visionary Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/us/politics/ted-cruz-wall-street-loan-senate-bid-2012.html?action=Click&contentCollection=BreakingNews&contentID=57236604&pgtype=Homepage Ted Cruz Didn’t Disclose Loan From Goldman Sachs for His First Senate Campaign As Ted Cruz tells it, the story of how he financed his upstart campaign for the United States Senate four years ago is an endearing example of loyalty and shared sacrifice between a married couple. “Sweetheart, I’d like us to liquidate our entire net worth, liquid net worth, and put it into the campaign,” he says he told his wife, Heidi, who readily agreed. But the couple’s decision to pump more than $1 million into Mr. Cruz’s successful Tea Party-darling Senate bid in Texas was made easier by a large loan from Goldman Sachs, where Mrs. Cruz works. That loan was not disclosed in campaign finance reports. Those reports show that in the critical weeks before the May 2012 Republican primary, Mr. Cruz — currently a leading contender for his party’s presidential nomination — put “personal funds” totaling $960,000 into his Senate campaign. Two months later, shortly before a scheduled runoff election, he added more, bringing the total to $1.2 million — “which is all we had saved,” as Mr. Cruz described it in an interview with The New York Times several years ago. A review of personal financial disclosures that Mr. Cruz filed later with the Senate does not find a liquidation of assets that would have accounted for all the money he spent on his campaign. What it does show, however, is that in the first half of 2012, Ted and Heidi Cruz obtained the low-interest loan from Goldman Sachs, as well as another one from Citibank. The loans totaled as much as $750,000 and eventually increased to a maximum of $1 million before being paid down later that year. There is no explanation of their purpose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonniey Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 I really can't remember a POTUS race with such a terrible group on both sides I would vote for Mitt Romney or John Kerry before I'd vote for anyone in the race currently Just sad. Really wish Biden would run. I think there are two or three that would make a good to excellent Presidents (this doesn't necessarily translate as good candidates). Think Rubio could be both a good President and candidate, and while I also think Kasich and Bush would be good Presidents, they aren't good candidates (ie not a snowball chance in hell of winning). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tshile Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 So politicians are borrowing money to run for political office so they can be paid by the tax payers to pay back the loan Is there any part of the system that isn't ****ed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonniey Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive.. You know what else you could call him JMS? Using todays descriptions? A NeoCon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chipwhich Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 The market is crashing because of concerns over Hillary. She needs to get back up in the polls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burgold Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 The market is crashing because of concerns over Hillary. She needs to get back up in the polls. I think it's China, but Wall Street would certainly prefer Hillary to Bernie. Likewise, any Dem to the Republicans (based on the economic plans they've issued to date) Trump's is probably the scariest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGreatBuzz Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 So my wife and I went to the Trump rally here in Pensacola last night. We are by no means Trump supporters. We are both still up in the air on all candidates but we had never been to a political rally before and it was free so we decided to check it out. We really just wanted to see the comedy show. First off, it was mad house. I've never seen such lines to get into an event like that. Secret Service was doing security with the TSA checking bags. I'd put it on the same level as trying to board a flight. The only difference was a flight you need tickets. While we were told we had to go online and print out the free tickets, no one asked for them. Once the rally started, the place was packed. It has a capacity of ~12k I believe and I would bet they hit that. Trump said they had to turn about 5k people but I don't know if I believe that. He had a few "opening acts" come out and talk about him. One was a prayer that felt like it lasted about 10 minutes. I'm an atheist but prayer doesn't bother me, though I felt it was a bit to long. Pledge of Allegiance was done also. One of the speakers seemed to be totally making stuff up. Said he was a Green Beret or something and talked about missions he had done from Laos to Afghanistan. In my experience, the people that have actually done the things he talked about, don't like to talk about it. Told a story about how he always carried a copy of the constitution and once got hit by a bullet but it was stopped by his copy in his jacket (WTF?!?). When he was finished up talking, I looked at my wife and said "Does it kinda feel like we are at a big Klan rally?" and she agreed it did. Then Trump came out and just said the same stuff he always does pretty much. I forget exactly what he said but it was something about African Americans and that caused me to look around. I was actually surprised by them number in the crowd once I made a point to look, especially since I was getting that Klan rally vibe. Talked about the Sailors in Iran and the SOTU but it was still just the same stuff. It only took about 20 minutes before people started heading out. I'm have no clue what their reasons for leaving were but I will note that traffic was a total **** show so they could have just wanted to avoid that. We left after about 45 minutes, mostly because he was just saying the same stuff you see on TV and I had to work today. My wife said she was disappointed that he didn't actually give any details about HOW he was going to do things but I reminded her that all the candidates are short on details at this point. She said she is slightly less likely to vote for him after the rally and I remained pretty much unchanged, though that doesn't mean either one of us really want to vote for him to begin with. One thing Trump did say that could help sway me was that the first day in office he would stop the ban for military carrying weapons on base. Since this directly effects me, it is something I consider very important and could sway me a little. I think I am going to stick with the plan I had before this. In the primary I am going to vote for the most liberal republican that is still in the race in hopes of sending a message the party needs to move away from the fringes. In the main event, I'm going to most likely hold my nose and vote for whoever is the popular Republican only because I don't want liberals appointed to the Supreme Court. That right now is 100% of my reasoning because I honestly don't think the next president will get much done since the parties are to divided to work together on anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chipwhich Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 http://gawker.com/hillary-clinton-doesnt-want-your-vote-1752837033 Hillary Clinton Doesn't Want Your VoteHillary Clinton is not going to make it easy for you to come around to supporting her. “You” meaning the good young liberal, who probably voted for Obama, and perhaps even (if you are old enough) supported him over her in 2008. Earlier this week, Chelsea Clinton, rather suddenly acting as a campaign surrogate, delivered a blatantly dishonest attack against your favorite old socialist Bernie Sanders, and his plan to replace America’s expensive patchwork healthcare system with a federally-funded single-payer plan for everyone: This is not entirely new territory for the Clinton campaign. Clinton has already attacked Sanders’ plan for necessitating taxation, as Jim Newell pointed out last year. That line, that it is unfair of Sanders to propose that the tax burden for true universal healthcare be distributed widely, has also been repeated this week by numerous Clinton surrogates and advisers. “Sen. Sanders wants to dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the CHIP program, dismantle Medicare, and dismantle private insurance,” she said during a campaign stop in New Hampshire. “I worry if we give Republicans Democratic permission to do that, we’ll go back to an era — before we had the Affordable Care Act — that would strip millions and millions and millions of people off their health insurance.” What distinguishes these attacks from prior Clinton attacks on Sanders—that he is soft on guns, that his attacks on her are unfair—is that they’re entirely cynical and disingenuous. Everyone involved in making these arguments knows full well that they’re bull****, with a patina of plausible deniability. Chelsea Clinton has a masters degree in public health from Columbia. She knows exactly how what she’s saying obfuscates the issue. Here is Clinton’s defense of her daughter’s line: Yes, by “dismantle,” and “strip millions and millions and millions of people off their health insurance,” we meant he’d roll these existing, popular programs together into one larger and more expansive one. “Because if you look at Senator Sanders’ proposals going back nine times in the Congress, that’s exactly what he’s proposed. To take everything we currently know as health care, Medicare, Medicaid, the CHIP Program, private insurance, now of the Affordable Care Act, and roll it together.” It would be one thing for Hillary Clinton’s campaign to say that a national single-payer plan is politically unfeasible, that it’s not achievable no matter who our next president is, that it would be too disruptive to the status quo to win the popular support necessary to overcome opposition from entrenched interests, etc. Those are perfectly legitimate arguments, that also have the benefit of being probably true. Hell, even pointing out that Sanders doesn’t (yet) have a detailed plan to pay for a national healthcare program is well within the bounds of honest political debate, as the question of how costs would be distributed is a pretty important one. And the Hillary Clinton campaign has said some of those things. In fact, they’re mixing in some of those legitimate arguments alongside the bull**** ones. But the argument the campaign is making in a sustained way to voters, not reporters, is that single-payer is bad and scary and will cost you money. They’re going full-on demonize-the-tax-and-spender: Bernie Sanders will raise your taxes and kill Medicare. The implied corollary is that Sanders is raising your taxes to give benefits to someone else. Bernie Sanders wants to “dismantle Medicare.” It’s the scuzziest form of Democratic Party political scaremongering, pitched at low-information voters who probably couldn’t precisely define what “single-payer” is, but who know damn well what Medicare is. There’s no defending the decision to pick this particular fight. Hillary Clinton ought to be running as—and for most of this campaign thus far she has been running as—the most liberal electable candidate possible. The only argument against Sen. Bernie Sanders that ought to be necessary for her to make is: Come on, this guy? The deal mainstream Democrats make with liberals (and to a lesser extent, properly left-wing voters) is you hold your nose and vote for the less-bad one, because the Republicans are terrifying, and in exchange Democrats will do their best to at least not make liberal outcomes less likely. Hillary Clinton’s campaign is currently working to make a very popular liberal outcome less likely to be achieved. To have the standard-bearer for American liberalism—which the likely Democratic nominee for president is, like it or not—dismiss single-payer as unachievable policy is to is to decline an opportunity to shift the Overton Window. To have her attack it as bad policy on explicitly conservative grounds is to actively try to push that window to the right. This should give enthusiastic (as opposed to grudging) Hillary Clinton supporters pause. In 2007-2008, the line among Clinton supporters was that Obama was not actually appreciably to the left of Hillary Clinton—that his differences were primarily symbolic, and largely meaningless. There was plenty of truth to that line, especially on domestic issues. (It papered over the primary reason Clinton was vulnerable to a liberal challenger, which was her Iraq War vote. Her undiminished hawkishness is still the most compelling reason to refuse to support her!) But the Clintons always find ways to complicate the claim that, at heart, they’re good liberals. Assuming Bernie Sanders can’t actually win the nomination—and I am positive most people in Clinton’s campaign still believe that he cannot—Hillary Clinton doesn’t even have to make any sort of affirmative case for herself to liberal Democratic voters. She just has to not give them reasons not to want to support her. Is she capable of that? Or does Clintonian contempt for the left run so deep that she can’t even make it to the general election without a cynical rejection of the arguments underpinning American liberalism? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGoodBits Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 **** the Clintons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan T. Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 So politicians are borrowing money to run for political office so they can be paid by the tax payers to pay back the loan Is there any part of the system that isn't ****ed? The only reason it's a story is that it flies in the face of his oft-told tale of how he and his wife sold off all their liquid assets to self-fund a boot-straps campaign for the Senate. A million dollar , 3% sweetheart loan from Goldman-Sachs doesn't quite fit that populist narrative. No wonder he left that out of his Senate financial disclosure statement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGoodBits Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 Seriously that Clinton line of attack is such disingenuous utter bull**** you would think it's coming from a Republican. That can't actually HELP her with support, can it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tshile Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 it's going to be hilarious if Clinton loses the nomination. i know i'm much more likely to vote for Sanders than what I see out of the GOP. i also know a lot of people who will vote for anyone but trump. i tend to be anyone but clinton, but also please no trump. it'd be interesting to see how many people would vote the democratic ticket if it was sanders that wouldn't if it was clinton. i have a feeling i'm in a very, very small group of people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chipwhich Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 I would vote Sanders, no way in hell would I vote Clinton. I can't support someone that openly lies every single time she speaks. It's not politics it's all bull****. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExoDus84 Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 Seriously that Clinton line of attack is such disingenuous utter bull**** you would think it's coming from a Republican. That can't actually HELP her with support, can it? Seems to me she's starting to feel the heat from the Bernie Burn. She still needs to tone down the bull**** though, or alienate all the liberal Bernie supporters if she does, in fact, win the nomination. This is besides the fact that a single payer system would probably be the most beneficial healthcare system this country has ever seen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 The only reason it's a story is that it flies in the face of his oft-told tale of how he and his wife sold off all their liquid assets to self-fund a boot-straps campaign for the Senate. A million dollar , 3% sweetheart loan from Goldman-Sachs doesn't quite fit that populist narrative. No wonder he left that out of his Senate financial disclosure statement. using your assets to secure a loan really differs from self funding how? old news being recycled and was disclosed and reported on previously.......tis a outrage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@DCGoldPants Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 Carly Fiorina @CarlyFiorina Carly’s leading the pack in a brand-new poll: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilmer17 Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 Shes still in it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Evil Genius Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 old news being recycled and was disclosed and reported on previously.......tis a outrage According the new stories, Cruz never disclosed it before. And he still has an outstanding loan to Goldman Sachs (where his wife worked). That loan and the one with Citibank weren't disclosed to the SEC. Per that Times article (and I even underlined a part for everyone). I don't think they got a break..I just think it was conveniently not reported because it was against the image he was trying to portray at the time. What it does show, however, is that in the first half of 2012, Ted and Heidi Cruz obtained the low-interest loan from Goldman Sachs, as well as another one from Citibank. The loans totaled as much as $750,000 and eventually increased to a maximum of $1 million before being paid down later that year. There is no explanation of their purpose.Neither loan appears in reports the Ted Cruz for Senate Committee filed with the Federal Election Commission, in which candidates are required to disclose the source of money they borrow to finance their campaigns. Other campaigns have been investigated and fined for failing to make such disclosures, which are intended to inform voters and prevent candidates from receiving special treatment from lenders. There is no evidence that the Cruzes got a break on their loans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 According the new stories, Cruz never disclosed it before. it was left off 'one' report, and most certainly was disclosed and reported on. http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/09/ted-cruz/ http://blogs.rollcall.com/moneyline/sen-ted-cruz-reports-half-million-asset-that-may-not-be-obtainable/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btfoom Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 Right.. So the Democrats have quite a few good potential Candidates with differing ideas who cross the polical spectrum.. Why didn't they run, or why aren't they running now.. Clinton.. Clinton has actively maneuvered to keep them out of the race. She's got the DNC leadership in her employ literally, and she's even had some of the moderators in her employ like Anderson Cooper. The Clintons have engineered the Democratic field with as few viable options as possible... and I've heard some tin foil hat stories from political insiders who say they've even had some fingers in on the GOP side of the house. It is really scaring me. You and I differ very much politically, but I agree with this post (and several others). Clinton did in fact use her inside position to push out any other contenders (the ones that may actually challenge her). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visionary Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/videos/2016-01-13/why-didn-t-chelsea-s-attacks-on-sanders-make-bigger-waves- Why Didn't Chelsea's Attack on Sanders Make Bigger Waves? Mark Halperin and John Heilemann discuss Chelsea Clinton's attacks on Bernie Sanders' record and why they didn't make bigger waves in the media. (Source: Bloomberg) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/14/nothing-can-prepare-you-for-this-donald-trump-rally-video-video/?postshare=8051452802983076&tid=ss_tw Nothing can prepare you for this Donald Trump rally video [Video] We could write something witty or analytical here, but you should probably just watch it. This is from Wednesday's Trump rally in Pensacola, Fla. And these are "The Freedom Girls." Catchy though.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predicto Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 It is really scaring me. You and I differ very much politically, but I agree with this post (and several others). Clinton did in fact use her inside position to push out any other contenders (the ones that may actually challenge her). Of course she did. That's what politicians who want to be President do, unfortunately. It's what George W Bush did in 2000, when he locked up all the money and all the GOP power brokers long before the first primary was held. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Evil Genius Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 I just don't see any other viable candidates that didn't jump in. Warren - meh. Biden? Sure. if you don't believe his heart wasn't in it. Plus he's always thought of/labeled as the crazy uncle (like Bernie). Who else? The new blood..no. There isn't a single young politician that has the electability or national prominence in the D party that Bubba did in 91/92 or Obama did in 2003/04. edit..Maybe Julian Castro (the 2012 DNC Keynote speaker). But even that's a stretch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcsluggo Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visionary Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 Freedom Girls video LOL, I was wondering if it had been uploaded to youtube yet. I will say this act would make a very effective propaganda tool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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