Free Republic

It was the Thunderdome from "Mad Max" or the coliseum from "Spartacus," if either Max or Sparty were two, middle-aged American men playing a slow-motion car-crash of half-court basketball for charity and political one upsmanship. Conservative Texas Sen. Ted Cruz triumphed over liberal ABC late-night host/comedian Jimmy Kimmel with a hard-won 11-9 victory in the first Blobfish Basketball Classic at Texas Southern University's Health and Physical Education Arena Saturday. The event, which turned out to be a Coachella festival of air balls, missed shots and footwork that would make a sloth look like Usain Bolt, was sparked by Twitter trash-talk...

The crowd in the 8,100-capacity venue — though half of the seats were blocked off because it was not a full-court game — was enthusiastic, even if the level of play often was not. While most of the fans seemed to be on Kimmel’s side in terms of sport and politics — there were enough T-shirts proclaiming support for Democratic senatorial candidate (and Cruz political opponent) Beto O’Rourke to make it seem like a Beto convention. But Cruz, wearing a Houston Strong shirt, had a lot of support in the town he calls home, too. Houston resident Randall Haynie was...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is defending the Trump administration's policy of separating migrants from their children when they are apprehended at the border, saying it can't be avoided when people illegally cross the border. "There's actually a court order that prevents keeping the kids with the parents when you put the parents in jail," Cruz told the Dallas public radio station KERA on Monday, according to a report in The Dallas Morning News.

Medina was the first to see Nikolas Cruz step onto the Parkland campus on Feb. 14. He tuned into the 19-year-old getting out of a gold-colored Uber and striding purposefully toward the 1200 building. “He’s beelining. He’s got his head down. He’s on a mission, you know. He’s on a mission,” Medina later told investigators. Medina radioed ahead to a fellow campus monitor assigned to that building to warn him that a suspicious kid — who Medina did not suspect was carrying a gun in his duffel bag — was heading for the east-side entrance. Cruz broke into a run...

The big blue wave may have already crested, according to numbers coming out of Texas today in a US Senate race that has attracted a lot of media attention. Democrat Beto O’Rourke has been boosted as the kind of Democrat who can compete in deep-red states like Texas in his challenge to incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. And for a while, that looked like it might be true; an early April poll from Quinnipiac had the race within the margin of error. So what happened? Quinnipiac cites a “nationwide Republican mini-move” over the last few weeks, thanks in part to...

Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) is leading democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke by two percentage points among Hispanic voters in his campaign for another term, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday. The poll, which found that Cruz leads O’Rourke 46 to 44 percent among Hispanics, is a troubling sign for O’Rourke, who has tailored his campaign around his advocacy for racial minorities. Equally troubling for the O’Rourke camp is the finding that Cruz has expanded his overall lead in the race from three points (47 percent to 44 percent) in April to a commanding eleven points (50 percent to...

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, charged on the Senate floor Thursday that the New York Times and other media outlets have been acting as a propaganda arm for Hamas by writing that Israeli troops were killing innocent Palestinians at a protest, and downplaying the fact that many were violent and threatening to kill Israelis. “We can count on global media elites acting as little more than propaganda arms, for Hamas and other terrorists, and no week has that been more evident than this week,” Cruz said. “The media has been more than happy to oblige Hamas’ propaganda needs. Reporters, celebrity talking...

WASHINGTON — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is among a handful of Republican senators expected to attend the controversial opening of the new American Embassy in Jerusalem on Monday, his office has confirmed. The trip comes roughly five months after President Donald Trump formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and announced plans to relocate the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv. Cruz, who has long called for such a move, praised the decision as “courageous and heroic.” But many Arab and European leaders slammed Trump for upending a decades-old foreign policy in which U.S. presidents declined to weigh in...

STAFFORD, Texas – As Ted Cruz took the stage at a dance hall called the Redneck Country Club and talked about his boyhood worship of such Texas legends as Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie, Stephen Willeford watched with a smile from beneath the brim of his black cowboy hat.At the beer joint just outside of Houston, Texas’ junior U.S. senator now in a high-stakes battle for a second term, was charming a nighttime audience of about 800 with ready-made applause lines defending gun rights and castigating Obamacare when he pointed out that Texas still has its share of heroes in...

Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D) challenged Sen. Ted Cruz (R) to six debates — including two in Spanish — the Texas Tribune reported. O’Rourke’s campaign manager sent the proposal to Cruz’s senior staff last week, according to the Tribune. Cruz has said in the past he is open to debating O’Rourke and his campaign is currently exploring its options, according to the Tribune. Etc...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has been more of a team player since losing the 2016 GOP presidential primary to Donald Trump, is reemerging as an agitator in the GOP conference. Cruz is questioning Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) strategy on the GOP's 2018 agenda, which is to steer clear of partisan bills that don’t have Democratic support. Cruz, who is up for reelection this year and faces a spirited challenger in Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D), is leading a group of restive conservatives who want to vote on a budget resolution that would set up a special process —...

Mansour asked Cruz, “Would you be supportive of President Trump if he ran for reelection in 2020?” Cruz replied, “I certainly assume so. I was supportive of and campaigned for President Trump in 2016, and I am very encouraged with the substantive policy victories we are getting, whether it is an historic tax cut bill, whether it is regulatory reform that’s unleashing jobs, whether it is repealing the Obamacare individual mandate — which I led the fight to do in the United States Senate — whether it is nominating and confirming strong constitutionalists to the courts. On all of those...

during a Tuesday interview with SiriusXM hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak on Breitbart News Tonight. Mansour asked Cruz, “Would you be supportive of President Trump if he ran for reelection in 2020?” Cruz replied, “I certainly assume so. I was supportive of and campaigned for President Trump in 2016, and I am very encouraged with the substantive policy victories we are getting, whether it is an historic tax cut bill, whether it is regulatory reform that’s unleashing jobs, whether it is repealing the Obamacare individual mandate — which I led the fight to do in the United States Senate...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) grilled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Tuesday about whether or not the social media platform was biased against conservatives. Zuckerberg acknowledged that Cruz raised a “fair concern” but insisted that Facebook was committed to being a “platform for all ideas.” "There are a great many Americans who I think are deeply concerned that Facebook and other tech companies are engaged in a pervasive pattern of bias and political censorship," Cruz said. He read off examples of Facebook suppressing conservative speech, starting with former Facebook employees admitting to suppressing conservative news in May of 2016. Cruz brought up...

An interesting moment I caught during Ted Cruz's excellent grilling of Mark Zuckerberg. Cruz: "Of the 20 thousand people you say monitor the content of users ... do you know any of their political affiliations"? Zuckerberg: "Senator we 'GENERALLY' do not hire people based on their political affiliation". Here's the link to the particular moment: https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=3712 Generally merely means 'not the majority' totally avoiding the question of the facebook minitors. This is something Ted Cruz wouldn't pass up to follow up on the use of 'GENERALLY'. Next question is why didn't any of the Senators ask Zuckerberg of how much...

Wow. I did not support Ted Cruz in the election two years ago, I supported Donald Trump. I just did not see him as who I wanted, as president. But I just saw Ted Cruz mix it up with Mark Zuckerberg in the hearing, like nobody else there. It was awesome.

A joint hearing with the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation to examine Facebook, Social Media Privacy, and the use and abuse of data.

Texas Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Beto O'Rourke said Tuesday that President Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz are inciting fear in Texas voters and called that "bullshit." O'Rourke got to that word after dodging a question on the progress of a Texas ports bill he said he's working on with Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas). "So why hasn't it happened, Congressman?" interviewer and Tribune CEO Evan Smith asked. Instead of answering, O'Rourke said, "Let me tell you what the president and our junior senator are doing right now." "They want you to be afraid of Mexicans. When they call them...

Parkland student Emma González...and her fellow students at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School “ostracized” fellow student Nikolas Cruz. Said González when speaking in Washington at the anti-gun “March for Our Lives”: “Since he was in middle school, it was no surprise to anyone who knew him, that he was the shooter. Those talking about how we should have not ostracized him? You didn’t know this kid! OK? We did!” Which is to say, González just made a startling admission. Parkland students bullied Nikolas Cruz. It may well be that González is right — the rest of us didn’t know...

Won't Get Fooled Again The Who We'll be fighting in the streets With our children at our feet And the morals that they worship will be gone And the men who spurred us on Sit in judgment of all wrong They decide and the shotgun sings the song I'll tip my hat to the new constitution Take a bow for the new revolution Smile and grin at the change all around Pick up my guitar and play Just like yesterday Then I'll get on my knees and pray We don't get fooled again The change, it had to come We...