Intersting insight from February 25, 2016 from the Educated Voter Blogspot.



by Mike Grayson

As of this moment, I am undecided as to who I will be voting for in the Texas primary. But I can tell you who I am not voting for, and that is Ted Cruz. Here's why.

On September 8, 2015, Ted Cruz showed up at the Kim Davis rally, unannounced and uninvited. He walked into the jail and was stopped by a deputy. The deputy told him that Kim was in the back with her attorney and Mike Huckabee, and he would need to wait in the lobby. Ted became irate and attempted to bully the deputy and said, "Do you know who I am?", which was heard by all who were present. At that point Governor Huckabee steps in and says it's OK for Ted to join them. He explained to Ted that all of the speakers had been scheduled and he would not have an opportunity to speak, but he could have a photo op with Kim inside the jail (shown below). Ted was then told that when he exited the jail he was to turn LEFT and go stand with the elected officials, because Davis, her attorney andGovernor Huckabee would be right behind him and were scheduled to talk to the press, which were off to the right. CRUZ SAID HE UNDERSTOOD AND PROMISED THAT HE WOULD NOT DISRUPT THE RALLY. The campaign staff was in the building and they all heard Cruz say this.



Mike Huckabee's Political Director, Jim Terry, was concerned that Ted wasn't going to cooperate and pulled Aaron Chang, who had organized the rally, off to the side and told him to make sure that Ted didn't try to go to the press and disrupt the rally. So when Ted exited Aaron was waiting. When Ted exited he turned RIGHT with the intent of talking to the media, BREAKING THE PROMISE HE HAD MADE JUST MINUTES BEFORE! Governor Huckabee and the campaign staff were astounded at his behavior at a rally he was neither invited to or scheduled to speak at. Aaron stopped Ted, in full view of the cameras (video below). Aaron (in the red shirt) told him that Davis, the attorney andGovernor Huckabee were coming out and that he should go over and stand with the elected officials because they had a schedule to keep. Ted then attempted to bully Aaron with the tactic he had just used in the jail. If you watch the video you will see Jim Terry exit with a cell phone to his ear. The reason he was on the phone was that he was trying to defuse the situation, giving instructions to the rest of the team to not allow Ted on the speaker's platform or in the media pit. Ted was out of control at this point. He tried to side step Aaron but was stopped. He finally relented.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgHgQ-ippPA

But it wasn't over.

Ted and his companion then go to over to the steps leading up to the speaker's platform but Jim Terry was there waiting for them. Jim stopped them and once again Cruz tried to bully his way onto the platform. Jim stood firm and once again Ted relented.

But it still wasn't over.

Then, when Davis, her attorney, and Governor Huckabee were speaking on the platform, Ted goes over behind the cameras and tries to get their attention so that they rotate the cameras 180 degrees, off of the speakers and toward him! It was a desperate and deliberate attempt to disrupt the rally and take the focus off of Kim Davis and put it on himself.


When all of this failed, Ted retreated with a forlorn and dejected look on his face, where I am told that his companion rounded up some of the media to take pictures. The next thing we know Amanda Carpenter (the Communication Director for Senator Ted Cruz), publishes an article in the Conservative Review condemning Governor Huckabee as selfish. The Cruz campaign made a deliberate attempt to make Gov. Huckabee look bad, when in fact Cruz was the villain.

MIKE HUCKABEE’S SELFISH EVANGELICAL CAMPAIGN


By: Amanda Carpenter | January 01, 2016

Charlie Neibergall | AP PhotoBack in 2008 on the day of the Iowa caucus, when I was reporting on my first election for Townhall.com, I happened to be grabbing lunch in the same hole-in-the-wall restaurant as then-Huckabee National Campaign Advisor Ed Rollins.

He sat in the cafe loudly trash talking the Romney campaign to any reporter he could call on his cell phone. Expletives and insults flew. Anyone sitting in the eatery could hear him. I, stunned any known operative would be so foolish to speak in such a way in a public place, wrote it up as an item.

These are the same people who physically blocked Ted Cruz from speaking to reporters at a rally in support of Kentucky clerk Kim Davis.

Today, Huckabee still seems to be employing operatives to shovel nasty, vindictive stories to reporters. This year, their ire is directed at Ted Cruz as they seek to undermine Cruz with evangelicals by lying about his positions, even accusing the Texas senator of supporting “amnesty.”

Huckabee’s SuperPAC is aggressively exploiting a report in Politico that falsely claimed Cruz spoke differently about gay marriage at behind-closed-doors New York fundraisers than in public. In reality, Cruz has made the same federalist argument about gay marriage many times in very public venues.

Huckabee himself has also dished out the same anti-Cruz linel, although in a blog post he wouldn’t identify Cruz by name.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be. These are the same people who physically blocked Ted Cruz from speaking to reporters at a rally in support of Kentucky clerk Kim Davis.

Mike Huckabee may be a Christian, but has a very un-Christian like habit of wanting people to believe he is the only Christian on the national stage. And now, he’s smearing Cruz’s record to do it.

The question, of course, is, whether Huckabee’s campaign is about advancing conservative Christian goals, or advancing himself?

Consider these recent items that detail Huckabee’s anti-Cruz efforts.

The Texas Tribune’s piece “In Iowa, Huckabee Plot Offensive Against ‘Fraud’ Cruz” says:

"Allies of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are plotting a multi-pronged offensive against Ted Cruz as the Republican presidential race enters the final month before the Iowa caucuses.
A pro-Huckabee super PAC is among the central players in the anti-Cruz push, which is already taking hold in mailboxes and on the radio across the Hawkeye State. The group, known as Pursuing America's Greatness, is not ruling out TV advertising as it seeks to undercut Cruz's claim of being the purest conservative in the GOP field.
"All options are on the table from our perspective," said Blain Rethmeier, a spokesman for the group. "We believe Sen. Cruz is a fraud, and we hope to make that apparent to the conservatives taking part in the process in Iowa."

National Review reported:
“Many supporters of Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, the last two winners of Iowa’s Republican presidential contests, are grappling with a pair of grim realities as the 2016 caucuses approach. Not only have their candidates been stuck in the low single digits for months in Iowa, but they also view Cruz, the new front-runner, as a phony opportunist who has pandered to Evangelicals for political gain, particularly in Iowa. And they fear that if Cruz notches a win in the Hawkeye State — especially if he does so by a wide margin, which many Republicans now view as a distinct possibility — he will emerge as the overwhelming favorite to capture the nomination.”

So there you have it. If Huckabee can’t win; Cruz shouldn’t win either.

From an evangelical perspective, this doesn’t make sense. Who would Huckabee prefer to win the nomination? Is it Trump, the man who has said he’s never once sought forgiveness from God? Is it one of the other candidates who are allergic to Iowa evangelicals and are choosing to focus on New Hampshire instead?

Why is Huckabee dead-set on stopping the only presidential candidate who WANTED to appear at a religious liberty rally with him?
The question, of course, is, whether Huckabee’s campaign is about advancing conservative Christian goals, or advancing himself?
So far, all actions point to the latter.

Huckabee has said he will drop out of the presidential race if he doesn’t make at least a third place finish in Iowa.
That day can’t come soon enough.

Amanda Carpenter is a Contributing Editor at Conservative Review, former Communications Director to Sen. Ted Cruz, and former Speechwriter to Sen. Jim DeMint. She is also a CNN contributor. Follow her on Twitter @amandacarpenter.
https://www.conservativereview.com/c...=1451672319138
https://www.conservativereview.com/c...=1451672319138


People from the Cruz campaign then began spreading that Cruz was a victim and was very sad about what happened. They were pushing the false narrative that Cruz was blocked by Governor Huckabee when he showed up unannounced, not on the speaker schedule, just minutes before the Governor, Kim and her attorney were scheduled to meet with the press. He wasn't a speaker. He wasn't on the schedule. This link shows just one Tweet our of many, that propagated that false narrative.

Huckabee Aide Physically Blocked Cruz From Getting Into Kim Davis Money Shot

AP Photo / Timothy D. Easley

ByTIERNEY SNEED
PublishedSEPTEMBER 8, 2015,
6:10 PM EDT89475
The first Republican primary is months away, but in the race to see which GOP candidate could make the most of the legal battle over a Kentucky clerk's refusal to grant same-sex marriage licenses, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee emerged a winner Tuesday, thanks to the efforts of an aide to block 2016 rival Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) from joining Huckabee at Davis' side.

Both presidential candidates were present at the rally at the jail holding Kim Davis, the Rowan County Clerk. But according to a New York Times report of the day's events, a Huckabee aide physically stood in Cruz's path to Davis' side as she and Huckabee appeared in front of the media after her release from jail:
When Senator Cruz exited the jail a throng of journalists beckoned him toward their microphones, but an aide to Mr. Huckabee blocked the path of Mr. Cruz, who appeared incredulous.
Moments later, Mr. Huckabee appeared, joined by Ms. Davis. He stuck close to her side as she approached the reporters, and again when she took the stage, and cast her fight as a choice of tyranny or religious freedom.

Buzzfeed's Chris Geidner, meanwhile, captured Cruz's expression as he watched Huckabee and Davis on stage.A very sad Ted Cruz, not on stage.


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...cruz-kim-davis


Perhaps what is most disturbing about this incident is that Ted Cruz didn't really support Kim Davis in the first place. On the Sunday prior to the rally he was interviewed by NPR and said, "State officials cannot ignore a direct judicial order", meaning that Kim Davis was required to do what the judge had ordered. You can draw your own conclusion, but mine is that he wanted the free press so that he could be viewed as a defender of religious liberty. The link to his response is below.

Ted Cruz: States not singled out by Supreme Court not bound by gay marriage ruling

By W. Gardner Selby on Friday, July 31st, 2015 at 2:06 p.m.

The U.S. Supreme Court holds ultimate sway on the laws of the land, yes?

Hold on, Ted Cruz said in an interview about the court’s 5-4 decision holding that state bans on gay marriage violate federal principles of equal protection and fair treatment under the law, creating a "grave and continuing harm" to families led by such couples.

After the June 26, 2015, ruling, which addressed challenges to state laws in Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan and Kentucky, Cruz said that if a party isn’t directly involved in a dispute before the Supreme Court, it’s not required to comply with the ruling.

"Those who are not parties to the suit are not bound by it," Cruz said.

A reader asked us to check Cruz’s claim.

The Republican senator and presidential aspirant should know about the high court. He argued before the court on Texas’ behalf in a past job as the state’s solicitor general.

In the interview, Cruz told Steve Inskeep, who hosts NPR’s Morning Edition program, that the court’s ruling imposed "elitist radical views," short-circuiting the ability of each state to define marriage.

Inskeep asked if Cruz would encourage officials who disagree with the ruling to ignore or defy it. State officials "cannot ignore a direct judicial order," Cruz said. "The parties to a case cannot ignore a direct judicial order. But it does not mean that those who are not parties to case are bound by a judicial order."

INSKEEP: "Did I understand you to say just now that as you read the law, as you read our system, this decision is not binding on the entire country, only to the specific states that were named in the suit."

CRUZ: "Article III of the Constitution gives the court the authority to resolve cases and controversies. Those cases and controversies, when they're resolved, when you're facing a judicial order, the parties to that suit are bound (by) it. Those who are not parties to the suit are not bound by it. Now, in subsequent litigation, other courts will follow the precedence of the court, but a judicial order only binds those to whom it is directed, those who are parties to the suit. That's the way our litigation system works." (See fuller excerpts of this part of the interview here.)
We alerted Cruz’s campaign to this fact check and didn’t hear back.

Legal experts
Separately, several legal experts told us the idea that states not party to the marriage cases weren’t bound by the court’s ruling may have technical merit, but that’s all.

Richard Fallon, a Harvard specialist in constitutional law, said by email that under the doctrine of precedent, "any official who failed to issue gay marriage licenses would be sueable for failure to do so, and any court in which the suit was filed would be obliged to follow the Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling. In the long run, non-compliance thus amounts at most to a delaying tactic. And there are lots of complicated questions about whether officials should regard themselves as obliged to do what they know a court would order them to do if they were sued — even if they are not technically bound by the Supreme Court’s ruling. But on Senator Cruz’s technical point, he is probably correct, if you understand it as being only a very limited, technical point about a delaying tactic."

In contrast, Lynn Wardle, a law professor at Brigham Young University who has advocated that the Constitution leaves it to legislators to stipulate who may marry, called Cruz’s statement "precisely correct." Entities not party to a suit are not bound by the resulting judicial order, Wardle said by email, adding: "That’s the way our litigation system works."

Only parties before the court are bound by its judgment and orders, Randy Barnett, a professor of legal theory at the Georgetown University Law Center, said by email, but all other courts are bound to follow the court (which Cruz hinted at). So, Barnett wrote, "it is futile for states who are not parties to resist. More importantly, when a ruling is clear, ignoring the Supreme Court's decisions until a court directly orders them to obey undermines the rule of law. Bad people say ‘we won't obey the law until you make us.’ Unless they are engaged in justified civil disobedience — in which case they are liable to be punished — good people follow the law before they are directly commanded."

If nonparties to the suits don’t go along with the ruling, he said, "they are postponing the inevitable and flouting the rule of law that was announced by the Court."

Stephen Vladeck, an American University law professor, called Cruz’s statement "literally true, but deeply misleading. Technically, the only parties that are bound by a ruling by the Supreme Court are the parties to that litigation — and so, in the context of the marriage cases, the small subset of states whose bans on gay marriage were before the Court.
"But the way our system works," Vladeck emailed, "every state and federal court is ultimately subject to the supervision of the Supreme Court at least where federal law is concerned. That’s why those courts generally apply the Constitution as it has been interpreted by the Justices in Washington; if they don’t, they’re likely to be reversed." Asked if Wardle had a point saying Cruz was precisely correct, Vladeck said that read is misleading in that states still have to go along with such a ruling, absent a good-faith reason not to.

In the "immediate aftermath of a decision like this one, when there is no reason to think the Supreme Court would answer the question any differently were a different state a party to the suit," Vladeck said, "it’s unreasonable for a state official or state court to decline to follow that ruling. They’re not literally bound to do so (and, thus, can’t be held in contempt for failing to do so), but they are practically bound by dint of the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction."

By phone, Susan Sommer, the lead lawyer for Lambda Legal in the suits that reached the Supreme Court, suggested that "only in the very most technical and hair-splitting way could it be said that the Supreme Court’s ruling is not immediately and directly binding on every state government and government official in the country." Sommer said she knows of no legitimate school of thought that could say the ruling doesn’t apply to all the states. "It’s sort-of Law School 101," Sommer said.

We also heard back from SCOTUS Blog reporter Lyle Denniston, who’s covered the Supreme Court for more than 50 years.
The Constitution’s Article III, Denniston said by email, limits the authority of federal courts to actual cases or controversies, so the outcome is between the actual litigants, as Cruz said.

Then again, he said, "the Supreme Court since 1803 (Marbury v. Madison) has claimed the authority to ‘say what the law is’ constitutionally, and its conclusions on what the Constitution means in a given case are made binding across the land, as a result of the reinforcement of its authority by the Supremacy Clause of Article VI" of the Constitution.

Denniston further said: "The Supreme Court, in the 1958 decision in Cooper v. Aaron (the Little Rock high school integration case), said explicitly that the combination of the Marbury decision and Article VI made the Supreme Court's decisions binding on the states. That decision, by the way, is the only" one "in history where each of the nine Justices explicitly signed the opinion to give it more force." Article VI says the Constitution shall be the "supreme Law of the Land" with judges bound to it along with legislators and executive and judicial officers, state and federal.

Our ruling

Cruz said states not directly involved in the gay marriage lawsuits that reached the Supreme Court "are not bound" by the court’s ruling.

He has a thread of a point in that only four states were directly involved in the case. But that’s an incomplete answer to the question of whether states could ignore the court’s ruling. Other courts would be bound by the Supreme Court’s precedent, making the ruling applicable throughout the nation. That’s a fact that Cruz alluded to only after being pressed by the interviewer for clarification of his earlier misleading statement.
We rate the claim Mostly False.
MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.
Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.
http://www.politifact.com/texas/stat...me-court-not-/

Then, I spent a week in Iowa helping to organize and campaign for Gov. Huckabee as his National Grassroots Chair. I was told, first hand, by people in Iowa that the Cruz campaign was telling them not to vote for Mike because he couldn't win. Then I saw the "Voter Violation" mailers being sent to Iowa voters by the Cruz campaign which was an appalling campaign dirty trick and drew the ire of the Iowa Secretary of State. Then, the Cruz campaign sent out instructions to tell their caucus speakers to tell everyone that Carson was dropping out of the race. I have also heard by many in Iowa that Rafael Cruz was speaking all over the state telling people that Governor Huckabee supported Common Core, which they knew was false. I wasn't surprised when in South Carolina, the Cruz campaign was forced to pull false ads directed at Marco Rubio.

Those are the reasons why I will not be voting for Ted Cruz in the Texas GOP Primary.

Posted 25th February by Mike Grayson
http://therealeducatedvoter.blogspot...ew=classic&m=1