Father Of Ted Cruz Tries To Rewrite U.S. History On Race

Here is just one more example of how little regard for the truth the extremist teabagger Republicans have. The person pictured in this photo is Rafael Cruz with his son, Senator Ted Cruz (picture found at the great blog, Juanita Jean's). The elder Cruz may even be more extremist than his son, if that is possible.

Rafael Cruz was speaking at the August meeting of the Western Williamson Republican Club, and trying to explain to them why African-Americans should be voting Republican. Normally that would be a futile effort at best, but that doesn't deter Cruz. He simply rewrites a bit of American history to make his ridiculous point.

Cruz related to that white audience a (probably nonexistent) conversation he claims to have had with an African-American minister, saying:

“I said, as a matter of fact, ‘Did you know that Civil Rights legislation was passed by Republicans? It was passed by a Republican Senate under the threat of a filibuster by the Democrats,’” Cruz said. “‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’ And then I said, ‘Did you know that every member of the Ku Klux Klan were Democrats from the South?’ ‘Oh I didn’t know that.’ You know, they need to be educated.”

Let's examine that statement. Was it really a Republican Senate that passed the civil rights laws? Of course not. Here is the make-up of both the Senate and House during the years the civil rights laws were passed.

88th Congress (1963-1965)
SENATE
67 Democrats
33 Republicans
HOUSE
258 Democrats
176 Republicans

89th Congress (1965-1967)
SENATE
68 Democrats
32 Republicans
HOUSE
295 Democrats
140 Republicans

To be fair, there were some Republicans who voted for the civil rights laws in the Senate (led by the liberal Republican, Senator Everett Dirkson). But it was NOT a Republican Senate. During those years, both the Senate and the House of Representatives had large Democratic majorities (which is probably why President Johnson was able to get those civil rights laws passed, since most of those Democrats owed LBJ for favors he had done them over the years).

The second part of his statement is at least partially true, but the inference he makes with it is an outrageous lie. Before the civil rights laws were passed, the South was solidly Democratic. Nearly everyone, whether a racist or not, was a Democrat -- so naturally the members of the Klan were also Democrats. What Cruz does not tell you though (and infers it is not true) is that after President Johnson (a Democrat) got the civil rights laws passed, the racists (including the Klan) abandoned the Democratic Party in droves and became Republicans -- and they remain Republicans to this day (now disguising themselves as teabaggers).

Cruz then goes on to blame African-American unemployment on the Democrats. He makes the statement that Black and White unemployment was the same until the minimum wage was passed, and that the minimum wage law was the reason Blacks now have approximately twice as high an unemployment rate as Whites. This makes no sense at all. Why would having to pay a minimum wage make employers prefer White workers if they had not done so in the past? Moreover, Cruz cannot prove this outrageous statement since the minimum wage law was passed in 1938, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not start keeping separate unemployment statistics for Blacks and Whites until 1954. Cruz has obviously just made this lie up without the benefit of any facts.

Rafael Cruz would fit in nicely at Fox News because, like them, he just says what he wishes was true -- not what really is true. Facts are just an inconvenience and are totally irrelevant.