CRUZ

I find that Ted Cruz's popularity with Republicans is shocking.  It seems to me that he might even be barred from running because he led the abortive charge to shut down part of the government.  This not only wasted a lot of money but it did not even achieve its goal of getting rid of ACA (Obamacare).  I find him scary pursuing government by shutdown.

I have said previously* that Cruz means what he says, but he is turning out to be a major liar like Trump.  He has lied about his being a natural born Canadian citizen when he said he became only aware of it shortly before he decided to run for the Republican nomination for president.**  Can an outstanding constitutional lawyer be so stupid?  And then there is the matter of his claim that he didn't know he had borrowed up to a million dollars from Goldman Saks and Citibank that he failed to report  - laughable.  Then there are some other wild claims showing he doesn't know what he is talking about such as the article in the conservative leaning Daily Beast:**

 “There are 110,000 agents at the IRS. We need to put a padlock on that building and take every one of those 110,000 agents and put them on our southern border.” There are not 110,000 agents at the IRS. There aren’t even that many employees. There are about 82,000, of whom about 14,000 are agents.***
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Exit poll respondents were asked to complete the sentence, "Do you think the 2010 federal health care law…," with one of three options. The most common answer -- 49 percent -- was that the law "went too far." But the other two options -- that the law "was about right," or that it "did not go far enough" -- collectively totaled 46 percent.***

Then there are his wild statements about carpet bombing the ISIS controlled area in Iraq and Syria which would kill many, many innocent civilians.

Cruz said, And this instance, this deal to bring back Americans who were wrongly imprisoned, we release seven terrorists who helped Iran with their nuclear program Cruz was lying. There were no terrorists released in exchange for the four Americans that were being held in Iran. The Washington Post reported  that the seven Iranians were arrested for violating trade sanctions,...Ted Cruz knows exactly what is in the agreement that brought the American prisoners home. He didn’t make a mistake. Cruz lied, and in the process smeared the President Of The United States.****
  
One might also wonder about Cruz's honesty in his attacks on Wall Street.  You see his wife used to work for Goldman Saks (for 10 yrs and currently on leave while Cruz runs for president), as a vice -president in the wealth management section, no less. (1)  And, ahem, At his CPAC speech in 2014, Cruz made a big show about repealing the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. (1).

No One Is Too Bad For Cruz To Accept Them
In his effort to get the evangelical vote, he has appeared at one meeting where the chairman gave an impassioned rant about how the bible says gays should be killed (though not now because they should be given a chance to repent.).(3)  Cruz gave no criticism of the pastor who did this.

 And it gets worse.  Now Cruz has been endorsed by "Pastor" Mike Bickle (of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City) who says things like:  I believe that one of the main pastors, as a forerunner to the Harlot movement, it’s not the Harlot movement yet, is Oprah. and Bickle says that "the most famous [heaven-sent] hunter in recent history is a man named Adolf Hitler", and has claimed that Jews collectively are "under the discipline of God because of... perversion and sin."  (2)  Cruz says, "Heidi and I are grateful to have his prayers and support."


Dirty Tricks (Note Added February 07, 2016)
Donald Trump claimed that Cruz stole the Iowa election and he might well have as he pulled two dirty tricks right before and during the caucuses.  The first and most mild one is:
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is defending a campaign mailer that Iowa’s secretary of state says misrepresents election law.
The mailer bills itself as a “voting violation” notice and tells the recipient it’s been sent due to “low expected voter turnout in your area.” It then grades the recipient’s voting history and that of several neighbors, citing public records.
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 Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate says in a statement that there’s “no such thing” as an election violation related to voting frequency and that insinuating otherwise is “not in keeping in the spirit of the Iowa Caucuses.”
It is not clear to me that this notice benefited Cruz except that expect he sent to to districts or more elderly people where he thought he might benefit.  It has been said that the names and the number of elections they have missed do not track and that the notice is just made up.(4)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday accused rival Ted Cruz of stealing a victory in the Iowa caucuses and called for another vote or nullification of Cruz's win.
Trump had gone into Monday's caucus voting ahead of the Texas senator by 5 percentage points in a key poll but Cruz ended up winning, four points ahead of the New York billionaire.
"Ted Cruz didn't win Iowa, he stole it," Trump (@realDonaldTrump) tweeted. "That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated. Bad!"
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Trump, who finished second behind Cruz, lit up Twitter on Wednesday with a series of posts saying the outcome was tainted because the Cruz campaign had deliberately spread misinformation about Trump's stand on Obamacare and an erroneous report that Ben Carson was dropping out of the race.
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 "The press is reporting that Dr. Ben Carson is taking time off from the campaign trail after Iowa and making a big announcement next week," the Cruz email read, according to CNN. "Please inform any Carson caucusgoers (sic) of this news and urge them to caucus for Ted Cruz."

I wonder what dirty tricks Cruz has planned for new Hampshire?

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2015/12/trump-or-cruz.html
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/01/what-is-natural-born-citizen.html
*** http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/22/the-truth-behind-ted-cruz-s-lies.htm
 **** http://www.politicususa.com/2016/01/17/fox-news-lets-ted-cruz-lie-claim-obama-swapped-iranian-terrorists-prisoners.html
(1) http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/why-did-ted-cruz-refuse-disclose-how-much-his-wife-vp-goldman-sachs-makes
(2) http://www.charismanews.com/politics/54652-ihop-s-mike-bickle-endorses-ted-cruz-for-president
 http://askanatheist.tv/2011/07/13/harbinger-of-the-antichrist-thy-name-is-oprah/
(3) http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2015/11/06/23118593/christian-pastor-calls-for-execution-of-gays-at-event-attended-by-ted-cruz
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/10/18/15172/771
(4) http://nbc4i.com/2016/01/31/ted-cruz-campaign-sends-iowans-notice-of-voting-violation/
(5) http://www.reviewjournal.com/politics/elections/trump-ted-cruz-stole-iowa-caucuses