1/24/16, " "Cruz v Trump 2: The Post-Constitutional Election," Diana West
Part 1 is here."...
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GOP E likes Ted after all:
1/26/16, "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Attorney Heads Pro-Cruz, Anti-Trump Super PAC…," sundance, TCTH. Comments
"This is one of those ah-ha moments when several political variables seem to reconcile simultaneously. For those who doubted the Earlier Tripwire, here’s the evidence.
There is a Super-PAC called “Stand for Truth”
registered out of Lexington Kentucky headed by a guy named Eric Lycan. [Here’s the link – search box “Stand for Truth”]
Mr. Eric Lycan was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s lawyer during his re-election campaign against Matt Bevin. Lycan also has deep tentacles within the entire GOPe apparatus, including the Chamber of Commerce. You can confirm identity from the filing paperwork and the reported contact information which is the same as THIS LINK to the Dinsmore legal group.
Link for FEC Filing [Again search box “Stand for Truth”]
Link to Dinsmore Group Bio
So obviously Eric Lycan is a deep insider within GOPe circles....
There’s no questioning his GOPe bona fides. However, here’s where things get really interesting.
Given his curriculum vitae and the direct connection to Mitch McConnell you might not expect to see this:
It’s a pro-Ted Cruz Super-PAC. The filing above also shows they spent $42,000 to create digital advertising for Ted Cruz, and…
…..wait for it…
….. spent $192,594.00 for “RADIO ADVERTISING”.
It makes a person wonder which radio broadcasters might have picked up some of that Pro-Ted Cruz advertising money?
…and maybe that explains why THIS seemed to have struck such a nerve."...
[Ed. note: "THIS" above links to TCTH article observing that radio host Mark Levin's fiance's son is a Ted Cruz staffer. "Oh Dear – Mark Levin Credibility Melts Like Glenn Beck Tears – Levin Family is Staffer for Senator Cruz…," 1/21/16. It's a soon-to-be Levin family member. About 3 years ago, I realized Mr. Levin wasn't on our side, that he was deeply attached to the Establishment. Hoping I was mistaken, I continued to listen for a long time. Today I can't listen to him for 5 seconds. Susan]
(continuing): "But wait, it gets better….
Eric Lycan’s “Stand for Truth” Super-PAC is not only Pro-Cruz, it is also Anti-Donald Trump. Producing and paying for airing of negative ads in Iowa against Candidate Donald Trump (examples found here):
The filing above exhibits spending of $150,000 for negative digital ads in opposition to Donald Trump and $15,750.00 in production costs for the same.
And this is NO SMALL SUPER-PAC, they are spending $2,251,345.00. They are putting out a lot of money. More money than would come from small donors etc.
But again, big picture, why would a Mitch McConnell aligned type of DC insider, with strong connections to the U.S. CoC, be spending millions to support Ted Cruz and spend millions against Donald Trump?
These FACTS, not suppositions, FACTS, blow the “outsider Cruz” narrative a bit, no? These FACTS also seem to run exactly opposite of this Ted Cruz presentation of his relationship with Mitch McConnell, no?
Exactly the opposite seems to be going on. A DC PAC pro-Cruz and anti-Trump, has the very distinct odor of yet another Cruz-like quid-pro-quo (TPA maybe).
*Note* The “Stand for Truth” PAC is also spending money against Marco Rubio in Iowa, but that reconciles when you look at the CV of Lycan and note the “internet and on-line gambling” aspect. Rubio is being backed by Sheldon Adelson. Adelson is spending money on anti-Cruz ads; Lycan is just hitting back.
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TCTH commenter says he heard anti-Trump radio ads on Levin and Rush Limbaugh on 1/25:
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"mazziflol says:
Wonder if any of the radio adds got paid airplay from like likes of Glenn Beck, Levin…Rush."
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"jakeandcrew says:
Heard them on Rush and Levin –
especially Levin’s show (when I was still listening). I tried them both
today, just turned it on to see what they were saying. It took me about 3
minutes to get fed up with Rush…3 seconds for Levin. What a shame.
I never did listen to Beck."
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"dizzymissl says:
I never did listen to Beck."
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"dizzymissl says:
This is the reason for the outrageous
smears and outright lies by Cruz and his surrogates Beck and Levin. Then
their supporters parrot ridiculous BS they have been fed.
This is pure evil here. Nothing Christian about it.
I join the WOWs on this. Nice work
sundance. As for where is the advertising I can tell you for one I heard
an add from this super pack on 600am Memphis which does Glen Beck, Rush
Limbaugh, Shaun Hannity. So they look to be buying time on conservative
talk radio stations. Not sure if the shows are getting a cut of that or
if it is just the specific stations."
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"Karen's Teacups (@karensteacups) says:
So the VERY convincing ‘Mitch is a LIAR’ on the senate floor, was done with a ‘wink-and-a-nod’? Guess that would be the only way Ted could ‘explain’ to voters WHY he voted for it? I ALWAYS thought that was VERY unsettling b/c if Ted is SO brilliant, his ‘staffers’ knew McConnell was lying, yet he was SO naive, he couldn’t discern, so he votes to give Obama [and all future presidents] ‘carte blanche’ on Treaties?
This is pure evil here. Nothing Christian about it.
Liked by 6 people"
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"andrewalinxs says:
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"Karen's Teacups (@karensteacups) says:
So the VERY convincing ‘Mitch is a LIAR’ on the senate floor, was done with a ‘wink-and-a-nod’? Guess that would be the only way Ted could ‘explain’ to voters WHY he voted for it? I ALWAYS thought that was VERY unsettling b/c if Ted is SO brilliant, his ‘staffers’ knew McConnell was lying, yet he was SO naive, he couldn’t discern, so he votes to give Obama [and all future presidents] ‘carte blanche’ on Treaties?
That NEVER dovetailed with ‘smart and conserv’ Ted Cruz.
So McConnell really ‘likes’ Cruz and the hate-relationship is all theatre? This is SO outrageous!
Does Trump know about this? Am sure you sent his campaign this info. This whole ‘switch’ of Trump with estab, he must have someone tell him something. Otherwise, why would Trump say on the stump, that ‘we need to get along w/estab’ – hard to figure out that part, unless it was purely playing into the ‘Ted has no allies or friends in the Senate’. This is just surreal."
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"yohio says:
Everyone here needs to just hit Levin and Beck over and over with this today. If your on Twitter or Facebook just keep hitting the sanctimonious Levin about ads and money."
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"Former Lurker says:
Earlier I was wondering why Cruz paid no price in terms of committee positions or censure when he called McConnell a liar.
Now I know.
If we stupid peasants rose up Cruz was there as a controlled safety valve.
Remember this when the Uniparty demands fair play and forgiveness from victorious Vulgarians, and there are calls to let past transgressions slide for “the good of the country”."
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"Curry Worsham says:
All of the Cruz excuses for bad behavior are now adding up. He’s a neocon man."
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Following Diana West article mentions Levin backing Cruz on his radio show, via TCTH commenter:
1/24/16, "Cruz v Trump 2: The Post-Constitutional Election," Diana West
"Part 1 is here....
"Cruz's most vocal supporter on the natural-born-subject, Mark Levin, meanwhile -- Mr. Hail the Founding Fathers' Orginal Intent -- has for weeks on the air substituted ad hominem rants for cogent discussion. One evening, Levin went so far as to castigate a Fordham law professor who wrote a well-reasoned op-ed in the Los Angeles Times on the subject for having gone to what Levin called a "third-tier" law school. (NB: The school ranked higher than Levin's.)
All of this name-calling and noise is a color guard
of red flags....It does seem preposterous for an "originalist" to insist
that in the run-up to, say, the 1816 presidential election, the
Founding Fathers would have regarded a candidate born in the British
colony of Canada to an American mother and a Spanish father to be a
"natural born" American; however, that is exactly what constitutional
conservatives out there are saying, with Mark Levin yelling into his
mike: "Stop chasing liberal arguments!
Don't accept cults of
personality! Be freedom-loving, Constitutional conservatives...and
let's beat the liberals!"
Re-education camp, anyone?
Back at the Cruz presidential campaign website, of course, all is serene on the page called "Our Standard: The Constitution."...
Consider the following episode (discussed here by Andrew Bostom).
Last year, the Senate passed the Corker-Cardin
bill, which, in essence, canceled its own constitutional
treaty-making-powers with regard to the calamitous Iran deal. When the
bill came out of committee in mid-April 2015, Levin (ironically), widely
known for keeping that so-called originalist hawkeye of his on the
Constitution, commented:
"The US Senate just rewrote the treaty provision of the Constitution."
At the same time, Richard Viguerie's Conservative HQ editor George
Rasley promptly labeled Corker
a "traitor," describing the bill as a "craven [betrayal] on the
Senate's constitutional role as the final word on whether or not the
United States agrees to a treaty."
The Corker bill later passed the full Senate by a vote of 98-1.
Was Constitution-defender Cruz the one "nay" vote?
Nay.
One
week later, on May 7, 2015, his own amendment having failed, Cruz was
nonetheless among the 98 senators to vote for the Corker bill.
Sen. Tom Cotton, a veteran and, like Cruz, a Harvard Law School graduate, voted no.
Cruz's rationale was political:
Ultimately,
I voted yes on final passage because it may delay, slightly, President
Obama's ability to lift the Iran sanctions and it ensures we will have a
Congressional debate on the merits of the Iran deal.
(And that worked out well...)
Cotton's rationale, on the other hand, was constitutional:
A nuclear-arms agreement
with any adversary—especially the terror-sponsoring, Islamist Iranian
regime—should be submitted as a treaty and obtain a two-thirds majority
vote in the Senate as required by the Constitution.
What does such a mantle even mean in our post-Constitutional times?
Then again, why is it that our times are post-Constitutional in the first place?
Is it all the executive branch's fault?
Of course not.
Thinking over such questions, I realized that my own enthusiasm for Sen. Cruz began to flag when it became plain that he, along with his colleagues in the House and Senate, had elected not to defend the Constitution.
A short review.
In December 2013, liberal law professor Jonathan Turley testified before a House subcommittee that the concentration of executive branch powers under Barack Obama had reached a point where what the president was doing was "not simply posing a danger to the constitutional system. He's becoming the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid.”
Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute also testified that Obama's lawmaking by executive actions "has more in common with monarchy than democracy or a constitutional republic.”
Such testimonies were stunning -- seemingly shattering the force field of media and political silence in which Obama operated.
Cannon further made the vital connection between government lawlessness to lawlessness at large: “If the people come to believe that the government is no longer constrained by the laws, then they will conclude that neither are they.” (See more in my column on this extraordinary hearing here.)
Turley' written testimony continued:
Each
branch is given the tools to defend itself, and the framers assumed
that they would have the ambition and institutional self-interest to use
them. That
assumption is now being put to the test as many members remain silent
in the face of open executive encroachment by the executive branch.
To be sure, the "lawlessness" of President Obama became something of a right-wing oratorical theme, and particularly with the younger GOP firebrands, notably freshman Sen. Cruz among them. Cruz would boldly call out the serial, unconstitutional actions of Barack Obama, and condemn his "imperial presidency," which, in Cruz's estimation, had no precedent in all of US history.
And then what happened?
Cruz, I find, went on to compile a report listing 76 abuses of power committed by President Obama. He issued another extremely dire warning.
An imperial presidency
threatens the liberty of every citizen. Because when a president can
pick and choose which laws to follow and which to ignore, he is no
longer a president.
In no uncertain terms, Cruz, Constitution-defender, was declaring that a tyrant held the White House.
And then what happened?
Was this the opening of a national debate about
impeachment? Was it even early stages, which would necessarily entail
the education of citizens to understand what it means to safeguard
"checks and balances," and to learn, probably for the first time, what
tools, notably including impeachment, the legislative branch possesses
to address executive branch seizures of power?
Politicaly premature? Tell Churchill on opposing Hitler; tell Reagan on opposing international Communism. To my mind, the constitutional crisis today is an even greater existential assault against the United States. It is a sign of our post-Constitutional times, however, that no elected official has emerged who takes his oath of office seriously enough to decide the Constitution counts more than politics.
Thus, it is this mass abdication by the men and women whom We, the People choose to send to Washington that explains why it is we live in post-Constitutional times; why our Constitution has gone undefended against an executive branch run amok; why it is that Obama's fundamental transformation of the nation continues, unchecked by any of the only elected officials in the land legitimately authorized and, indeed, obligated to try to stop it. I think this helps explain why so many Americans are fed up with the political Right: from the GOP, to the "establishment" to the "true conservatives." We are all little black sheep who have lost our way.
All of which means that Sen. Cruz is no worse than his peers; but on this fundamental count, anyway, he is indistinguishable. It is also the case that none of our elected representatives has dared to investigate or even acknowlege the epically outrageous case of document fraud against President Obama put together by Sheriff Joe Arpaio. That may seem like another story, but it is central to the same ongoing mass abdication regarding the Constitution that tragically marks our times.
I didn't really put this all together until recently. But looking back at Sen. Cruz's early reaction to the impeachment question
when it came up in August 2013,
I would say the writing wasn't just on the wall.
“It’s
a good question,” Cruz responded, “and I’ll tell you the simplest
answer: To successfully impeach a president you need the votes in the
U.S. Senate.”
That's
his opinion. In my opinion, Congress's finest hour in my memory is
December 19, 1998, the day the US House of Representatives impeached
President Bill Clinton. Despite his wham-bam acquittal in the U.S.
Senate, Bill Clinton remains the only impeached president in the 20th
century. That counts as success in my book.
The 2013 article continues:
He noted that the Democrats controlled the Senate currently.
In an interview with National Review Online after the Q&A, Cruz suggested he would not pursue impeaching Obama in 2014, even if Republicans then controlled both the House and Senate.
“I
think we should focus on fights that would make a difference, restoring
economic growth and opportunity and fights that we have a realistic
prospect of winning,” he says.
But in regards to impeaching Obama, “that’s not a fight we have a prospect of winning,” Cruz concludes.
If such expediency isn't Washington business-as-usual, I don't know what is.
Expediency, of course, is not in itself a sin. It is not against the law. But it is not the armor of the pure prince of principle, supporting and defending the Constitution against the tyrant at every turn.
Like the unicorn, there isn't one.
This
primary season calls for decision-making with many angles, many levels,
many questions. It is a decision to make among men, not paragons, and
among policy priorities. Post-constitutional though we may, though, it
is not a process in which the Constitution should ever be used as a
prop."
http://dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/3247/Cruz-v-Trump-2-The-Post-Constitutional-Election.aspx
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Ed. note: Please excuse white patches behind text in part of this post. It's google's way of throwing a fit. It hates free speech.
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