Sharing is caring!

By: Renee Nal | New Zeal

There are quite a few rumors floating around in social media about Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz.

Americans are used to the mainstream media lying about Ted Cruz (see here, here & here for just some examples.) But it is particularly painful when the lies come from supposed truth-tellers. The largest culprits starting and perpetuating anti-Cruz falsehoods are sundance of the Conservative Treehouse and Dianne Marshall of the Marshall Report. They blatantly lie, or tell cherry-picked half truths, which are promptly disseminated in social media by an army of bullies who are seemingly not interested in civil debate.

Why create false stories if the candidate is so bad?

The clearly coordinated effort is particularly disturbing because: 1.) it frankly smashes conventional wisdom that ad hominem baseless attacks are the tool of the left – not the principled right, and 2.) the social media bullies may serve to intimidate people from posting positive stories or opinions about Ted Cruz.

Here are some of the most persistent lies, myths and rumors about Ted Cruz:

FAKE!! Ted Cruz stole the Iowa Caucus

The charge is that the members of the Ted Cruz campaign lied about fellow presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson in order to steal his votes. The truth is that CNN’s Chris Moody, using “two [unnamed] sources, on the record” from Carson’s campaign gave the distinct impression, along with CNN correspondents Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, that Carson was taking a break from campaigning.

Ted Cruz’s people used the information which came out as a “BREAKING” news story right before the caucus. The information was readily available to anyone who had a mobile phone at the Caucus, i.e., everyone. Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and yes, Donald Trump supporters ALL used this information.

Ted Cruz is the only one to apologize, but CNN should apologize publicly to Ted Cruz.

FAKE!! Disgruntled Ted Cruz Campaign Staff are Resigning

This completely fabricated story about a fake disgruntled Cruz staffer named “Don Fairly” was originated by a pro-Trump twitter user named @LandmanMarius (a twitter account that was evidently born to praise Donald Trump).

A series of tweets claimed that a staffer opened up over coffee to tell @LandmanMarius about how the fake “Don Fairly” quit Ted Cruz’s campaign along with seven others because Cruz was “impossible to work with” and “[K]eeps changing positions on policy to suit voters” and bizarrely, that he only pretends to pray for the sake of the media.

The completely fake story designed to slam Ted Cruz was repeated at the Conservative Treehouse and the Marshall Report. After this story was exposed at TrevorLoudon.com, @LandmanMarius deleted all tweets related to the fake Don Fairly.

This screenshot shows one of the Don Fairly tweets as posted at the Conservative Treehouse before it was deleted.

The TRUTH about the culture of the Cruz campaign is more likely reflected at this must-read article at PJMedia:

“Cruz’s Iowa Win In Part Due to Culture of Kindness and Courage at Campaign HQ”

As an aside, it should be noted that @LandmanMarius also since deleted tweets claiming voter fraud in the wake of Cruz’s win in Iowa that were highlighted at TrevorLoudon.com.

Benghazi was certainly not a phony scandal, but Ted Cruz stealing the Iowa Caucus is a phony scandal.

FAKE!! Ted Cruz was a part of the establishment who went after Chris McDaniel in Mississippi

In a nutshell, Cruz was a vice chairman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), who supported then-incumbent Senator Thad Cochran in 2014 over tea party favorite State Senator Chris McDaniel. Cruz became a part of the organization, however, “based on a explicit commitment from leadership that the NRSC was going to stay out of primaries,” as reported at Buzzfeed at the time.

“Sundance” at The Conservative Treehouse highlights an interview where Cruz referred to the NRSC as the “DC Machine” on a broadcast with Mark Levin, implying that Cruz was deliberately distancing himself from the NRSC. During the call, Cruz defended McDaniel and even called for an investigation. “Sundance” writes about this like it was some huge revelation that Cruz used the term “DC machine” in order to mask his involvement with the NRSC, but in fact Cruz’s role as vice chair was no secret at the time.

Sundance writes:

You’ll note in the interview that Senator Ted Cruz seems to express disgust and outrage at the tactics being deployed by what he calls the ‘DC Machine’. Senator Cruz states the campaign conduct in the Mississippi runoff was ‘incredibly disappointing’ etc. and even goes on to say an investigation is warranted. Eventually, we found out who paid for those racist attack ads, and who paid for the phone calls, and who paid for the Democrats to come out and support Thad Cochran in the Mississippi primary runoff. Oh, we found out alright. It was the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC)…

Far from being evidence that Ted Cruz is an anti-Conservative RINO bent on destroying the Constitution, the filing shows one thing only: that the NRSC paid for advertising on behalf of Thad Cochran. It is unknown what Cruz’s involvement would have been in general expenditures, much less the nature of the advertising.

Considering that Cruz went public and that Chris McDaniel actually joined Ted Cruz on his campaign, it is highly unlikely that Ted Cruz is a secret RINO.

What WAS reported at the time was that Cruz was “assailed” for not toeing the line over at the NRSC, as reported at RedState:

The National Republican Senatorial Committee was particularly spiteful with both their outside consultants and inside communications team, led by Brad Dayspring, attacking anyone and any group that strayed from Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS). They assailed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who at the time was even a co-chair of the NRSC.

Back in July 2014, an article at the Washington Post titled “Ted Cruz slams ‘D.C. machine’ over Mississippi runoff, wants voter-fraud investigation” clearly illustrated that Cruz was on the right side of history:

“Cruz stayed out of the Mississippi primary. But his comments align him with McDaniel against his Senate colleague Cochran at a time when Republicans remain sharply divided in Mississippi.”

Consider this from The Hill at the time:

GOP hopes of corralling Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) during the 2014 primary season are officially dead. The defiant Republican’s brutal criticism of Sen. Thad Cochran’s (R-Miss.) reelection campaign on Tuesday — and the involvement of a group he is technically a vice chairman of, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) — is just the latest example of the Tea Party hero refusing to play nice.

Again, McDaniel even campaigned with Ted Cruz.

Chris McDaniel is with @tedcruz at his first stop in Mississippi. Cruz says McDaniel ran an “historic election.” pic.twitter.com/ZwKIk7LlnJ — Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) August 11, 2015

But this was not mentioned by “sundance” at the Conservative Treehouse when he accused Cruz of being a part of Thad Cochran’s gang of RINO’s who acted in the most horrendous manner toward Chris McDaniel.

FAKE!! Ted Cruz is a RINO worked with Mitch McConnell

This charge, again originated by our friend “sundance,” claims that because Cruz initially said he would stay out of races dealing with GOP incumbents (along with Rand Paul); he basically conspired with Mitch McConnell to take out Chris McDaniel.

“Sundance” writes (this author’s comments are bold):

Remember, this agreement is the set up to the Mississippi fiasco of 2014 with Thad Cochran and Chris McDaniel (true, but Cruz BROKE this agreement and in fact called for an investigation). The agreement gave both Rand Paul and Ted Cruz leadership approvals for their 2016 presidential race (Unsourced. where is this documented?).

It is more likely that McConnell wanted to bring Cruz into the establishment for strategic reasons. Cruz revealed in his book “A Time for Truth” that Mitch McConnell assured Cruz that the NRSC “would stay out of primaries from here on out.”

As reported at Politico, Cruz writes:

“But it soon became clear that the NRSC had every intention of supporting incumbents — in primaries — against conservative challengers across the country. And in open races, it actively urged donors to give money to candidates opposing tea party conservatives. That didn’t sit right with me. … It was yet another lesson: Assurances in Washington come with expiration dates.”

But regardless, Ted Cruz did NOT keep his mouth shut over Mississippi, and was in fact incredibly vocal about the dirty tricks from what he referred to as the “D.C. machine” (see above).

“Sundance” also put Ted Cruz in the same camp with Rand Paul, claiming that the fact that since the two Senators agreed not to get involved in primaries, they were equally awful or something. But there are two things wrong with this:

Again, Cruz did not live up to the agreement and vocally came out against the establishment in Mississippi (see above). Rand Paul actually endorsed Mitch McConnell, sealing his fate with many in the Tea Party.

This is how Ted Cruz actually feels about Mitch McConnell and the establishment in Washington, D.C.:

FAKE! Ted Cruz is a globalist

The FAKE charge of ‘Ted Cruz as a globalist’ started by Ted Cruz’s opponents then-Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and a man named Glenn Addison during the 2012 Republican Senatorial primary in Texas.

The charge is not actually with Ted Cruz, but rather with his wife, Heidi Cruz and her role on a controversial task force at the Council on Foreign Relations.

As Jerome Corsi writes in a 2015 article at WND:

“…some of his [Cruz’s] critics are once again confronting him with the issue of his wife’s former membership in the Council on Foreign Relations and her role in the crafting of a CFR document espousing North American unity.”

Before we continue, watch this short video from way back in 2011.

CFR Vice President Lisa Shields took exception to Cruz’s remarks, and blasted then-senatorial candidate Ted Cruz.

As reported at Politico, Shieds lamented:

“The candidate’s assertion that CFR is working to undermine U.S. sovereignty is factually wrong. The accusation is ludicrous…”

But Ted Cruz is a globalist?

As seasoned Republican political player Dave Nalle wrote at the time in an article called “Anatomy of a Smear: Heidi Cruz and the ‘North American Union’:”

“You see, it turns out that according to a whisper campaign coming from Dewhurst or Addison or perhaps direct from the John Birch Society, Ted Cruz’ wife is one of the architects of the dreaded ‘North American Union.’ The JBS is the most likely original source in a now-deleted article in the online version of their New American magazine called ‘Faux Neo-Conservatives Defend North American Union.'”

[…]

Heidi Cruz’ role in all of this was as one of a large panel of readers and her sole identifiable contribution to the project is a one-paragraph response in the final appendix in which she says: ‘We must emphasize the imperative that economic investment be led and perpetuated by the private sector. There is no force proven like the market for aligning incentives, sourcing capital, and producing results like financial markets and profit-making businesses. This is simply necessary to sustain a higher living standard for the poorest among us — truly the measure of our success. As such, investment funds and financing mechanisms should be deemed attractive instruments by those committing the capital and should only be developed in conjunction with market participants.’

What does Heidi write for the North American Union report?

Let’s repeat:

“We must emphasize the imperative that economic investment be led and perpetuated by the PRIVATE SECTOR. There is no force proven like the market for aligning incentives, sourcing capital, and producing results like financial markets and profit-making businesses…” (emphasis added)

Another instance that this author found of Ted Cruz & “globalist” goes back in 2012 when Ted Cruz was running for Senator. But Ted Cruz was actually criticizing “Agenda 21” as a “globalist plan that tries to subvert the U.S. Constitution and the liberties we all cherish as Americans.”

At the time, the George Soros-funded ThinkProgress slammed Cruz for pushing a “truly ridiculous conspiracy theory,” and a Tea Party star was born.

On the “globalist” charge, Nalle said it best in 2012:

“It’s all a patchwork of irrational fear and ignorant assumptions with no substance to it whatever…”

FAKE!! Ted Cruz’s birth records are sealed

Related to the birther issue (addressed below), the claim that Cruz is hiding his birth records seems to have been made first by J.B. Williams of NewsWithViews.com (also see here) in December:

“All citizenship records for Ted Cruz are sealed unless and until Ted Cruz agrees to allow any such records to be released by either U.S. or Canadian agencies.”

Williams does not provide sources for his claim, which was unsurprisingly repeated at the Marshall Report.

J.B. Williams appears to be a disgruntled former Obama birther, as well.

The fact that there is absolutely no basis for this charge does not stop Cruz birthers from making the fake claim all over social media.

FAKE: Ted Cruz is not electable

Those who support Ted Cruz often hear the comment, “I like Ted Cruz the most, but he is not electable.”

Cruz’s biggest competitor at this time appears to be Donald Trump, who Gallup reported last month as having “by far the worst image of any major Republican candidate among Democrats and independents.” People absolutely must consider whether or not their candidate can beat Hillary Clinton, the likely Socialist Democratic nominee.

One indicator may be the polls on the matter collected and maintained at Politico. At the time of this writing, Cruz beats Hillary by one percent, while Trump trails Clinton at four percentage points. But this is just one indicator.

Way back in 2010, Jeffrey Lord of the Spectator wrote about Ronald Reagan and the political climate at the time of his candidacy:

“They didn’t like him. To be more precise, they thought him an extremist, un-electable, an ultra-right wing nut, dumb, ignorant and, more to the point, not one of their crowd. One out of six was absolutely correct. Ronald Reagan was not one of their crowd. Ever. The ‘crowd’ was The Establishment. The Establishment as it appeared in all of its various incarnations during Ronald Reagan’s political life. First it was the California Republican Party Establishment. Then the Liberal Establishment. Followed by the national Republican Party Establishment. Next up was The Eastern Establishment. Last but not least was the Washington Establishment. And in each and every case save one (1976), Reagan — and more to the point today — the people who came to be known as ‘conservatives’ or ‘Reaganites’ beat those Establishments like a drum.”

Ted Cruz is openly despised by the Establishment GOP. In this author’s experience, the grassroots has had enough of backroom deals and simply wants a candidate like Ronald Reagan, who will be faithful to the Constitution and Limited Government as envisioned by America’s founding fathers.

But a little-noticed but stunning exchange between Ted Cruz and a farmer in Iowa does the best job of addressing the “electability” concern. As previously reported at TrevorLoudon.com,

“Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz was confronted by a farmer in Iowa who accused him of planning to take away his ethanol subsidies while funding ‘big oil.’ Cruz responded with a clear grasp of the facts surrounding the ethanol market and explained that he did not want any industries ‘across the board’ to be dependent on the government. ‘I hope the farmers vote for you,’ the farmer ultimately said.”

Watch the entire exchange, it is worth it:

FAKE: Ted Cruz used to be a supporter of Amnesty

The claim that Cruz supported Amnesty is contrary to Cruz’s consistent and verifiable positions on the matter, but seems to have been alleged first by Marco Rubio, who absolutely knows better, but evidently wants to win at all costs.

Rubio deliberately distorted the intent of an amendment made to immigration legislation in 2013.

Marco Rubio’s big fat lie is particularly egregious because Ted Cruz’s amendment was designed to EXPOSE the TRUE INTENT of “comprehensive immigration reform.” The Democrats pushing for a “path to citizenship” do not care about the plight of illegal immigrants, but they care very much about a potential new voting block.

As reported at TrevorLoudon.com,

“…listen to the words of Eliseo Medina, President Obama’s ‘go-to’ man on issues of ‘comprehensive immigration reform!’ Here Medina neglects to mention the plight of illegal immigrants. Rather, he discusses the creation of ‘a governing coalition for the long term’:”

Watch:

As explained at Factcheck.org:

“Back in 2013, Cruz offered an amendment to a Senate immigration bill that would have stripped out a proposal for a path to citizenship for those currently in the country illegally. But Cruz’s amendment would have purposefully left intact the bill’s provisions to provide legal status for them. Numerous media outlets described Cruz’s plan as a compromise “middle road” in the immigration debate that he hoped might be palatable to enough legislators in both houses of Congress to actually pass. But here’s the thing: Cruz’s campaign says he was bluffing. The true purpose of the amendment, the campaign says, was to expose the real motivations of the bill’s supporters. While those supporters claimed the bill’s aim was to allow 11 million immigrants in the country illegally to come out of the shadows, the Cruz campaign says Cruz was convinced the actual intent was to provide citizenship to those immigrants so they could become future voters. So, the campaign says, Cruz offered the amendment, knowing it would not pass, to show the real priority of supporters. Even if the amendment had been accepted, Cruz still would not have supported the bill, the campaign says, because he opposes legalization…”

With this in mind, Ted Cruz makes his case in 2013:



As pointed out by Caleb Howe at Red State:

“During the Fox News/Google GOP debate on Thursday night, the candidates, especially Rubio and Cruz, were taken to task over their record on immigration. In one exchange, moderator Megyn Kelly challenged Senator Cruz to on whether, based on his amendments offered, he supported legalization. ‘Yes it would,’ said Kelly of his amendment. However, later that evening Kelly interviewed Cruz and conceded an important point. That being pretty much the opposite, which is that he did not and does not support legalizing the status of people here illegally.”

Ted Cruz has been incredibly consistent on illegal immigration and Amnesty. In 2012, Cruz was given the score of “True Reformer” by anti-illegal immigration think tank Numbers USA, who used this graphic:

Listen to these sound bites, as provided by Patterico, which are compiled in one video here with commentary by Mark Levin:

From 2011:

QUESTIONER: Do you favor a path to citizenship for illegal aliens already in the U.S., stricter border enforcement, and/or the building of a border wall or some other policy or combination of policies? CRUZ: There were a lot of questions in that piece. Let me lay out my position on immigration, because I can state it simply and in one sentence. I am strongly opposed to illegal immigration. I am categorically opposed to amnesty. And I strongly support legal immigrants who follow the rules and come here seeking to work towards the American dream. Now with respect to securing the borders, I approach this from the perspective of someone who’s spent much of his adult life in law enforcement. It makes utterly no sense that we don’t know who’s coming into this country. We don’t know the criminal backgrounds. Our borders are largely unsecured. And particularly in a post-9/11 world, that is lunacy. I support any and all possible efforts to secure the border. That includes fences, that includes walls, that includes technology, that includes helicopters, that includes drones, that includes manpower, that includes employment verification, that includes approaching it as a law enforcement priority. And right now, neither party is serious about doing that. With respect to a path to citizenship or amnesty, I categorically oppose it. And the reason is, I’ve spent a lifetime working to defend the constitution and uphold the rule of law. It is fundamentally unfair and contrary to the rule of law to reward those who break the law. And you know, one of the people it’s most unfair to are those that are following the laws. There are immigrants who wait years and even decades to come here legally. And yet what amnesty programs say is that we’re going to take those that have chosen to break the law, and we’re going to reward them rather than insist that people follow the law. I don’t think that’s fair, I don’t think that’s right, and I don’t support it.

From 2012:

CRUZ: …We have an illegal immigration crisis and we need to do everything humanly possible to secure the border. That means fences, that means walls… [edit] MODERATOR: [unintelligible] wall, you said you’d support a wall — CRUZ: I said yes to that.

Cruz sponsored legislation that would temporarily block refugees from countries containing “terrorist controlled territory” and also sponsored legislation that would allow governors to refuse refugees.

Ted Cruz’s platform on immigration can be found here.

FAKE: Cruz is not eligible to run because he was born in Canada (to an American citizen):

Although this debate is evidently not settled, it was included in this list because it is so prevalent in the discussion about Ted Cruz. Politically aware individuals have noticed that a small, but persistent group on social media often insert their “Cruz isn’t eligible” memes on any article remotely related to Ted Cruz.

With little fanfare, New Hampshire recently ruled that Cruz was eligible, and the Illinois Board of Elections determined that Ted Cruz “is a natural-born citizen and is eligible to be president.” There are many other credible Constitutional scholars that have thrown their support for Cruz in the ring, such as Jonathan Adler, “who teaches courses in constitutional, administrative, and environmental law at Case Western University School of Law,” who wrote in the Washington Post last month:

Ted Cruz was born in Canada. His mother was a U.S. citizen. His father, a Cuban, was not. Under U.S. law, the fact that Cruz was born to a U.S. citizen mother makes him a citizen from birth. In other words, he is a “natural born citizen” (as opposed to a naturalized citizen) and is constitutionally eligible.

Despite the many who believe that Cruz is eligible, there are many that believe he is not, such as oft-cited Laurence Tribe, who “has argued in favor of the legal standing of Mr. Obama’s signature health care law and executive orders on immigration” according to the New York Times, declared in part during a debate on Cruz’s eligibility that took place at Harvard on Monday:

Unlike Cruz, McCain was born in U.S. territory,” said Tribe. “And unlike Cruz, McCain was born to two U.S. citizens, parents who had been deployed to the Panama Canal Zone by the military to serve the country.

It should be noted that Donald Trump’s mother was born in Scotland.

Professor Jack Balkin of Yale Law School, however, said the fuzzy definition of “natural born citizen” was clarified under U.S. immigration law in 1970, which held that Cruz “automatically became an American because his mother was one. The law grants birthright citizenship to a child born overseas if one parent is a U.S. citizen.”

Watch the video of the debate here:

It should be acknowledged that Breitbart has been called out by many conservatives for their blatant pro-Trump coverage. McKay Coppins of Buzzfeed claims that “many inside the company [Breitbart News] believe Trump has provided undisclosed financial backing to the outlet in exchange for glowing coverage…” but this is not confirmed.