US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3457

On March 25 2016 22:58 farvacola wrote:
Cruz fans have little to no problem with homophobia

MEDIA, Pa. — In 1997, Ted Cruz was a young lawyer on the climb when a pressing family matter pulled him to a seedy motel outside Philadelphia.

His half sister Miriam Cruz was living there, spiraling deeper into drug addiction. She was neglecting her young son. And Mr. Cruz was determined to steer her back on track.

With a “really studious schoolboy look,” Mr. Cruz walked up the steps of the motel, his appearance notable at a place where rooms rented by the hour and unsavory characters lurked behind drawn curtains, said Michael Gunning, Ms. Cruz’s boyfriend at the time.

But after a long lunch with Mr. Cruz and their father, Rafael Cruz, Ms. Cruz was unmoved, Mr. Gunning said. Within months, she and Mr. Gunning were arrested at the motel for fighting with several men during a drug deal. In their room, a police report noted, officers found two crack pipes.

With his sharp intellect and steely resolve, Ted Cruz has propelled himself through one accomplishment after another: Princeton, Harvard Law, a Supreme Court clerkship, the United States Senate, and now a strong contender for the Republican presidential nomination.

But as his life was taking off, his half sister’s was going in the opposite direction, a snowballing misery of bad choices, bad luck and, most of all, a losing battle with drugs.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence has signed a bill that makes his state the second to ban abortion because of a fetal abnormality. The measure also criminalizes the procedure when motivated solely because of factors such as the fetus' sex or race.

Pence called it a "comprehensive pro-life measure that affirms the value of all human life" in a statement.

But as Indiana Public Broadcasting's Brandon Smith tells our Newscast unit, even some anti-abortion lawmakers thought the legislation was a step too far:

"Several state lawmakers. including Republicans who've authored anti-abortion legislation in the past, argued vehemently against it. They said the measure, which bans abortions performed because of a fetus' characteristics, demeans women and lacks compassion.

"One lawmaker said it signals a return to the time of backroom abortions. Doctors urged the governor to veto the bill, warning that patients could feel pressure to lie to their doctors."

Supporters of the bill say it "protects people with disabilities from discrimination — saving the lives, for instance, of those with Down syndrome," as Brandon reports.

"We are pleased that our state values life no matter an individual's potential disability, gender or race," Mike Fichter, the head of Indiana Right to Life, said in a statement.

The head of Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky condemned the bill. "It is clear the governor is more comfortable practicing medicine without a license than behaving a responsible lawyer, as he picks and chooses which constitutional rights are appropriate," Betty Cockrum said in a statement, according to The Associated Press.

On March 25 2016 22:40 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Seems likely to me that Trump's previous attack on Heidi was aimed towards making Cruz make some 'I'm a family man' statement which now seems extremely hypocritical, basically making him dig his own hole.

On March 26 2016 03:08 oBlade wrote:

If the US were a normal country on this subject, nobody would actually care who someone sleeps with. But it's not like that, so this could be Cruz ending up the next target of Trump's surgical destruction.

On March 26 2016 03:10 Seuss wrote:


Part of it is that the religious right is an extreme purity culture, so this sort of thing is a really big deal to them.

Given a few years and they'll accept it as part of your "coming to Jesus" testimony, but in the here and now it's second only to apostasy.

On March 26 2016 03:11 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Except this didn't come from Trump but a Tabloid. The same one that reported on the John Edwards story.

On March 26 2016 03:08 oBlade wrote:

If the US were a normal country on this subject, nobody would actually care who someone sleeps with. But it's not like that, so this could be Cruz ending up the next target of Trump's surgical destruction.