advisers say Cruz will run as an unabashed conservative eager to mobilize like-minded voters who cannot stomach the choice of the "mushy middle" that he has ridiculed on the stump over the past two months in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
"Ted is exactly where most Republican voters are," said Mike Needham, who heads the conservative advocacy group Heritage Action for America. "Most people go to Washington and get co-opted. And Ted clearly is somebody that hasn't been."
Upon arriving in Washington, D.C., Cruz discarded the expectation of deference that accompanies a freshman senator, launching frequent one-man stands to stymie congressional Democrats and Republicans alike. After Cruz led a shutdown of the federal government in October 2013 as part of an effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, conservative activists flocked to their new hero even as Republican leaders excoriated him.
For Cruz, 44, Monday's planned announcement will culminate two years of open musing about running for president that began nearly the moment voters elected him to the Senate in 2012. Only a month later, as senator-elect, Cruz established a political action committee to back conservative candidates nationwide. During his first congressional summer recess, he was already visiting Iowa.
And over the past seven months, the Jobs, Growth and Freedom PAC has added a coterie of nationally experienced political operatives to the 2012 team of Texas strategists who engineered the surprise dethroning of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in the Republican primary. Joining the team Monday will be Cruz's wife, Heidi, a managing director at Goldman Sachs in Houston, who will take leave from the firm and accompany her husband on the campaign trail.