Coming from anybody in public life, this duplicity would be disappointing. But from Ted Cruz, the self-styled anti-politician, it is disastrous. This is the sort of slimy behavior that we expect from Bill Clinton or Harry Reid, not from the straight-talking, Churchillian foe of all that is unholy about Washington, D.C. There is a time for parsing the difference between “legalization” and “citizenship,” and for debating the strength of “intend to” versus “will never.” But primary season is not it. Now is the summer of strong promises and bold visions. The negotiating can come later.
Unfortunately, indulging in clever linguistic games is rather a hobby of Cruz’s.
All Politicians Lie. Some Lie More Than Others.
Statements since 2007 by presidential candidates (and some current and former officeholders) ranked from most dishonest over all to least dishonest, as fact-checked by PolitiFact. “Pants on Fire” refers to the most egregious falsehoods.
.. Even though we’re in the midst of a presidential campaign full of falsehoods and misstatements, I see cause for optimism. Some politicians have responded to fact-checking journalism by vetting their prepared comments more carefully and giving their campaign ads extra scrutiny... Outside of the primary campaign, we’ve continued checking the public statements of Bill Clinton since 2007; he comes out slightly ahead of President Obama in his truth-telling track record.
How Energy-Drink Companies Prey on Male Insecurities
Over the past two decades, as U.S. soft-drink consumption has declined—full-calorie-soda sales dropped twenty-five per cent during that period, according to a recent Times report—the energy-drink market has been thriving. The beverages are consumed regularly by thirty-one per cent of kids between the ages of twelve and seventeen, and by thirty-four per cent of those aged eighteen to twenty-four. U.S. sales for energy drinks and shots now total more than twelve and a half billion dollars—a number that the market-research firm Packaged Facts predicts will grow by another nine billion dollars by 2017.
.. They found that the more a man bought into masculine ideals, the more he believed that energy drinks made him manly—and the more he drank them, the more his sleep was troubled.
.. While the connection between unrealistic standards of beauty and low self-esteem, body dissatisfaction, and disordered eating among girls and women has been widely researched and discussed, this study is one of the few to establish a link between marketing to male insecurity and unhealthy habits.
.. The study builds, in part, on a 2013 Taiwanese paper showing that college-age men used the drinks to “regulate their personal sense of masculinity” and that they will drink more of them if they perceive their masculinity to be threatened.
.. Sugar is what Wade calls “a feminized calorie.” Women tend, in advertising, to be depicted as consumers of sweet things, like chocolate and fruity drinks, while men are more associated with red meat and savory snacks, like spicy tortilla chips. The challenge for sweet energy beverages, Wade said, “was to figure out how to man them up. So you associate them with extreme sports and extremely good performance.”
.. The result has been that family fridges now often contain multiple varieties of drinks, devised to reassure the demographical identity of each member.
.. companies can sell more products if they convince consumers to divide their purchases by gender—so that, for example, husbands and wives can’t share a shampoo.
.. When consumed over a long term, Levant’s study confirmed that, in college-age men, the drinks can cause anxiety, dehydration, insomnia, and cardiovascular vascular problems.
Trump’s Muslim-Registry Blunder
A Muslim registry would suffer from the same flaw. Few if any terrorists would sign up, assuming for argument’s sake that it could be enforced — and just imagine what would happen the first time the Justice Department indicted a Muslim for failing to register.
Newsflash: Jihadists lie whenever lying facilitates the execution of their missions. And they have no compunction about concealing their religion, ideology, or similar personal characteristics. Al-Qaeda, for example, has long sought American, Canadian, and European members because they can freely enter those places. These jihadists may have, say, American or British citizenship and passports, but they are not, in their own minds, Yanks or Brits. They are militant subjects of the ummah who are using a cover to infiltrate and terrorize. On this, the jihadists like to quote their prophet: “War is deceit.”
Therefore, the only people who would end up registering would be law-abiding Muslims, who would be justifiably angry about being coerced in such a lawless and pointless manner.