POLL: Marco Rubio jumps to the head of GOP 2016 pack

 

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Hunting Season Opens on Ted Cruz - Humberto Fontova

townhall

Humberto Fontova

As if Ted Cruz didn’t already have enough against him media-wise (i.e. he’s a principled, brilliant and credentialed conservative both fiscally-- and even more odiously--socially)–on top of these offenses, he’s also half Cuban.

Forget the liberal love chants to “ethnic diversity.” The Cuban ethnic brand has long flapped like a matador’s cape in front of the Democrat-Media complex. Granted, some of those insufferable Cubans love to flap it.

Ted Cruz-Derangement-Syndrome went viral in the media this week. From Chris Matthews to David Muir and from Joe Scarborough to David Brooks-- they were all over Cruz like a cheap suit. The New Yorker’s John Cassidy called Cruz “uppity”—then weaseled out because the term has “disturbing historical connotations.”

A berserk Donny Deutsch over at MSNBC denounced Cruz as not only “unelectable,” but “scary, I think he’s dangerous, I think he’s slimy and I think he brings no fresh ideas.”

It’s an old story, actually. A few years ago during an interview with Joy Behar, MSNBC’s Donny Deutsch sneered at Cuban-American Marco Rubio as that “coconut down in Florida.”

In settings like MSNBC (but usually backstage) the term coconut (brown on the outside white on the inside) is generally used to castigate “Hispanics” who ignore marching orders barked by Democratic/Media drill sergeants–same as “Oreo” for similarly uppity blacks.

Never mind that the Cuban-American Marco Rubio (like Ted Cruz) is probably more purely Caucasian than Elvis Presley, Hank Williams, Oral Roberts, Johnny Depp among many other southerners who boast Choctaw/Cherokee heritage. Never mind this because the issue here is the liberal media’s hypocrisy—not their stupidity.

Here’s Norman Birnbaum, a current columnist for The Nation, The Daily Beast among other liberal publications, going off on Cuban Americans a few years ago: “Despite the truly repellent Miami Cubans of the older generation and their gallant allies, the Israel lobby, Castro hangs on.”

Birnbaum is also a Georgetown Professor Emeritus and former advisor to three Democratic Presidential candidates. Now imagine a Republican political adviser and—say--Hillsdale college professor/author spouting, on the record on for public consumption, any of the following phrases: "those truly repellent New York Jews" or "those truly repellent Ferguson Negroes" or "those truly repellent Los Angeles Mexicans," or “those truly repellent Detroit Arabs.”

Would he even bother seeking future media employment?

Years ago Joe Sobran –as usual—nailed it by writing that “refugees from communism embarrass liberals.” Bulls-eye!

These refugees are living, breathing, walking, talking refutations of the horrors of extra-strength leftism. This makes leftists of all stripes very uncomfortable. These living, breathing testimonials against their product must be silenced, booted home (Elian Gonzalez) scorned (MSNBC) or-- at the very least—ignored (try finding my books mentioned by the non-Fox Media.)

Whoops! Excuse me, I exaggerate. In fact, these books have been mentioned --shamelessly plugged in fact, but in places such as Warsaw by the Polska Times ( a division of the London Times,) Madrid by former Spanish First Lady Ana Botella, in Sao Paolo by Brazil’s hugely popular Veja. Nothing by the Beltway biggies in my home country however.

Deep down liberals feel that Cuban-Americans had it coming. Only a tiny and filthy-rich clique of mobsters, pimps, crooks, robber barons, slave-drivers, plantation-owners, and sweat-shop owners–all direct descendants of the Spanish conquistadores—prospered in pre-Castro Cuba. They prospered by slave driving, sweatshopping and pimping the island’s indigenous people. Thus goes thefable.

Consequently, people like Ted Cruz’ and Humberto Fontova’s fathers “had it ‘comin—and revenge is sweet!”

Watch: Ted Cruz Announces 2016 Presidential Bid

Is Ted Cruz Allowed To Run Since He Was Born In Canada?: It's All Politics

NPR/ Domenico Montanaro

Rafael & Ted Cruz/ thelapine.ca

There will be a question from some about Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's eligibility to run for president.

That's because even though Cruz grew up in Texas, he was born in Canada. (He renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2013.)

Democrats are sure to remind voters of Cruz's Canadian birth since some on the right have questioned where President Obama was born. The president is a native of Hawaii.

Sen. Ted Cruz says because his mother was born in the United States that makes him a "natural born citizen" and eligible to run for president.

The U.S. Constitution says presidential candidates have to be "natural-born citizens." But the Supreme Court has never weighed in with a definition, leaving it open to interpretation.

It's a question that has come up before. In 2008, senators passed a resolution, making it clear, for example, that John McCain was allowed to run given that he was born on a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, both senators then, voted for it.

Barry Goldwater, the 1964 GOP nominee, was born in Arizona when it was a territory – not a state. And some questioned George Romney's eligibility to run in 1968, because he was born in Mexico. Romney's parents were U.S. residents.

Cruz's parents worked in the oil industry in Calgary, Canada, when he was born. His mother was born in the United States. His father was born in Cuba, but later became a U.S. resident. Cruz argues that because his mother was born in Delaware, he is, in fact, a "natural-born citizen."

Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen...shall be eligible to the Office of President."

U.S. Constitution

And most legal scholars agree. In fact, two of the best-known Supreme Court lawyers – who are not normally on the same side – make the case that Cruz – as well as McCain, George Romney and Goldwater – is eligible to run.

Neal Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general in the Obama administration, and Paul Clement, who was solicitor general under George W. Bush, wrote earlier this month in the Harvard Law Review that "there is no question" Cruz is eligible.

They cite that because Cruz's mother was a U.S. citizen and his father was a U.S. resident, "Cruz has been a citizen from birth and is thus a 'natural born Citizen' within the meaning of the Constitution" and the "Naturalization Act of 1790."

They also point to British common law and enactments by the First Congress, both of which have been cited by the Supreme Court.

Both confirm that the original meaning of the phrase "natural born Citizen" includes persons born abroad who are citizens from birth based on the citizenship of a parent. As to the British practice, laws in force in the 1700s recognized that children born outside of the British Empire to subjects of the Crown were subjects themselves and explicitly used "natural born" to encompass such children. These statutes provided that children born abroad to subjects of the British Empire were "natural-born Subjects . . . to all Intents, Constructions, and Purposes whatsoever."
The Framers, of course, would have been intimately familiar with these statutes and the way they used terms like "natural born," since the statutes were binding law in the colonies before the Revolutionary War. They were also well documented in Blackstone's Commentaries, a text widely circulated and read by the Framers and routinely invoked in interpreting the Constitution.
No doubt informed by this longstanding tradition, just three years after the drafting of the Constitution, the First Congress established that children born abroad to U.S. citizens were U.S. citizens at birth, and explicitly recognized that such children were "natural born Citizens." The Naturalization Act of 1790 provided that "the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States ... ."
The actions and understandings of the First Congress are particularly persuasive because so many of the Framers of the Constitution were also members of the First Congress. That is particularly true in this instance, as eight of the eleven members of the committee that proposed the natural born eligibility requirement to the Convention served in the First Congress and none objected to a definition of "natural born Citizen" that included persons born abroad to citizen parents.

Katyal and Clement conclude, "There are plenty of serious issues to debate in the upcoming presidential election cycle. The less time spent dealing with specious objections to candidate eligibility, the better. Fortunately, the Constitution is refreshingly clear on these eligibility issues."

Ted Cruz to Announce Presidential Bid on Monday

NBC News.com

hardnoxandfriends.com

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will announce his presidential bid on Monday during an address at Liberty University in Virginia, NBC News confirms.

Cruz, a conservative Republican famed for his staunch opposition to the president's signature health care law and his executive actions on immigration, will become the first GOP hopeful to formally announce a White House run.

A person with knowledge of the announcement tells NBC that the senator will announce the bid during a convocation ceremony at Liberty, a Christian university in Lynchburg, Virginia.

A favorite of Tea Party activists, Cruz is known for his filibuster-like speech to protest the Affordable Care Act as a government shutdown loomed in 2013.

First elected to the Senate in 2012, Cruz previously served as the the solicitor general of Texas.

In a March NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll, 40 percent of GOP primary voters said they could see themselves supporting Cruz for president, while 38 percent said they could not see themselves backing him.

The news of Cruz's run was first reported by the Houston Chronicle late Saturday night.

Could Obama’s Cuba Policy Help Democrats in 2016? - WSJ

WSJ

President Barack Obama greets Cuban President Raul Castro before giving his speech at the memorial service for late South African President Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in December 2013.

Reuters

By Carol E. Lee

One of the less immediate, but potentially significant, impacts of President Barack Obama‘s decision to normalize U.S. relations with Cuba is a possible expansion of the Democratic Party.

Much in the way President Ronald Reagan helped solidify Cuban-Americans as a reliable Republican voting bloc by taking a hard stance against the Castro regime in the 1980s, Mr. Obama’s softening of U.S.-Cuba relations could generate a new crop of Democratic supporters.

To be sure, Mr. Obama’s policy changes angered many older Cuban-Americans, who have been reliable Republican voters. But younger Cuban-Americans are likely to largely support Mr. Obama’s moves. And they will be increasingly significant in future elections as the number of first- and second-generation Cuban-Americans decreases.

As a candidate in 2008, Mr. Obama was keenly aware of the political trend that showed a change in views among Cuban-Americans, who have for decades influenced the outcome of presidential elections because of their concentration in the country’s largest battleground state of Florida.

Polls and studies showed that younger generations, who have no recollection of a Cuba led by anyone other than the Castro regime, were far more open to easing the U.S. embargo and accessing their home country. That’s why in 2008 Mr. Obama stood in the same Miami auditorium where Mr. Reagan gave his famous “Cuba Si, Castro No” speech and declared his support for easing the embargo.

Mr. Reagan’s anti-Castro rhetoric during the height of the Cold War energized Cuban-American voters who had been seeking a change on the island since the failed Bay of Pigs invasion under President John F. Kennedy.

In 2008, Mr. Obama’s stance was seen as a risk.

While the overall number of Cuban-American voters across the country is small, they have had a significant effect on American politics and U.S. policy toward the island nation.

Republicans had for decades won over Florida’s Cuban-American population with a hard-line stance on the embargo. Democratic candidates took the same position, for fear of alienating a critical voting bloc.

But Mr. Obama determined he would never be able to out-hard line the hard-line Republicans and banked on a future shift among Cuban-Americans in favor of diplomatic relations with Cuba.

In both the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, Mr. Obama won Florida, receiving 51% and 50% of the vote, respectively. The Cuban vote in the state was split in 2012, with 49% supporting Mr. Obama and 47% supporting Republican candidate Mitt Romney, according to a Pew Hispanic Center analysis of exit poll data.

The percentage of Cubans identifying with the Republican Party has fallen nationwide. Less than half, or 47%, of Cubans who are registered to vote now identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, down from the 64% who said the same about the GOP a decade ago, according to 2013 Pew survey data.

Mr. Obama’s gamble may yet help his party. A Florida International University poll conducted between February and May this year found that 68% of Cubans in Florida’s Miami-Dade County favor re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba–with 90% of younger respondents “very strongly” backing the policy shift. And 52% of the respondents opposed continuing the embargo–with a higher percentage, 62%, of those age 18 to 29 opposed.

When announcing the policy change from the White House on Wednesday, Mr. Obama urged Congress to lift the embargo: “These are the steps that I can take as president to change this policy. The embargo that’s been imposed for decades is now codified in legislation.”

That puts U.S. Cuba policy front and center in the next presidential race and makes Congress the epicenter for a fierce debate.

More In Cuba

• How Congress Could Stymie Obama's Cuba Plan
• Politics Counts: A Densely Clustered Cuban Population
• With Big Moves, Obama Shakes Off Midterm Thrashing
• Seib Video: X Factors to Normalizing U.S.-Cuba Relations
• Capital Journal Daybreak: Historic Deal to Restore Cuba Ties | X Factors to Normalizing U.S.-Cuba Relations | U.S. Blames North Korea for Sony Hack

El Coco Fariñas continua revolviendo las heces fecales sin descargar el inodoro

el canal tuvo el tino de emplear a una entrevistadora profesional e imparcial no cubana - colombiana por el acento- al darle la oportunidad al coco de aclarar su posicion. lo que no se aclara por el desequilibrado o agenton farinas, es la genesis de su proceder en miami o en la cuba. pero algo es definitivo: la ingenuidad politica de los disidentes y opositores cubanos que aun no remontan la etapa del pataleo y se erigen en "politicos" profesionales aunque cobren como tales.  

AmericaTeVeCanal41

una buena recopilacion de las incongruencias del coco se puede encontrar en "Por qué me agrada tanto el camarada Fariñas" de Arnaldo M. Fernández

Will the Republicans take the Senate in 2014?

American Enterprise Institute

Video: Machine Switches Votes from Republican to Democrat in IL

East Moliner

Read at breitbart >>

President Obama in big trouble

Self-Avowed Socialist Bernie Sanders Floats 2016 Presidential Bid

breitbart

By Frances Martel 3 Dec 2013 

One of Congress's few members not belonging to a major party is reportedly mulling over a 2016 campaign for the presidency. Self-described "democratic socialist" Senator Bernie Sanders told his hometown Vermont newspaper this week that he was "very much in the early stages of these deliberations."

Seeking to inject a "sense of urgency" into Americans and those who govern them over the "obscene level of wealth inequality" he perceives in the country, Sanders told the Rutland Herald that he is considering a run. "[I]f there are not people, and there may well be, who are going to discuss these issues," he noted, "somebody's got to do it."

Sen. Sanders has hinted at the possibility of a presidential campaign in the past, telling Salon last week that, while he does not "wake up every morning with a huge desire to be president of the United States," he would consider running to bring ideas to the table if the candidates in the race were not sufficiently to his liking. Among potential candidates, he cited Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren as a candidate he would trust to relay the "true progressive" message. 

He repeated this line of thinking--that he was not particularly enthusiastic about the idea of running--to the Burlington Free Press, and his potential candidacy has made the rounds online. U.S. News & World Report noticed a sharp spike in social media activity surrounding Sanders thanks to only the one instance of his name being thrown around for the race. 

As is his place in the Senate, Sanders' role in a 2016 race--no matter who runs alongside him--would necessarily be a fringe position. Without the backing of a major party, Sanders enters the race with only the name recognition that comes from being a regular on MSNBC. But assuming a fragmented post-Obama Democratic party struggling to create a climate in which a charismatic candidate can rise from the primary's ashes, a big-name third party candidate from the left could sway the general election. 

For a media weary of jabbering about Chris Christie and Hillary Clinton, Sanders could feel like a healthy reprieve, potentially showering the candidate with news coverage he would otherwise not merit. And as the Democratic Party moves further left in its choices of potential candidates, voters who align with that fringe may prefer voting for the real thing rather than sugarcoated socialism, creating the sort of fragmentation journalists love to predict in the Republican Party.

Will Obama’s 3rd term be granted by the ‘Me First Generation’?

canadafreepress/ Judi McLeod

sylvianickerson.ca

In a world where the New York Times can posit that the ‘Knockout Game’ Trend has no import—and gets away with it—no one can know the future, but with the way things are going it is only commonsense to worry your way into trying to do something about it.

People old enough to remember 70 years of Communism in the Soviet Union and its satellites before communism made its hurried move for a safe North America landing,  stand their ground against the misery of Marxism planned for America by President Barack Obama.  But young people, who now over populate the ‘Me First Generation’ stand down against the advance of Marxism in the country they call home.

For millions, who spent a lifetime fighting the good fight against soul-killing Communism and its first cousins Marxism and Socialism, the possibility of Obama serving a third term tops the ‘Worst That Could Ever Happen’ list.

On the Baby Boomer set being the ones to blame for the lethargic response to the horrors now unfolding daily in America, I have the cheek to humbly disagree with the great writer P.J. O’Rourke, who wrote in his Saturday column, The Boomer Bust:

“We are the generation that changed everything. Of all the eras and epochs of Americans, ours is the one that made the biggest impression—on ourselves. That’s an important accomplishment, because we’re the generation that created the self, made the firmament of the self, divided the light of the self from the darkness of the self, and said, “Let there be self.” If you were born between 1946 and 1964, you may have noticed this yourself.”

It wasn’t only the Baby Boomers who twice allowed the fox into America’ chicken coop.  And if the young ‘Me First Generation’ doesn’t join their parents and grandparents in the fight to save America, the fox will never be tossed out of the chicken coop.

We’re late into the night edging towards the top of the ‘Worst That Could Ever Happen List’.

Canada Free Press (CFP) letter writer, Bruce Butler from Englewood, Florida, who writes “the trial balloons are floating” hits the nail on the proverbial head with today’s wake up call:

“The trial balloons are floating. They were launched over the weekend. First by the President when he suggested that he might remain in Washington, DC after 2016 so his girls wouldn’t have to change schools. Second by one Jonathan Zimmerman, a history Professor writing in the NY Post who opined that Obama needs a third term.”

Obama is the undisputed leader of the ‘Me First Generation’.  It is not hard to believe the self-centered community organizer, who went on to become America’s most destructive wrecking ball,  would justify going for a third term if only, (God forbid!) so his daughters wouldn’t have to change schools.

We should all take Butler’s warning that “these are not random happenings” to heart:

“These are not random happenings. They are another attempt to further the liberal agenda. There is still work to be done before the total transformation is complete. And, as usual with this regime, they test us out to see how far we will be pushed.
“We will hear more rumblings, especially if the Republicans get a majority of the Senate seats and retain the House next year. Every remark and every move by the President, Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi should be considered to be designed to sustain their agenda. Americans are not accustomed to being suspicious of their leaders.
This could easily lead to our downfall.
Ask anyone you know from Cuba.”

Amen, Brother Butler, Amen.

Hillary Fundraises for Terry McAuliffe--in Beverly Hills

Now Obama wants 11 million illegal aliens to vote

thelibertysphere

www.redstate.com

Excerpt:

Obama and his minions have found a treasure trove of votes among illegal aliens. At least 11 million. Others place such estimates at 20 million or more.

In my moral and ethical system, people who are allowed to push to the front of the line waiting for citizenship are cheaters. What about those obeying our laws and patiently waiting their turn? They are slapped in the face by our own government. Lawbreakers are given preference.

This is unethical, immoral, illegal, and a disgrace to all that is good, right, and honorable.

Click here to read the entire article at Anthony G. Martin's National Conservative Examiner.

Ted Cruz Releases Birth Certificate — and Is Apparently a Canadian Citizen (But…)

TheBlaze.com
Madeleine Morgenstern

Sen. Ted Cruz, (R-Texas), speaks during the family leadership summit in Ames, Iowa Saturday Aug. 10, 2013. (AP)

In an apparent effort to quash the nascent speculation about his eligibility for president one day, Sen. Ted Cruz has released his birth certificate showing definitively that his mother was, and therefore he was born, an American citizen — but also apparently exposes his Canadian citizenship as well.

Cruz (R-Texas) shared his birth certificate with the Dallas Morning News, showing that he was born in Calgary, Alberta to an American citizen mother, which gave him American citizenship. But legal experts told the newspaper that Cruz also became a Canadian citizen as soon as he was born, by virtue of Canada’s automatic citizenship laws.

“He’s a Canadian,” attorney Stephen Green, the former head of the Canadian Bar Association’s Citizenship and Immigration Section, told the Dallas Morning News.

Cruz’s office denied knowing he had dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship.

“Senator Cruz became a U.S. citizen at birth, and he never had to go through a naturalization process after birth to become a U.S. citizen,” spokeswoman Catherine Frazier told the Dallas Morning News. “To our knowledge, he never had Canadian citizenship, so there is nothing to renounce.”

Sen. Ted Cruz released his birth certificate to the Dallas Morning News. (Image source: Dallas Morning News)

Frazier said Cruz’s mother registered his birth with the U.S. consulate and that he received a U.S. passport when he was in high school.

That doesn’t change the fact that being born in Alberta made him a Canadian citizen, experts said.

“If a child was born in the territory, he is Canadian, period,” University of Montreal law professor France Houle told the newspaper. “He can ask for a passport. He can vote.”

President Barack Obama has long faced skepticism about his birth in Hawaii and whether he is eligible to be president, including after the White House released his birth certificate in 2011.

Cruz, a Tea Party favorite, has dismissed questions about his citizenship, including telling ABC News in July he was “not going to engage in a legal debate.”

Now in Arizona you can vote without proof of citizenship

viva la political correctness, viva la raza!

-----------------

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Cuban-Canadian-American Ted Cruz ’16? Texas senator’s path might not be so easy

firstread

es.wikipedia.org

By Michael O’Brien , Political Reporter, NBC News

Conservative firebrand Ted Cruz, the Texas senator whose service in office is just four months long, is considering a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, according to a report on Wednesday by National Review.

The Texas Republican has quickly won the fervent support of grassroots conservatives since his election last November by breaking with Senate convention to aggressively challenge Democrats – and some Republicans, too. Citing anonymous sources, the National Review article suggested Cruz might look to quickly capitalize on his newfound fame, and rally conservatives behind his candidacy.

But there are significant barriers to Cruz winning the GOP nod in 2016, let alone winning the White House. Here are a few of them:

Cruz would face tough conservative competitionWhile Cruz has charmed figures ranging from conservative bloggers to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, he could encounter a Republican primary field that would hardly cede the most conservative bloc within the GOP to Cruz. 

It’s easy to conceive of a series of Republican presidential hopefuls – Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (and possibly more) – vying for the same segment of the Republican primary vote as Cruz. Any one of those candidates will almost encounter difficulty in harnessing the political power of the Tea Party, a movement that has never been particularly well-known for acting in concert.

Fantasy vs. realityIf Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s bid for the Republican nomination in 2012 taught political observers anything, it’s that being a potential candidate is always easier to execute than being an actual candidate.

Conservatives, searching for an alternative to the establishment-backed favorite, Mitt Romney, practically begged Perry to make a late entry into the primary. They extolled his conservatism and the positive jobs situation in Texas, arguing that his record, combined with a top-notch team of consultants, would make Perry the new favorite for the GOP nomination.

Of course, things didn’t turn out that way. Perry withered under the national spotlight and the scrutiny of rival Republican candidates. Recent history is littered with examples of similar primary candidates, like Democratic hopeful Wesley Clark in 2004, and former Sen. Fred Thompson’s foray into the GOP primary of 2008. Their candidacies fizzled after having won broad acclaim at their outset.

Cruz would almost certainly face stiff opposition in a Republican primary that could expose any of his flaws as a politician. Wednesday’s National Review article cited Cruz’s experience as an award-winning debater, but his performances in those contests have never been filtered through the prism of rival campaigns or the national media.

The establishment would strike backCruz’s path to the GOP nomination would almost certainly rely on an outside strategy in which he courts conservative activists and rails against the party establishment in Washington. But would the D.C. establishment necessarily take that kind of criticism while sitting down?

In 2012, the GOP establishment quickly rallied around Romney, if only after it became apparent that there would be no other serious contenders for the presidency available. And when it seemed as though the more conservative Rick Santorum might emerge to dethrone Romney during the primaries, there were serious rumblings that GOP money men might scramble to find an alternative candidate who they regarded as more formidable versus President Barack Obama in the general election.

Given Cruz’s conservatism, it isn’t tough to imagine the GOP establishment rallying around a candidate perceived as more electable to if a Cruz candidacy  came too close to victory.

It doesn’t help Cruz that he’s forged few alliances during his short time in the nation’s capital. He most recently derided many of his congressional colleagues as “squishes,” and spoke publicly about internal Republican debates that were supposed to remain confidential. Cruz has worked with a few fellow conservatives, but two of them – Paul and Rubio – could end up being rival candidates for the GOP nomination in 2016.

Oh, Canada!The National Review article acknowledges that Cruz advisers are prepared for a legal challenge to his eligibility to serve as president, reminiscent of the “birther” attacks conservatives had leveled against Obama for much of his first term. 

At issue is Cruz’s birthplace. He was born in Calgary, Canada, the son of a Cuban refugee father and a U.S. citizen mother. Having been born outside the continental U.S., he would have to address questions about whether he is a “natural born” U.S. citizen, which the Constitution requires of a prospective president.

But even if Cruz is able to offer up all the evidence in the world of his eligibility, it’s not tough to imagine Democratic candidates and super PACs relishing in the chance to give a Republican his comeuppance, and turn the “birther” phenomenon back against a GOP hopeful. 

He’s barely a blip in the polls right nowCruz could certainly raise his national profile in the next few years, but the Texas senator hasn’t yet registered as a contender for the GOP nomination in any credible poll testing the 2016 field.

A Quinnipiac University poll at the beginning of last month found that Rubio was the slight, early favorite among Republican primary voters; 19 percent of them said they would favor the Florida senator as their nominee in 2016. And while other contenders like Paul, Walker, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell all registered some level of support, Cruz did not.

Cruz still faces the challenge of building his reputation outside of conservative, Washington-focused circles. But he still has plenty of upside, too; having been a figure on the national stage for such a short period of time, Cruz’s name ID among primary voters has virtually nowhere to go but up.

Officials found guilty in Obama, Clinton ballot petition fraud

Fox News

By Eric Shawn
A jury in South Bend, Indiana has found that fraud put President Obama and Hillary Clinton on the presidential primary ballot in Indiana in the 2008 election. Two Democratic political operatives were convicted Thursday night in the illegal scheme after only three hours of deliberations. They were found guilty on all counts.
Former longtime St. Joseph County Democratic party Chairman Butch Morgan Jr.  was found guilty of felony conspiracy counts to commit petition fraud and forgery, and former county Board of Elections worker Dustin Blythe was found guilty of felony forgery counts and falsely making a petition, after being accused of faking petitions that enabled Obama, then an Illinois Senator, to get on the presidential primary ballot for his first run for the White House.
Morgan was accused of being the mastermind behind the plot.
According to testimony from two former Board of Election officials who pled guilty, Morgan ordered Democratic officials and workers to fake the names and signatures that Obama and Clinton needed to qualify for the presidential race. Blythe, then a Board of Elections employee and Democratic Party volunteer, was accused of forging multiple pages of the Obama petitions.
"I think this helped uphold the integrity of the electoral system," the prosecutor, Stan Levco told reporters.
“Their verdict of guilt is not a verdict against Democrats, but for honest and fair elections,” he said.
The scheme was hatched in January of 2008, according to affidavits from investigators who cite former Board of Registration worker Lucas Burkett, who told them he was in on the plan at first, but then became uneasy and quit. He waited three years before telling authorities about it, but if revelations about any forgeries were raised during the election, the petitions could have been challenged during the contest. A candidate who did not qualify with enough legitimate signatures at the time, could have been bounced from the ballot.
The case raise questions about whether in 2008, then candidate Obama actually submitted enough legitimate signatures to have legally qualified for the primary ballot.
“I think had they been challenged successfully, he probably would not have been on the ballot,” Levco told Fox News.
Under state law, presidential candidates need to qualify for the primary ballots with 500 signatures from each of the state's nine congressional districts. Indiana election officials say that in St. Joseph County, which is the 2nd Congressional district, the Obama campaign qualified with 534 signatures; Clinton's camp had 704.
Prosecutors say that in President Obama's case, nine of the petition pages were apparently forged. Each petition contains up to 10 names, making a possible total of 90 names, which, if faked, could have brought the Obama total below the legal limit required to qualify. Prosecutors say 13 Clinton petitions were apparently forged, meaning up to 130 possibly fake signatures.  Even if 130 signatures had been challenged, it would have still left Mrs. Clinton with enough signatures to meet the 500 person threshold.
Levco said a total of “100 to 200” signatures had been forged on Obama’s and Clinton’s petitions.
An Indiana State Police investigator said in court papers that the agency examined the suspect Obama petitions and "selected names at random from each of the petition pages and contacted those people directly. We found at least one person (and often multiple people) from each page who confirmed that they had not signed" petitions "or given consent for their name and/or signature to appear."
Numerous voters told Fox News that they never signed the petitions.
"That's not my signature," Charity Rorie, a mother of four, told us when we showed her the Obama petition with her name and signature. She was stunned, saying that it "absolutely" was a fake.
Charity told Fox News that her husband's entry was also a forgery, and that they have never been contacted by investigators or any authorities looking into the scandal.
"It's scary, it's shocking. It definitely is illegal," she told us.
Robert Hunter, Jr. told Fox news that his name was faked, too.
"I did not sign for Barack Obama," he told us. As he examined the Obama petition in his hands, Hunter pointed out that "I always put 'Junior' after my name, every time...there's no 'Junior' there
Even a former Democratic Governor of Indiana, Joe Kernan, told Fox News that his name was forged.
“This is a bitter sweet moment for free and fair elections," observed Ryan Nees, the Indiana born Yale “University senior who first exposed the scheme in the independent political newsletter, Howey Politics Indiana and South Bend Tribune.
Nees said the multiple guilty verdicts were "bitter, because a five-person conspiracy succeeded in illegally placing two presidential candidates on the ballot, but sweet because they were exposed, tried for their crimes, and convicted."
Nees previously told Fox News that the fraud was clearly evident, "because page after page of signatures are all in the same handwriting," and that nobody raised any red flags "because election workers in charge of verifying their validity were the same people faking the signatures."
Fox News' Meredith Amor contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/26/officials-found-guilty-in-obama-clinton-ballot-petition-fraud/#ixzz2RadqhiYN

Barbara Bush Doesn't Want Jeb To Run

Breitbart-TV

Former first ladies Barbara Bush on Jeb's potential presidential run "He's by far the best qualified man, but no, I really don't. I think it's a great country. There are a lot of great families, and it's not just four families or whatever. There are other people out there that are very qualified. We've had enough Bushes."

"He'll get all our enemies, half of our friends." 

Cyberattack on Florida election is first known case in US, experts say

Tim Chapman / Miami Herald

About 2,000 rejected absentee ballots at Miami-Dade Elections Department, mostly for lack of signatures or review of signatures from the last election.

By Gil Aegerter
Staff Writer, NBC News

An attempt to illegally obtain absentee ballots in Florida last year is the first known case in the U.S. of a cyberattack against an online election system, according to computer scientists and lawyers working to safeguard voting security.

The case involved more than 2,500 “phantom requests” for absentee ballots, apparently sent to the Miami-Dade County elections website using a computer program, according to a grand jury report on problems in the Aug. 14 primary election. It is not clear whether the bogus requests were an attempt to influence a specific race, test the system or simply interfere with the voting. Because of the enormous number of requests – and the fact that most were sent from a small number of computer IP addresses in Ireland, England, India and other overseas locations – software used by the county flagged them and elections workers rejected them.

Computer experts say the case exposes the danger of putting states’ voting systems online – whether that’s allowing voters to register or actually vote.

“It’s the first documented attack I know of on an online U.S. election-related system that’s not (involving) a mock election,” said David Jefferson, a computer scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who is on the board of directors of the Verified Voting Foundation and the California Voter Foundation.

Other experts contacted by NBC News agreed that the attempt to obtain the ballots is the first known case of a cyberattack on voting, though they noted that there are so many local elections systems in use that it's possible that a similar attempt has gone unnoticed.

There have been allegations of election system hacking before in the U.S., but investigations of irregularities have found only software glitches, voting machine failures, voter error or inconclusive evidence. Where there has been evidence of a computer security breach -- such as a 2006 incident in Sarasota, Fla., in which  a computer worm that had been around for years raised havoc with the county elections voter database -- it was unclear whether the worm's appearance was timed to interfere with the election.

In any case, experts say they’ve been warning about this sort of attack for years.

“This has been in the cards, it’s been foreseeable,” said law Professor Candice Hoke, founding director of the Center for Election Integrity at Cleveland State University.

The primary election in Miami-Dade County in August 2012 involved state and local races along with U.S. Senate and congressional contests (see a sample ballot here). The Miami Herald, which first reported the irregularities, said the fraudulent requests for ballots targeted Democratic voters in the 26th Congressional District and Republicans in Florida House districts 103 and 112. None of the races’ outcomes could have been altered by that number of phantom ballots, the Herald said.

Overseas “anonymizers” -- proxy servers that make Internet activity untraceable -- kept the originating computers’ location secret and prevented law enforcement from figuring out who was responsible, according to the grand jury report, issued in December. The state attorney’s office closed the case in January without identifying a suspect.

Read the Miami-Dade County grand jury report (PDF) >>

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