Tag Archives: Ted Cruz

How the NRA evolved from backing a 1934 ban on machine guns to blocking nearly all firearm restrictions today

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NRA conventiongoers, like these at the gun group’s 2018 big meeting, browse firearms exhibits.
Loren Elliott/AFP via Getty Images

Robert Spitzer, State University of New York College at Cortland

The mass shootings at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, just 10 days apart, are stirring the now-familiar national debate over guns seen after the tragic 2012 and 2018 school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and Parkland, Florida.

Inevitably, if also understandably, many Americans are blaming the National Rifle Association for thwarting stronger gun laws that might have prevented these two recent tragedies and many others. And despite the proximity in time and location to the Texas shooting, the NRA is proceeding with its plans to hold its annual convention in Houston on May 27-29, 2022. The featured speakers include former President Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican. Continue reading →

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‘Madness’: Ohio GOP Passes Bill to Arm Teachers

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“We aren’t trusted with the books we choose, but somehow we’re supposed to be trusted with a gun in school?” asked one teachers’ union leader.

By Julia Conley  Published 6-2-2022 by Common Dreams

Minnesota March for Our Lives in St. Paul, Minnesota on March 24, 2018. Photo: Fibonacci Blue/flickr/CC

With Democrats decrying the proposal as “madness,” Republican state lawmakers on Thursday pushed through House Bill 99, which would allow school districts to send teachers and other staff to school with firearms.

The legislation, which Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said he “looks forward to signing,” would let school employees carry guns to school after undergoing just 24 hours of training. Continue reading →

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Kagan Pens Scathing Dissent as Supreme Court Kills Another Campaign Finance Rule

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“In allowing those payments to go forward unrestrained, today’s decision can only bring this country’s political system into further disrepute,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan.

By Jake Johnson  Published 5-16-2022 by Common Dreams

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz speaking with attendees at the 2019 Teen Student Action Summit hosted by Turning Point USA at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, D.C. Photo: Gage Skidmore.flickr/CC

In a decision Monday that liberal Justice Elena Kagan warned will further corrupt the nation’s money-dominated political system, the U.S. Supreme Court’s right-wing majority struck down a campaign finance regulation limiting federal candidates’ ability to use campaign funds to repay personal loans.

Established by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, the rule barred candidates from using more than $250,000 in campaign funds collected after an election to recoup their loans to their own campaign. Continue reading →

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US Lawmakers With Pipeline Stocks Profit as Gas Exports to Europe Soar

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“Members of Congress who own stock in pipeline companies like Enterprise Products stand to profit from the push to export liquid fossil gas amid Russia-Ukraine tensions,” according to a new investigation.

By Kenny Stancil.  Published 2-10-2022 by Common Dreams

The LNG taker Rivers arrives in Brest. Photo: Pline/Wikimedia Commons/CC

Amid escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine, which could have far-reaching implications for energy markets in central Europe, U.S. President Joe Biden has increased gas exports to Germany and surrounding countries, benefiting members of Congress who own—and are buying up more—stock in pipeline and tanker companies.

That’s according to new reporting published Wednesday by the nonprofit investigative outlet Sludge, which previously identified at least 28 U.S. senators and 100 House members whose households own stock in oil and gas companies or hold other investments in the fossil fuel industry. Continue reading →

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Ted Cruz’s Pro-Corruption Case Gets Supreme Court Review

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According to one legal expert, “The statute challenged in Cruz is a matter of common sense: the corruption risk inherent in post-election payments effectively made to candidates themselves is obvious and acute.”

By Andrea Germanos.  Pubished 1-19-2022 by Common Dreams

Senator Ted Cruz speaking with attendees at the 2019 Teen Student Action Summi. Phoyp: Gage Skidmore/flickr/CC

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case brought by Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas that’s been described as “the latest attempt to dismantle federal campaign finance rules.”

At issue in the case—Federal Election Commission (FEC) v. Ted Cruz for Senate—is the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act, and a $260,000 loan Cruz made to his Senate reelection campaign just ahead of the 2018 election. Continue reading →

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In First, US Labeled ‘Backsliding’ Democracy as Global Authoritarianism Grows

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A new report calls the rejection of the 2020 election results by many in the Republican Party as an “historic turning point” for the United States.

By Julia Conley. Published 11-22-2021 by Common Dreams

The Capitol riot. Photo: Blink O’fanaye/flickr/CC

For the first time in its four years of compiling annual data on the state of democracy around the world, an international think tank added the United States to its list of “backsliding” democracies in the report it released Monday, pointing to factors including politicians’ continued false claims that the 2020 presidential election results were illegitimate as one of the key elements weakening the country’s democratic system.

The Global State of Democracy report, released by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), called former President Donald Trump’s public questioning of the election results in November 2020 “a historic turning point” both for U.S. democracy and the world, pointing to a knock-on effect in several countries. Continue reading →

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228 Republicans Blasted for Brief Urging Supreme Court to Overturn Roe v. Wade

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“Every single politician who signed this amicus brief is actively working to strip away our fundamental freedoms and endanger pregnant people and families across the country.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 7-29-2021

Norma McCorvey (Jane Roe) and her lawyer Gloria Allred on the steps of the Supreme Court, 1989. Photo: Lorie Shaull/flickr/cc

While praising the Democrat-led U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday for passing a spending bill without the Hyde Amendment for the first time in decades, reproductive rights and justice advocates sounded the alarm over 228 congressional Republicans urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Concerns about the fate of the landmark 1973 ruling—which affirmed the constitutional right to abortion before viability—have mounted since former President Donald Trump appointed three right-wing justices to the nation’s highest court, giving conservatives a 6-3 supermajority. Continue reading →

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FCC Head and Internet’s Most Hated Man Ajit Pai Just Vowed to Kill First Amendment Rights Online

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FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has vowed to reinterpret Section 230 of the Communications Act on President Trump’s orders in a move that threatens to curb what’s left of Americans’ first amendment rights online.

By Raul Diego.  Published 10-16-2020 by MintPress News

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai speaking at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Photo: Gage Skidmore/flickr/CC

Citing “censorship outcry” from the three branches of government, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced yesterday via tweet the agency’s intention to move forward with regulation of social media by looking to modify Section 230 of the Communications Act, which protects the likes of Facebook and Twitter from the parts of the U.S. code that opens publishers to legal challenges over the content posted to their platforms, which inevitably puts content creators, themselves, in the cross hairs of the legal system without the benefit of their first amendment rights.  Continue reading →

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Dismissing Need for Abortion Access, Ted Cruz Claims Pregnancy Is Not ‘Life-Threatening’—Despite Alarming Maternal Mortality Rate in US

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“Ted Cruz has never been pregnant and clearly knows nothing about maternal mortality rates in the U.S. or in Texas.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 9-3-2020

Photo: Mikasi/cc/flickr

Reproductive rights advocates rebuked Sen. Ted Cruz on Thursday after he claimed that pregnancy is “not a life-threatening” condition for women while arguing that medication abortions should not be available in the United States.

After joining 20 of his GOP colleagues in writing a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) calling on the agency to ban mifepristone and misoprostol, which are used in early pregnancy to induce an abortion, the Texas Republican tweeted that the pills are “dangerous” and unnecessary for women’s health. Continue reading →

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Trump’s Election Delay Threat Is a Coup in the Making

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Trump’s tweet was a shocking display of his authoritarian impulses and his very serious consideration of means to de-legitimize the November election in order to maintain his grip on power, no matter what.

By Robert Weissman   Published 7-30-2020 by Common Dreams

Photo: Gage Skidmore/flickr/CC

Earlier today, U.S. President Donald Trump floated by tweet the idea of delaying the November elections.

This is a coup in the making.

Trump’s tweet—now pinned at the top of his Twitter account—says that “Universal Mail-In Voting” means that “2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history.” Thus, he asks, “Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”

Continue reading →

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