Subject: Re: Ted Cruz, the reckless accuser - The Washington Post
From: "Alexander S. Mackler" <[email-masked]>
To: "Eric Schwerin" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 May 2014 12:10:56 -0400

I really hope he's their nominee.

On Sat, May 10, 2014 at 11:26 AM, Eric Schwerin <
[email-masked]> wrote:

>
>
> http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-ted-cruzs-dirty-laundry-list-of-lawlessness/2014/05/09/70bb03d8-d7b3-11e3-8a78-8fe50322a72c_story.html
>
> Ted Cruz, the reckless accuser - The Washington Post
>
> Sen. Ted Cruz, in a speech to fellow conservatives at the Federalist
> Society this week, provided detailed evidence of what the right calls the
> “lawlessness” of the Obama administration.
>
> The Texas Republican, in his latest McCarthyesque flourish, said he had a
> list of “76 instances of lawlessness and other abuses of power<http://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1218>.”
>
>
> To his credit, Cruz made his list public<http://www.cruz.senate.gov/files/documents/The%20Legal%20Limit/The%20Legal%20Limit%20Report%204.pdf>.
> But perhaps he shouldn’t have. An examination of the accusations reveals
> less about the lawlessness of the accused than about the recklessness of
> the accuser.
>
> Cruz was particularly agitated about President Obama’s use of signing
> statements<http://millercenter.org/blog/obama-administration-signing-statements-evans>,
> executive orders, recess appointments<http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/13/obama-lags-his-predecessors-in-recess-appointments/>and unconfirmed “czars” — omitting the salient detail that this president
> has used four less than George W. Bush<http://www.factcheck.org/2009/09/czar-search/>,
> for whom Cruz worked as a campaign adviser and administration official.
>
> GALLERY
>
> 10 myths about Obama (that people actually believe): We’ve all heard them:
> Misinformation about President Obama has a penchant for spreading like
> wildfire. The Post’s Swati Sharma attempts to set a few matters straight.
>  <http://m.washingtonpost.com/story/yb_XqhS-EeOxghs7sutHTA_gallery.html>
>
> Beyond such perennial check-and-balance disputes, Cruz’s list was a
> recitation of policy grievances (Cruz, if you haven’t heard, doesn’t like
> Obamacare very much, nor the president’s immigration policy). These were
> interspersed with some whoppers that the senator, a former Texas solicitor
> general, couldn’t have researched thoroughly.
>
> Consider item No. 2 in the “Other Abuses of Power” section: “Backed
> release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi.” This does sound
> bad — and strange, given that Obama had publicly said<http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/president-obama-and-prime-minister-cameron-white-house#transcript>he was “angry” about the release, which was “a bad decision.”
>
> The footnote on Cruz’s allegation points to an article in the Australian
> newspaper, a curious source. I looked up the article<http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/white-house-backed-release-of-lockerbie-bomber-abdel-baset-al-megrahi/story-e6frg6so-1225896741041>,
> which stated that “the U.S. wanted Megrahi to remain imprisoned in view of
> the nature of the crime.”
>
> Cruz, in a preamble to his accusations, writes piously of “the president’s
> persistent pattern of lawlessness, his willingness to disregard the written
> law and instead enforce his own policies via executive fiat.”
>
> The evidence? The first item in the first category (“Governing By
> Executive Fiat”): ”Disregarded 1996 welfare reform law in granting broad
> work waivers for work requirements of Temporary Assistance for Needy
> Families.”
>
> Such waivers were at the heart of welfare reform, which I covered. Ron
> Haskins<http://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/2013/08/28/federalism-work-temporary-assistance-needy-families-program>,
> who drafted the law, told The Post<http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/07/welfare-reforms-architect-you-call-that-a-gutting/>that waivers made the law possible by giving states freedom to experiment.
>
> A few lines down, Cruz alleges that Obama “extended federal marriage
> benefits by recognizing, under federal law, same-sex marriages . . . even
> if the couple is living in a state that doesn’t recognize same-sex
> marriage.”
>
> Cruz’s footnote for this allegation is to a February news article<http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/us/more-federal-privileges-to-extend-to-same-sex-couples.html?smid=tw-bna&_r=1&referrer=>,
> which notes that the administration’s “changes were set in motion last year
> when the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional to refuse federal
> benefits to married same-sex couples.” So Obama is being “lawless” by
> obeying a Supreme Court ruling?
>
> Cruz alleges that the administration “ordered Boeing to fire 1,000
> employees in South Carolina and shut down a new factory because it was
> non-union.” In fact, Obama’s National Labor Relations Board filed a
> complaint — and any order would have been up to a judge, as the law
> requires. In the end, Boeing and the union struck a deal, and the
> complaint was dropped<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/business/labor-board-drops-case-against-boeing.html>.
>
>
> Cruz must have found some of his allegations too good to check — such as
> the charge that Obama “spent $205,075 in ‘stimulus’ funds to relocate a
> shrub that sells for $16.” Actually, the removal of the plant (which had
> been believed to be extinct in the wild) was part of a massive road project
> run by California <http://www.presidioparkway.org/about/funding.aspx>,
> not the federal government. Like thousands of other projects, it got
> stimulus dollars — less than 10 percent of its total funding.
>
> No item was too small to escape Cruz’s notice. Obama “shut down an Amish
> farm for selling fresh unpasteurized milk across state lines,” he alleges.
> Actually, the Food and Drug Administration was acting under the authority
> of a federal court order<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/13/feds-shut-down-amish-farm-selling-fresh-milk/?page=all>— not exactly lawlessness.
>
> There are, among the 76, legitimate grievances about expanded surveillance
> at the National Security Agency and about efforts to get reporters’ phone
> records. But it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that the alleged abuse
> and lawlessness are actually differences of politics and policy.
>
> Obama “shut down the Amber Alert website, while keeping up Let’s Move
> website, during the partial government shutdown,” writes Cruz — who almost
> singlehandedly caused the shutdown.
>
> “Actively aided in George Zimmerman protests,” Cruz complains.
>
> “Canceled all White House tours after sequestration . . . even though
> President Obama had spent more than $1 million in tax money to golf with
> Tiger Woods.”
>
> “Reneged on campaign promise to broadcast healthcare reform negotiations
> on C-SPAN.”
>
> Cruz disagrees with Obama on just about everything. But this doesn’t make
> Obama a criminal.
> *Twitter: @Milbank*
>
> *Read more from Dana Milbank’s archive
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/dana-milbank/2011/02/24/ABhhJwI_page.html>,
> follow him on Twitter <https://twitter.com/Milbank> or subscribe to his
> updates on Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/danamilbank>.*
>
> *Read more about this topic: *
>
> Charles Krauthammer: How to do the Benghazi hearings right<http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-how-to-do-the-benghazi-hearings-right/2014/05/08/86c2a49a-d6e3-11e3-aae8-c2d44bd79778_story.html>
>
> Dana Milbank; As Darrell Issa shows, it’s a bad time to be a demagogue<http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-as-darrell-issa-shows-its-a-bad-time-to-be-a-demagogue/2014/04/11/3bb95134-c189-11e3-b574-f8748871856a_story.html>
>
> George F. Will: Barack Obama, the adolescent president<http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-barack-obama-the-adolescent-president/2014/04/23/a835f872-ca3e-11e3-a75e-463587891b57_story.html>
>
>
> Eric D. Schwerin
> [email-masked]
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>

-- 

Alexander Snyder Mackler
(302) 598-867