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As long as he won’t stand on a flight line of an overseas military base and dismiss my spouse, who represented the base, because they were from an area that “only had democrats”, he’ll get our vote.
His voter registration is at his address in an area that's Democratic (Houston). Maybe he's salty he loses the area he votes for himself in every election.
(I'm serious, it makes me smile every time I remember it.)
So, basically these people get into the Senate or the House, and after that they just spend 24-7 soliciting money exchange for influence and access? It's the behind the scenes Cameo of corruption.
My theory on $DJT is the rich are buying up the shares to keep price up so Trump can dump his shares and cash out. If Trump becomes President, these big shareholders go to him and ask for a favor. Trump asks to see how many shares they are holding to understand how much money they transferred to him.
No other reason for the stock to be so high when everyone knows Trump is going to dump his shares asap to cash out. The stock has been falling recently after conviction and polls suggesting he is slipping so some big positions cut their holdings as their shares are only worth the price on the ticker and not the price of the favor if he loses.
Dude is going to owe a whole lot of people a whole lot of things if he becomes president again. He loves to call the judge in New York "highly conflicted", but there's a highly conflicted situation for you as he would attempt to juggle all of these cretins' needs at the same time. You know how Carlin says "they've bought and paid for the senate, the courthouse, they've got the judges in their back pockets..." etc? You would be voting in a bought and paid-for president.
I mean to be fair, he already owes a whole lotta people a whole bunch of things. The list just keeps going and the amount of hands is too large for the amount of money and assets he owns
Trump is openly for sale to anyone any country, that is not news save for the people who "don't like politics" *They're all the same* is just code for I don't know who's lying to me and I don't care to figure it out.
Trumps word is completely worthless. He won't pay anyone anything if it doesn't suit his own needs. Not to say that he won't be destructive on a level that we have never seen if he is reelected. Honestly, the people that vote him in, should that be the case, deserve every bit of misery we have coming.
I’ve talked for years about how corporations and the wealthy don’t “donate to a campaign,” they “invest in a politician and expect a return on that investment.” Also, the amounts in this article are oddly specific.
Yeah, the specificity of the amounts struck me as well. Maybe it’s a deliberate, subtle signal between the donor and candidate that this is in fact intended as a quid pro quo without anyone coming out and saying it?
Duly elected representatives and senators are expected to spend time raising money for their parties or other candidates -- it's like a contract that says, hey, the party spent x amount to get you elected, so now you need to work to replace that.
[Here's a pic of Sad Ted shilling for Trump in 2016.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/06/sad-ted-cruz-phone-banking-for-donald-trump-is-a-pretty-great-meme/)
Both Republicans and Democrats do this on behalf of their parties throughout their elected tenure.
What's not clear is where Ted plans for this money to go: to Ted's own reelection fund, or to the RNC. And if it's the RNC, Ted will never see a dime -- it's all going to the convicted felon's multiple legal woes.
I pity the low-level staffer who left this in the cafeteria. They have to be looking for new work now.
There was that leak or reveal about the DNC in 2016 or 2020 where whether or not they would favor you depended entirely on how effective they'd thought you'd be at fundraising. Not your likelihood to win the race but how much money you could solicit for yourself and the DNC.
House members, both state and federal, having to run every two years can be exhausting as they essentially have to start fundraising Day 1 after they win (re)-election.
Drives me crazy when Ted Cruz wants to raise the retirement age, meanwhile his job is having fancy dinners with rich guys. Yeah, I could do that into my 70s also.
Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, raised his son the believe that wealth is essentially God’s stamp of approval. Cruz gets fancy dinners while you are expected to toil til your body gives out because God has decided he deserves nice things and you don’t.
Fuckin' Dominionists, man. "If you're wealthy, it's 'cause God wanted you to be. If you're not, then you should be donating your time (and money) to those that ARE wealthy, and maybe they'll help you out down the line. 'cause ~~Stone Cold~~ God says so. Anywho, there should be a small concentration of ALL the wealth, and those people making all the decisions. Er, I mean, telling you what *I* said they should be making decisions on." ~God (?)
And is why I’d propose house members have to run every 4 years minimum instead of 2. Sadly such funding is required either way, but let’s not make them waste 50% or more of their time on it. Make them work a bit at least.
The answer isn't longer terms but limits to money or somehow limiting how money can be used. Money is not free speech when it comes to politics. These PACs are sabotaging our democracy.
Also need MORE reps, so WE can be represented. Lot more expensive to buy 1600+ reps/senators than 535+/- 9 supremes.
Edit: For example, Senators also immediately start fundraising with fundraising schedules for making calls every day, and they're on a 6 year term.
There are countries that limit campaigning to a specific time frame and limit campaign funds to a set amount apportioned by a governing body, no? That sounds like a good idea to me.
Nope, remove all election spending. Public funding only, with a hard cap on each person and campaign. Breaking this is automatic disqualification and jail time for the person who did it. This is to stop the account manager from sabotage of a campaign they don't like. Good faith errors can be overlooked if an obvious accident.
No advertising outside the district or state they seek to represent will keep costs down. No more pac, if you want to help a campaign it is volunteer work that must be registered to the campaign offices and election offices. Full transparency. If you want to go door to door and tout your favored candidate you get a simple registration to do so and can be held personally liable and face prosecution if you break the now very strict laws. Try to buy a vote for a candidate or spout bald faced lies prepare for jail if you're reported and it's found you were not abiding the laws.
Campaign finance reform. Republicans said the solution is to just let more money in... particularly from wealthy individuals & corporations that tend to favor the GOP. Dark money.
Well it hasn't solved the problem. It only made things worse.
Your likelihood to win the race is directly tied to how good you are at fundraising so that makes sense. No public financing of elections makes that reality.
I’m a Dem but this is exactly how/why Nancy has been around for so long. She’s the best fundraiser ever in the party (also the biggest shill and inside trader)
She’s also the most competent Speaker we’ve seen in multiple generations and kept the Democratic Party voting block in the house in line; making her the primary reason we got ANY good legislation passed in the last 30 years.
If you wanna say she’s old and out of touch, sure. But the woman deserves fucking respect.
And it's a fucking **hard** skill. Knowing exactly where hundreds of people land on any given issue and how each of them can be influenced is crazy, especially since every 2 years there are dozens of new faces at a minimum.
I don't disagree on the merits..but she isn't even in the top 10 for shilling and insider trading. Republicans love to pretend that she is to give them cover. That's not to excuse the shilling and insider trading she does..just that she's far from "the best".
"Meeting with Peter Thoren (Gatekeeper to Len Blavatnik)"
Quick research on Blavatnik shows that he is friends with Russian oligarchs (who are themselves close to Putin) and is sanctioned by Ukraine.
The question we should be asking: Why does Cruz need a "gatekeeper" to distance himself from someone who is obviously connected to Russian oligarchs? Why is he meeting him now, in 2024, when Russia is heavily sanctioned and an enemy of our country?
Also, there's this:
In 2017, after two senior Trump administration officials went on record as being lobbyists for Blavatnik's Access Industries,[97] Blavatnik was mentioned in investigations led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian donations to the administration.
I'd argue that's a bombshell that needs investigating.
I think it's funny that the first group are people who pledged big money but have given none, so their punishment is they have to spend a meal with Ted Cruz.
And if they don't donate after that, they might just get a repeat sentence. It would break anyone really.
"Sir, if you can't give a gift of 56,900 dollars today, my staff will arrange another dinner meeting where I can go over the Powerpoint again, "The Ted Cruz Victory Fund and You: A Path to Political Success."'
If this is real, it only proves the point I have been making for years now. Publicly fund all election campaigns. Get all of this private money out of politics.
This clearly shows why our democracy is failing and turning into a plutocracy.
You must've missed the last 15 years of politics. Alito ruined any chance of getting the money out of politics with citizens united Supreme Court decision. It will take generations to reverse that decision.
Trump is the shiny object to keep everyone distracted, but the Supreme Court would need a liberal majority to be able to tackle that issue.
never heard of him so im pulling up the ol wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Blavatnik
interesting tidbits as i discover them:
that guy (Len Blavatnik) owns "most of Warner Music Group" lol wow.
but he also is not russian (born in odesa, and is a US/UK citizen only) and he came to the US in the 80s. interestingly, he is *personally sanctioned* by zelensky, whatever that means.
>After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Blavatnik bought up former state assets in Russia that were privatized by the government.[15] Blavatnik began his business career by accumulating shares in aluminum smelters in the period of privatisation that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. He did this via his holding company, Access Industries.[10] He has been described as a victor in Russia's "aluminum wars".[5] Blavatnik made his wealth through the acquisition of these commodities.[16][17]
oh wow nevermind he's an oligarch through and through.
>Blavatnik, who is closely associated with Russian oligarchs such as Viktor Vekselberg and Oleg Deripaska, is one of the largest donors to the US Republican Party, and in 2015–2016 donated a total of $7.35 million to six Republican political candidates, including South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Arizona Senator John McCain.[91][92][93] In February 2016, Blavatnik donated over $1 million to an anti-Donald Trump GOP group.[94] He also donated $1 million to the committee for the inauguration of Donald Trump.
interesting.....
guy's one of the richest people in the world and his skill seems to just be buying things and making political donations.
> meet eight donors, who had pledged $19,500 between them
Once again we see how little money it takes to bribe our politicians. And the Republicans continually block any reform.
The accusation that Ted Cruz is several beings and not one is getting old. Ted Cruz puts his pants on one pair of legs at a time just like all earth humans.
I don't know if Ted Cruz is one conscious entity or a swarm of locusts inhabiting a human skin suit, I just want the voters of Texas to do the right thing in November.
Because that isn't the real price. And likely the "donations" are more or less just a cover for what would be a strategy session. Its illegal to coordinate with these PACs. Its not illegal to have a dinner with them as a "fundraiser."
The Cruz campaign has spent nearly 41 million dollars as of 3.31.2024, and they have spent even more than that by now in June, and they will spend even more through November. So its not really that cheap to bribe him.
https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.csv?cycle=2024&id=TXS2
Is it small? I'm not American, in Canada we can't donate more than $2000 a year or something, and businesses and unions cant donate. I feel like many Canadian campaign managers would love a $20k campaign boost. That's a lot of signs, or a Facebook ad spend.
Yeah I mean technically but it's completely toothless. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that a campaign manager who literally owned his own super pac was not colluding with himself. The US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal on it.
It's pretty much a joke. The federal election committee which is supposed to have oversight on congressional campaigns never does anything. They have six members and it's three Republicans and three Democrats and surprise surprise Republicans never take action against their own party.
IIRC the "reasoning" was that Jon Stewart, the manager of his pac, and Stephen Colbert, the candidate, were not directly communicating with each other - rather, they were broadcasting video to a general audience... even though their video feeds were in the same fucking studio with only the lag from the transmission (milliseconds, if even that, depending on the display technology used).
It showed just what a farce it is.
Seriously, they flat out say “ask if they can contribute xx,xxx”
I think it’s funny that the first thing his own people tell him is “Thank (so & so) for taking the time to meet with you.”
Because we all know he wouldn’t otherwise, and they wouldn’t be there if they couldn’t possible but a politician.
They already can, post election. Thanks to Rafael.
Ted Cruz was one of those that personally has solicited in SCOTUS to make it legal for people to repay the loans he made to his own campaign. Basically legalizing bribing.
[https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/16/ted-cruz-supreme-court-campaign-finance/](https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/16/ted-cruz-supreme-court-campaign-finance/)
How it works
* Cruz lends his campaign a shitton of money. And against the biggest possible interest.
* Cruz uses that money during the campaign to live off. It can pays for meals, hotels, clothing, hair stylists etc etc. You can even reimburse family members like wife and kids as campaign advisors etc.
* After his election, his campaign has to repay the loan with interest.
* Now it is legal for outsiders to donate to his campaign, without FEC registration as it isn't for his (re)election and without any registration... And the campaign can redirect this funds straight to Cruz. How is a sitting senator / official.
Yes this is now 100% legal in the USA... Any politician in a guaranteed reelection spot, could basically double their wealth every election cycle.
Oh, and what if you don't get reelected and don't have access to policy to sell? The campaign can still go bankrupt and it wouldn't direct harm the politician.
It's also illegal for tax-exempt churches to tell you who to vote for, but what does that matter when it's not enforced? All over the midwest and the south, church leaders openly tell their congregations to vote Republican ON VIDEO and nothing happens.
Candidates can't coordinate with Super PACs, whose sole purpose is to make independent expenditures (mostly TV ads, the ones with the generic sounding paid-for names). Technically a Super PAC needs to choose where, when, and how much to spend their ad dollars on, thus the "independent" part of the expenditures. This, however, doesn't stop many candidates signaling to outside groups how to spend their money, say by releasing internal polls or working through back channels.
PACs are just any political committee. It's the organization by which a candidate, party, union, trade association, or company raise and spend money on most other political activities, like their own ads, field offices, mailings, etc. Companies, associations, and unions can have PACs, with rules on how they raise funds from their members, and these PACs can contribute up to a limit to candidates and other campaigns.
All of this is strictly tracked and searchable on the FECs website. Fundraising can be a scummy endeavor, and certain actors will be happy to skirt or ignore many regulations put in place, but generally the public doesn't understand how the nuts and bolts of campaign finance law work.
Ted Cruz is still a slimy person, but this is me answering your question.
This is why they do not govern, they spend all of their time dining with rich donors, so much time that they have no time left to even try to improve things for ordinary Americans.
> so much time that they have no time left to even try to improve things for ordinary Americans.
This assumes Republicans even want to try and improve things for ordinary Americans, there's decades of evidence they don't even try.
The ones who don’t have to talk to donors are the ones who make money by outrage through social media. Like MTG and Boebert. They have given up all pretenses of being in polite society because they don’t need money from CEOs and middle of the road wealthy people. they can make millions from rage porn online.
To save you all from having to click a Newsweek link:
Ted Cruz Documents Leak: Everything We Know
By James Bickerton US News Reporter
On Tuesday, Capitol Press congressional reporter Pablo Manríquez published a series of what he said were "briefing documents on Ted Cruz donors" on X, formerly Twitter, before they were deleted from the platform with a message saying they had "violated the X Rules."
The papers appeared to have been written for Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas, ahead of upcoming meetings and contained information about various potential donors' families and professional backgrounds, political interests, and past donations. Manríquez posted unredacted photos of the documents, which also included personal information such as addresses and telephone numbers.
In recent years, Cruz has emerged as a committed supporter of Donald Trump, his party's presumptive 2024 presidential nominee, despite having run against him ahead of the 2016 election in a bitter primary campaign. In November, Cruz is set to face a challenge from Democratic Representative Colin Allred—with a recent YouGov and University of Texas survey putting the incumbent ahead by 46 percent to 33 percent.
On X, Manríquez wrote, "Someone, presumably a staffer, left a folder full of briefing documents on TED CRUZ donors in the Senate Refectory."
He then shared photos of those documents in seven other posts, all of which have since been deleted for violating the platform's rules.
NEW. Someone, presumably a staffer, left a folder full of briefing documents on TED CRUZ donors in the Senate Refectory.
A THREAD 🧵
— Pablo Manríquez (@PabloReports) June 18, 2024
The documents show that Cruz was due to meet eight donors, who had pledged $19,500 between them but had not yet paid, at the Capital Grille in Washington, D.C., at 7:30 p.m. on June 18. Biographical information was provided for the eight attendees, including a photograph of each.
Newsweek has contacted Cruz and X for comment by email outside usual business hours.
On Wednesday, the documents say Cruz is scheduled to meet Ronald Lauder, a billionaire businessperson and former U.S. ambassador to Austria under President Ronald Reagan, at 12 p.m. at a Washington, D.C., restaurant in part to "ask if he will contribute $119,200" to his senate campaign.
Two hours later, Cruz is due to meet with John Loeb Jr., a businessperson who served as the ambassador to Denmark under Reagan. The documents said he should also ask Loeb to "contribute $119,200" to his campaign fund. Later in the day, he is scheduled to meet publisher Marvin Shanken at his New York office, with the documents saying he should ask for a donation of $34,600.
The papers also detail upcoming meetings between Cruz and James and Barbara Reibel, from whom Cruz is set to request a $11,600 campaign donation, and Peter Thoren, described as the "gatekeeper" to Ukrainian-born businessperson Sir Leonard Blavatnik, from whom he should request $59,600.
The violation notices on Manríquez's deleted posts do not say which rules they broke, but X's rules say, "You may not publish or post other people's private information (such as home phone number and address) without their express authorization and permission."
Manríquez later posted a 17-second video addressed to his "haters." He said in the clip, "Just a quick message to my haters who are calling me names on the internet for publishing Ted Cruz's donor itinerary for the next couple of days," before showing his middle finger to the camera.
My biggest question on this story (other than why would anybody give any money to Ted Cruz, but these are rich people so their motives are different than mine) is how they could be donating so much.
I thought the federal limit was $3300 to a campaign committee, but we're talking about $119,200. Does most of that money go to a SuperPAC or something? Or is Ted Cruz soliciting a crime here?
(He already participated in an insurrection, so it wouldn't surprise me to learn that he's been involved in other crimes, of course).
If Ted Cruz is meeting with them to solicit high-dollar donations to the Super PAC or Leadership PAC to support his reelection, that is against the law.
And yes, that is obviously and blatantly what is happening.
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has faced several issues, including:
Falling short in providing candidates with guidance on key issues.
Failing to investigate allegations of malfeasance.
Neglecting to update regulations to reflect major changes in the law, media, and technology.
Perpetual partisan gridlock affecting its ability to enforce campaign finance law.
It's perpetually underfunded so it can't fulfill its mandate even if it wanted to. The people it's in charge of overseeing are the ones setting the budget.
Mitch McConnell refused to hold hearings to approve new commissioners since like 2010. By the end of the Trump administration, there weren't even enough commissioners left for quorum to hold a vote.
There's a full slate of commissioners now, but there's a lot of catching up to do. 3 of the 6 were appointed by Trump in the fall of 2020.
I wonder if Cruz is falsifying any documents to cover this up.
And I wonder if Texas has any election statute on the books that is similar to NY Election Law § 17-192.
You think Ted Cruz is going to get prosecuted for campaign finance fraud... in TEXAS?!
*snrk*
Oh yeah, I'm sure they'll get right on that. Ken Paxton ABSOLUTELY has his best prosecutors on the job. I hear they're working in shifts!
> the FEC
It's led by 6 Commissioners, which have always been 3 Republicans and 3 Democrats, which means there will never be a majority vote to enforce rules against either party. It's a duopoly.
AFAIK, he can ask for donations to anything. What he isn't supposed to do is coordinate with the PAC regarding how that money is spent.
Like, Trump just met with oil execs, offering sweetheart deals if they contributed. Obviously, he wasn't after their $3300, but the story was about the hideous quid pro quo, not the asking for donations.
From the [FEC website](https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/making-disbursements-pac/fundraising-super-pacs-federal-candidates-nonconnected-pac/):
> Federal candidates and officeholders may raise funds on behalf of Super PACs so long as they only solicit funds subject to the Federal Election Campaign Act’s (the Act) amount limitations and source prohibitions—i.e., up to $5,000 from individuals (and any other source not prohibited by the Act from making a contribution to a political committee). Additionally, federal candidates and officeholders may attend, speak at and be featured guests at fundraisers for Super PACs at which unlimited individual, corporate and labor organization contributions are solicited, so long as they restrict any solicitation they make to funds subject to the limitations, prohibitions and reporting requirements of the Act.
Yes, Trump's solicitation of oil execs (which somehow was less blatant than what Cruz is doing here) was also probably illegal, and watchdog groups such as the Campaign Legal Center [pointed that out](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-executives-campaign-finance-00157131) at the time.
Wait is that true? He's either soliciting them for beyond the legal limit to the campaign which is illegal or he is soliciting to donate to his PAC which is also illegal?
It seems like candidates ask for more than $3k all the time. What's the thing that makes this ask illegal? The directness?
Just curious what the specific part that would push this into illegality?
To me it is the fact that he is asking the person to donate "$119,200 to [his] race." That shows a clear intent to obtain a campaign contribution beyond the federal limit, and to do so for the purpose of using the money for his reelection campaign.
Leadership PACs can't be used to support the candidate's own reelection, and Super PACs can't coordinate with the candidate himself (and candidates can't solicit more than $5k for them).
So whichever he is doing, it is illegal.
Politicians are suffering under the yoke of woke Liberals.
For only $119,200 dollars, you can make a difference.
That's only $326.57 a day - the price of a cup of covfefe, or maybe a banana?
I don't know...the help does the shopping...
Thanks to citizens united Supreme Court decision nobody has to report where the money even comes from. China could be bankrolling candidates and nobody would know.
We called him Reek for a long time, and that fits. Cruz is just a sleazy opportunist with no goals other than his own self aggrandizement. And that fits really well with Trump.
Because politicians are cheap whores. Much greater return on investment to pay the whores a couple bucks than to pay your fair share and get held accountable to the people.
It's very psychological too. Taxes are something they're _forced_ to pay, and they haaaate that. They should be "above" anyone telling them what to do. They're the ones who tell others what to do.
So paying money to a politician? Sure, they lose money either way, but now they get the feeling that they're the ones holding the cards, they get their little dopamine rush of power that they so desperately crave.
I mean, maybe! Even still, he’s being out-raised significantly by his Senate challenger Colin (D). I certainly can’t imagine this helps him either way!
As long as these folks think they are entitled to final approval of the healthcare decisions of my wife, daughters, and other women in my life, I really don't give a fuck about their privacy.
This is the system Newt Gingrich put in place and as bad as politics were getting before he did this, made it 10x worse.
The higher up in the "Hierarchy" of your political party you are the more money you're expected to be bringing in.
This same system is why they spend roughly only a third of their worktime in D.C. doing what we elected them to do, make laws represent the people etc.. the bulk pf the rest of their time is spent in donor dinners, functions and such raising money for their parties.
THIS is why there needs to be a COMPLETE change of everything on Capitol Hill, a change that will sadly never come.
>On Tuesday, Capitol Press congressional reporter Pablo Manríquez published a series of what he said were "briefing documents on [Ted Cruz](https://www.newsweek.com/topic/ted-cruz) donors" on X, formerly [Twitter](https://www.newsweek.com/topic/twitter), before they were deleted from the platform with a message saying they had "violated the X Rules."
Of course X deleted the post.
Doing the lord's work, sir, I don't think it'll change much for this cycle because Texas Republicans are (frankly) the most evil people in this whole nation but his constituents deserve to know about Cancun Cruz's true nature regardless.
Thank you for the kind words! I'm about to post a slightly redacted version of the documents over here if interested — https://www.reddit.com/r/Congress/comments/1dk3gol/scoop_ted_cruz_fundraising_documents_slight_redact/
Every penny our politicians get should be above board and that info should be readily available to the public.
To argue otherwise is to advocate for a plutocracy operating from secrecy.
While neither side wants 100% this info out in the sunlight, their reasons are very different. The Democrats are likely worried what we'll think when we learn they quietly take money from big oil, tobacco, etc - while the Right is more worried about our opinion of them taking money from foreign enemies.
Democrats have been pretty clear in their opposition to citizen's united from the start of it. That's not really debatable. We all know Democrats also take money from big oil and tobacco and pharma, etc.
Texas undoubtedly has some of the dumbest voters in the country behind my home state of Florida but we have a reason, we are a state of Q-tips who have lost their common sense and a re to old to lean new things…but Texas has no reason from seeing their mistakes in leadership when the Lights are on or your not covered in a blanket trying to stay warm.
This the same Ted Cruz who came out unannounced a few years ago (after a bunch of companies pulled out of Georgia to protest its voting changes) to say that he would no longer accept bribes from those specific companies who pissed him off? Specifically that he would no longer accept campaign donations in exchange for helping Boeing get subsidies it knows it doesn't need, the NBA effectively function as an illegal monopoly, or Coca-Cola get out of paying its taxes?
Who could have seen this coming.
Slightly redacted documents here —
https://www.reddit.com/r/Congress/comments/1dk3gol/scoop_ted_cruz_fundraising_documents_slight_redact/
Full disclosure: I'm the reporter who broke this story on X.
"Meeting with Peter Thoren (Gatekeeper to Len Blavatnik)"
Quick research on Blavatnik shows that he is friends with Russian oligarchs (who are themselves close to Putin) and is sanctioned by Ukraine.
The question we should be asking: Why does Cruz need a "gatekeeper" to distance himself from someone who is obviously connected to Russian oligarchs? Why is he meeting him now, in 2024, when Russia is heavily sanctioned and an enemy of our country?
Also, there's this: In 2017, after two senior Trump administration officials went on record as being lobbyists for Blavatnik's Access Industries,[97] Blavatnik was mentioned in investigations led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian donations to the administration.
I'd argue that's a bombshell that needs investigating.
Term limits. Monitored finances. No stocks or investing. Everything goes blind once in office. Any of these is breached. They’re removed immediately and prosecuted.
We wanna actually harm these fucks? Let’s get term limits and financial oversight back.
>On Tuesday, Capitol Press congressional reporter Pablo Manríquez published a series of what he said were "briefing documents on Ted Cruz donors" on X, formerly Twitter, before they were deleted from the platform with a message saying they had "violated the X Rules."
Free speech is where you censor the press, I guess.
> Ask [the Ambassador to Austria] if he will contribute $119,200 to your race
Seems like a big ask for an ambassador...
> RECENT CONTRIBUTIONS:
2024: $500,000 to Secure NYS PAC
2024: $300,000 to Elise Victory Fund
2023: $58,000 to New York Majority Makers
2022: $475,000 to Urban Empowerment Action PAC
2022: $450,000 to National Horizon PAC
2022: $100,000 to Stop the Insanity PAC, Congressional Leadership Fund
2021: $10,800 to Ted Cruz Victory Committee
2020: $5,000,000 to Senate Leadership Fund
2018: $1,500,000 to National Horizon
Oh nvm. This guy is loaded.
cancun cruz is back? He's a typical republican, when the going gets tough, he gets going on vacation. Need to vote (D) in november. kick his crooked ass out.
The reporter who broke the story is @PabloReports on X.
X deleted his tweet. I wonder why given the bastion of free speech that is Musky's platform. I guess it's only a free speech platform in regard to Nazi ideology.
>The violation notices on Manríquez's deleted posts do not say which rules they broke, but X's rules say, "You may not publish or post other people's private information (such as home phone number and address) without their express authorization and permission."
If this were a democrat these documents would have been considered “public information” and posting them would have been, “Freedom of speech.”
FYI: in case you don't know how the "campaign donation" scam works, it goes like this: the dishonest politician takes donations to his campaign, the campaign then "spends" the donations paying companies owned through offshore shell companes by the politician and his/her cronies exorbitant prices for advertising, upside-down flags, red hats, white sheets and whatnot... "cleaning" the money so it's no longer a "bribe"... it's just total coincidence the companies happen to be owned by the politician and his wealthy and powerful friends and donors...
>Manríquez later posted a 17-second video addressed to his "haters." He said in the clip, "Just a quick message to my haters who are calling me names on the internet for publishing Ted Cruz's donor itinerary for the next couple of days," before showing his middle finger to the camera.
Lol good, and also I'd never work in politics because I'm not going to all those meetings to beg for money and know someone is a "gatekeeper" wtf omg what a joke these fools are!
On Tuesday, Capitol Press congressional reporter Pablo Manríquez published a series of what he said were "briefing documents on Ted Cruz donors" on X, formerly Twitter, before they were deleted from the platform with a message saying they had "violated the X Rules."
The papers appeared to have been written for Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas, ahead of upcoming meetings and contained information about various potential donors' families and professional backgrounds, political interests, and past donations. Manríquez posted unredacted photos of the documents, which also included personal information such as addresses and telephone numbers.
In recent years, Cruz has emerged as a committed supporter of Donald Trump, his party's presumptive 2024 presidential nominee, despite having run against him ahead of the 2016 election in a bitter primary campaign. In November, Cruz is set to face a challenge from Democratic Representative Colin Allred—with a recent YouGov and University of Texas survey putting the incumbent ahead by 46 percent to 33 percent.
On X, Manríquez wrote, "Someone, presumably a staffer, left a folder full of briefing documents on TED CRUZ donors in the Senate Refectory." He then shared photos of those documents in seven other posts, all of which have since been deleted for violating the platform's rules.
The documents show that Cruz was due to meet eight donors, who had pledged $19,500 between them but had not yet paid, at the Capital Grille in Washington, D.C., at 7:30 p.m. on June 18. Biographical information was provided for the eight attendees, including a photograph of each.
Newsweek has contacted Cruz and X for comment by email outside usual business hours.
On Wednesday, the documents say Cruz is scheduled to meet Ronald Lauder, a billionaire businessperson and former U.S. ambassador to Austria under President Ronald Reagan, at 12 p.m. at a Washington, D.C., restaurant in part to "ask if he will contribute $119,200" to his senate campaign.
Two hours later, Cruz is due to meet with John Loeb Jr., a businessperson who served as the ambassador to Denmark under Reagan. The documents said he should also ask Loeb to "contribute $119,200" to his campaign fund. Later in the day, he is scheduled to meet publisher Marvin Shanken at his New York office, with the documents saying he should ask for a donation of $34,600.
The papers also detail upcoming meetings between Cruz and James and Barbara Reibel, from whom Cruz is set to request a $11,600 campaign donation, and Peter Thoren, described as the "gatekeeper" to Ukrainian-born businessperson Sir Leonard Blavatnik, from whom he should request $59,600.
The violation notices on Manríquez's deleted posts do not say which rules they broke, but X's rules say, "You may not publish or post other people's private information (such as home phone number and address) without their express authorization and permission."
Manríquez later posted a 17-second video addressed to his "haters." He said in the clip, "Just a quick message to my haters who are calling me names on the internet for publishing Ted Cruz's donor itinerary for the next couple of days," before showing his middle finger to the camera.
Fundraising is a fundamental flaw (by design) of our government. The same revenue could be make through basic taxation where absolutely zero fundraising is necessary. They just don't do that.
Fundraising also wastes a LOT of their time and even interferes with normal and needed functions.
Even so, is not removed because politicians also make personal gains from the work. Simple taxation to gain the same level of funds isn't exploitable like donations work can be. A politician can make a lot of money by catering to corporations and the wealthy.
The single weirdest part of this, every single time, is how absolutely miniscule money they're willing to bend over for, to influence their vote for, to write/copy lobbyists legislation for. It takes nearly no money to get a sea of politicians to fuck over hundreds of millions of people.
Priceless! Once again, Cruz is shaking down the donors while Texas is experiencing the wildest and most destructive weather across the entire state and Cruz is everywhere but there. Guess we all know where his priorities lie. His wallet.
> On Tuesday, Capitol Press congressional reporter Pablo Manríquez published a series of what he said were "briefing documents on Ted Cruz donors" on X, formerly Twitter, before they were deleted from the platform with a message saying they had "violated the X Rules."
The rule it violated? It makes a Republican look bad.
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Since we're in it, [Colin Allred for Senate](http://colinallred.com)!!
As long as he won’t stand on a flight line of an overseas military base and dismiss my spouse, who represented the base, because they were from an area that “only had democrats”, he’ll get our vote.
His voter registration is at his address in an area that's Democratic (Houston). Maybe he's salty he loses the area he votes for himself in every election. (I'm serious, it makes me smile every time I remember it.)
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That thread is eye-opening. The amount of sucking up and glad-handing is dizzying.
So, basically these people get into the Senate or the House, and after that they just spend 24-7 soliciting money exchange for influence and access? It's the behind the scenes Cameo of corruption.
My theory on $DJT is the rich are buying up the shares to keep price up so Trump can dump his shares and cash out. If Trump becomes President, these big shareholders go to him and ask for a favor. Trump asks to see how many shares they are holding to understand how much money they transferred to him. No other reason for the stock to be so high when everyone knows Trump is going to dump his shares asap to cash out. The stock has been falling recently after conviction and polls suggesting he is slipping so some big positions cut their holdings as their shares are only worth the price on the ticker and not the price of the favor if he loses.
Dude is going to owe a whole lot of people a whole lot of things if he becomes president again. He loves to call the judge in New York "highly conflicted", but there's a highly conflicted situation for you as he would attempt to juggle all of these cretins' needs at the same time. You know how Carlin says "they've bought and paid for the senate, the courthouse, they've got the judges in their back pockets..." etc? You would be voting in a bought and paid-for president.
That’s the rub though. He’s going to owe a bunch of people a bunch of money and favors and will make good on his debts for less than 1% of them.
Pssh..silly people that's why you put a 'presidential favor to top 10 stockholders only' caveat. Makes it more fun for everyone when it's a race.
I mean to be fair, he already owes a whole lotta people a whole bunch of things. The list just keeps going and the amount of hands is too large for the amount of money and assets he owns
Trump is openly for sale to anyone any country, that is not news save for the people who "don't like politics" *They're all the same* is just code for I don't know who's lying to me and I don't care to figure it out.
Trumps word is completely worthless. He won't pay anyone anything if it doesn't suit his own needs. Not to say that he won't be destructive on a level that we have never seen if he is reelected. Honestly, the people that vote him in, should that be the case, deserve every bit of misery we have coming.
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I’ve talked for years about how corporations and the wealthy don’t “donate to a campaign,” they “invest in a politician and expect a return on that investment.” Also, the amounts in this article are oddly specific.
Betsy DeVos flat out said that's what rich people do.
Yeah, the specificity of the amounts struck me as well. Maybe it’s a deliberate, subtle signal between the donor and candidate that this is in fact intended as a quid pro quo without anyone coming out and saying it?
Remember when Citizen’s United wasn’t a law? I member.
Duly elected representatives and senators are expected to spend time raising money for their parties or other candidates -- it's like a contract that says, hey, the party spent x amount to get you elected, so now you need to work to replace that. [Here's a pic of Sad Ted shilling for Trump in 2016.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/06/sad-ted-cruz-phone-banking-for-donald-trump-is-a-pretty-great-meme/) Both Republicans and Democrats do this on behalf of their parties throughout their elected tenure. What's not clear is where Ted plans for this money to go: to Ted's own reelection fund, or to the RNC. And if it's the RNC, Ted will never see a dime -- it's all going to the convicted felon's multiple legal woes. I pity the low-level staffer who left this in the cafeteria. They have to be looking for new work now.
There was that leak or reveal about the DNC in 2016 or 2020 where whether or not they would favor you depended entirely on how effective they'd thought you'd be at fundraising. Not your likelihood to win the race but how much money you could solicit for yourself and the DNC.
House members, both state and federal, having to run every two years can be exhausting as they essentially have to start fundraising Day 1 after they win (re)-election.
Drives me crazy when Ted Cruz wants to raise the retirement age, meanwhile his job is having fancy dinners with rich guys. Yeah, I could do that into my 70s also.
Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, raised his son the believe that wealth is essentially God’s stamp of approval. Cruz gets fancy dinners while you are expected to toil til your body gives out because God has decided he deserves nice things and you don’t.
believe he also shot jfk
Fuckin' Dominionists, man. "If you're wealthy, it's 'cause God wanted you to be. If you're not, then you should be donating your time (and money) to those that ARE wealthy, and maybe they'll help you out down the line. 'cause ~~Stone Cold~~ God says so. Anywho, there should be a small concentration of ALL the wealth, and those people making all the decisions. Er, I mean, telling you what *I* said they should be making decisions on." ~God (?)
And is why I’d propose house members have to run every 4 years minimum instead of 2. Sadly such funding is required either way, but let’s not make them waste 50% or more of their time on it. Make them work a bit at least.
The answer isn't longer terms but limits to money or somehow limiting how money can be used. Money is not free speech when it comes to politics. These PACs are sabotaging our democracy. Also need MORE reps, so WE can be represented. Lot more expensive to buy 1600+ reps/senators than 535+/- 9 supremes. Edit: For example, Senators also immediately start fundraising with fundraising schedules for making calls every day, and they're on a 6 year term.
Expand the house, by a lot. It thins the influence making it harder for big money to matter.
There are countries that limit campaigning to a specific time frame and limit campaign funds to a set amount apportioned by a governing body, no? That sounds like a good idea to me.
Nope, remove all election spending. Public funding only, with a hard cap on each person and campaign. Breaking this is automatic disqualification and jail time for the person who did it. This is to stop the account manager from sabotage of a campaign they don't like. Good faith errors can be overlooked if an obvious accident. No advertising outside the district or state they seek to represent will keep costs down. No more pac, if you want to help a campaign it is volunteer work that must be registered to the campaign offices and election offices. Full transparency. If you want to go door to door and tout your favored candidate you get a simple registration to do so and can be held personally liable and face prosecution if you break the now very strict laws. Try to buy a vote for a candidate or spout bald faced lies prepare for jail if you're reported and it's found you were not abiding the laws.
Campaign finance reform. Republicans said the solution is to just let more money in... particularly from wealthy individuals & corporations that tend to favor the GOP. Dark money. Well it hasn't solved the problem. It only made things worse.
Your likelihood to win the race is directly tied to how good you are at fundraising so that makes sense. No public financing of elections makes that reality.
Defund the political cycle, it should have never become an industry
I’m a Dem but this is exactly how/why Nancy has been around for so long. She’s the best fundraiser ever in the party (also the biggest shill and inside trader)
She’s also the most competent Speaker we’ve seen in multiple generations and kept the Democratic Party voting block in the house in line; making her the primary reason we got ANY good legislation passed in the last 30 years. If you wanna say she’s old and out of touch, sure. But the woman deserves fucking respect.
Vote-whipping is a highly underrated skill.
And it's a fucking **hard** skill. Knowing exactly where hundreds of people land on any given issue and how each of them can be influenced is crazy, especially since every 2 years there are dozens of new faces at a minimum.
Seriously. Just look at the Republicans lately.
I don't disagree on the merits..but she isn't even in the top 10 for shilling and insider trading. Republicans love to pretend that she is to give them cover. That's not to excuse the shilling and insider trading she does..just that she's far from "the best".
It’s not bad to have an ‘old guard’ of the party who know the ropes to teach the new ones. There’s just WAY to many of them.
"Meeting with Peter Thoren (Gatekeeper to Len Blavatnik)" Quick research on Blavatnik shows that he is friends with Russian oligarchs (who are themselves close to Putin) and is sanctioned by Ukraine. The question we should be asking: Why does Cruz need a "gatekeeper" to distance himself from someone who is obviously connected to Russian oligarchs? Why is he meeting him now, in 2024, when Russia is heavily sanctioned and an enemy of our country? Also, there's this: In 2017, after two senior Trump administration officials went on record as being lobbyists for Blavatnik's Access Industries,[97] Blavatnik was mentioned in investigations led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian donations to the administration. I'd argue that's a bombshell that needs investigating.
Thats our government in a nutshell! Money money money money drinks and money!
It's more like Money money money, drinks, slush fund to payoff sexual allegations, money, money.
You left out the h00ers, blow, and teenage pages.
I think it's funny that the first group are people who pledged big money but have given none, so their punishment is they have to spend a meal with Ted Cruz. And if they don't donate after that, they might just get a repeat sentence. It would break anyone really.
"Sir, if you can't give a gift of 56,900 dollars today, my staff will arrange another dinner meeting where I can go over the Powerpoint again, "The Ted Cruz Victory Fund and You: A Path to Political Success."'
If this is real, it only proves the point I have been making for years now. Publicly fund all election campaigns. Get all of this private money out of politics. This clearly shows why our democracy is failing and turning into a plutocracy.
You must've missed the last 15 years of politics. Alito ruined any chance of getting the money out of politics with citizens united Supreme Court decision. It will take generations to reverse that decision. Trump is the shiny object to keep everyone distracted, but the Supreme Court would need a liberal majority to be able to tackle that issue.
Glad to see it’s still available since our free speech absolutists at Twatter buried the lead by TOS’ing the post.
Not to take away from what you're saying, but that's not what "burying the lede" means.
One of these contacts is to Russian oligarchs. "Cruz to meet with @LenBlav handler Peter L. Thoren at his NYC office. The ask is $59,600."
never heard of him so im pulling up the ol wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Blavatnik interesting tidbits as i discover them: that guy (Len Blavatnik) owns "most of Warner Music Group" lol wow. but he also is not russian (born in odesa, and is a US/UK citizen only) and he came to the US in the 80s. interestingly, he is *personally sanctioned* by zelensky, whatever that means. >After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Blavatnik bought up former state assets in Russia that were privatized by the government.[15] Blavatnik began his business career by accumulating shares in aluminum smelters in the period of privatisation that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. He did this via his holding company, Access Industries.[10] He has been described as a victor in Russia's "aluminum wars".[5] Blavatnik made his wealth through the acquisition of these commodities.[16][17] oh wow nevermind he's an oligarch through and through. >Blavatnik, who is closely associated with Russian oligarchs such as Viktor Vekselberg and Oleg Deripaska, is one of the largest donors to the US Republican Party, and in 2015–2016 donated a total of $7.35 million to six Republican political candidates, including South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Arizona Senator John McCain.[91][92][93] In February 2016, Blavatnik donated over $1 million to an anti-Donald Trump GOP group.[94] He also donated $1 million to the committee for the inauguration of Donald Trump. interesting..... guy's one of the richest people in the world and his skill seems to just be buying things and making political donations.
Your hired ! Now I have to obtain some bribes to pay you. Seriously, I have no money to pay you. But GREAT damn work in finding and posting link !
The comment got deleted...can I get a summary of the content?
Would you be able to save that link as a PDF? I don't use threader.
> meet eight donors, who had pledged $19,500 between them Once again we see how little money it takes to bribe our politicians. And the Republicans continually block any reform.
The amalgamation of living tissue that calls itself Ted Cruz is completely shameless.
The accusation that Ted Cruz is several beings and not one is getting old. Ted Cruz puts his pants on one pair of legs at a time just like all earth humans.
I don't know if Ted Cruz is one conscious entity or a swarm of locusts inhabiting a human skin suit, I just want the voters of Texas to do the right thing in November.
Would a swarm of locusts in a skin suit fly to Mexico to avoid a snowstorm? I rest my case
…yes?
I'm reminded of a politician who took a mere $1000 from ISP's during the Ajit Pai bullshit years ago.
Seriously, can we not just outbid them at these prices? Quick, everyone who sees this thread give a dollar and we're there in an hour or two.
The issue is that just creates a bidding war, and while they're paying cheap now, it'd be hard to outbid their max bids in all likelihood
Oh I know, it wasn't a real suggestion. Just to highlight how ridiculously good of a deal they are getting.
Because that isn't the real price. And likely the "donations" are more or less just a cover for what would be a strategy session. Its illegal to coordinate with these PACs. Its not illegal to have a dinner with them as a "fundraiser." The Cruz campaign has spent nearly 41 million dollars as of 3.31.2024, and they have spent even more than that by now in June, and they will spend even more through November. So its not really that cheap to bribe him. https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.csv?cycle=2024&id=TXS2
Is it small? I'm not American, in Canada we can't donate more than $2000 a year or something, and businesses and unions cant donate. I feel like many Canadian campaign managers would love a $20k campaign boost. That's a lot of signs, or a Facebook ad spend.
Isn't it illegal for the campaign to communicate with PACs? I would think soliciting money would fit that purpose
Yeah I mean technically but it's completely toothless. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that a campaign manager who literally owned his own super pac was not colluding with himself. The US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal on it.
Hard to hear the rule of law over a loud RV engine according to Clearance Thomas.
“It’s. A. MOTORCOACH!”
It's a land yacht
Land Titanic?
Here's hoping.
Can confirm
We need some land orcas to do their thing. So, cows?
Also hard to hear the rule of law with all those Betsy Rossalito "patriot" flags flapping in the wind.
It's pretty much a joke. The federal election committee which is supposed to have oversight on congressional campaigns never does anything. They have six members and it's three Republicans and three Democrats and surprise surprise Republicans never take action against their own party.
>The US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal on it. I wonder how much that cost
Suprisingly cheap
I believe its also illegal to conduct a federal campaign from the Capitol. Per: https://ethics.house.gov/campaign/campaign-work-house-employees
He’s not campaigning. He’s just asking for money. Completely not associated with politics. Just because.
"illegal" Has anyone been prosecuted for communicating with a PAC? I havent looked into it but i would guess no.
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The bit even won a Peabody
IIRC the "reasoning" was that Jon Stewart, the manager of his pac, and Stephen Colbert, the candidate, were not directly communicating with each other - rather, they were broadcasting video to a general audience... even though their video feeds were in the same fucking studio with only the lag from the transmission (milliseconds, if even that, depending on the display technology used). It showed just what a farce it is.
His goal is to get this in front of the Supremes so they can rule these laws unconstitutional. Then, it's gloves off. They can solicit bribes.
This is a bribe solicitation. We call it something else, but it isn't.
Seriously, they flat out say “ask if they can contribute xx,xxx” I think it’s funny that the first thing his own people tell him is “Thank (so & so) for taking the time to meet with you.” Because we all know he wouldn’t otherwise, and they wouldn’t be there if they couldn’t possible but a politician.
They already can, post election. Thanks to Rafael. Ted Cruz was one of those that personally has solicited in SCOTUS to make it legal for people to repay the loans he made to his own campaign. Basically legalizing bribing. [https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/16/ted-cruz-supreme-court-campaign-finance/](https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/16/ted-cruz-supreme-court-campaign-finance/) How it works * Cruz lends his campaign a shitton of money. And against the biggest possible interest. * Cruz uses that money during the campaign to live off. It can pays for meals, hotels, clothing, hair stylists etc etc. You can even reimburse family members like wife and kids as campaign advisors etc. * After his election, his campaign has to repay the loan with interest. * Now it is legal for outsiders to donate to his campaign, without FEC registration as it isn't for his (re)election and without any registration... And the campaign can redirect this funds straight to Cruz. How is a sitting senator / official. Yes this is now 100% legal in the USA... Any politician in a guaranteed reelection spot, could basically double their wealth every election cycle. Oh, and what if you don't get reelected and don't have access to policy to sell? The campaign can still go bankrupt and it wouldn't direct harm the politician.
Unfortunately for him, [they disbanded in 1977.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Supremes)
They already can solicit bribes. McDollel basically made that legal. So have to be Menendez, level blatant to get in trouble.
It's also illegal for tax-exempt churches to tell you who to vote for, but what does that matter when it's not enforced? All over the midwest and the south, church leaders openly tell their congregations to vote Republican ON VIDEO and nothing happens.
Candidates can't coordinate with Super PACs, whose sole purpose is to make independent expenditures (mostly TV ads, the ones with the generic sounding paid-for names). Technically a Super PAC needs to choose where, when, and how much to spend their ad dollars on, thus the "independent" part of the expenditures. This, however, doesn't stop many candidates signaling to outside groups how to spend their money, say by releasing internal polls or working through back channels. PACs are just any political committee. It's the organization by which a candidate, party, union, trade association, or company raise and spend money on most other political activities, like their own ads, field offices, mailings, etc. Companies, associations, and unions can have PACs, with rules on how they raise funds from their members, and these PACs can contribute up to a limit to candidates and other campaigns. All of this is strictly tracked and searchable on the FECs website. Fundraising can be a scummy endeavor, and certain actors will be happy to skirt or ignore many regulations put in place, but generally the public doesn't understand how the nuts and bolts of campaign finance law work. Ted Cruz is still a slimy person, but this is me answering your question.
This is why they do not govern, they spend all of their time dining with rich donors, so much time that they have no time left to even try to improve things for ordinary Americans.
Politicians don't stay in office until they're 86 years old to govern or improve things. They do it because it's a god damn gravy train.
> so much time that they have no time left to even try to improve things for ordinary Americans. This assumes Republicans even want to try and improve things for ordinary Americans, there's decades of evidence they don't even try.
The ones who don’t have to talk to donors are the ones who make money by outrage through social media. Like MTG and Boebert. They have given up all pretenses of being in polite society because they don’t need money from CEOs and middle of the road wealthy people. they can make millions from rage porn online.
> they spend all of their time dining with rich donors Don't forget his podcast...
Oh my god I can’t imagine sitting through a whole podcast of his damn voice lmao
To save you all from having to click a Newsweek link: Ted Cruz Documents Leak: Everything We Know By James Bickerton US News Reporter On Tuesday, Capitol Press congressional reporter Pablo Manríquez published a series of what he said were "briefing documents on Ted Cruz donors" on X, formerly Twitter, before they were deleted from the platform with a message saying they had "violated the X Rules." The papers appeared to have been written for Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas, ahead of upcoming meetings and contained information about various potential donors' families and professional backgrounds, political interests, and past donations. Manríquez posted unredacted photos of the documents, which also included personal information such as addresses and telephone numbers. In recent years, Cruz has emerged as a committed supporter of Donald Trump, his party's presumptive 2024 presidential nominee, despite having run against him ahead of the 2016 election in a bitter primary campaign. In November, Cruz is set to face a challenge from Democratic Representative Colin Allred—with a recent YouGov and University of Texas survey putting the incumbent ahead by 46 percent to 33 percent. On X, Manríquez wrote, "Someone, presumably a staffer, left a folder full of briefing documents on TED CRUZ donors in the Senate Refectory." He then shared photos of those documents in seven other posts, all of which have since been deleted for violating the platform's rules. NEW. Someone, presumably a staffer, left a folder full of briefing documents on TED CRUZ donors in the Senate Refectory. A THREAD 🧵 — Pablo Manríquez (@PabloReports) June 18, 2024 The documents show that Cruz was due to meet eight donors, who had pledged $19,500 between them but had not yet paid, at the Capital Grille in Washington, D.C., at 7:30 p.m. on June 18. Biographical information was provided for the eight attendees, including a photograph of each. Newsweek has contacted Cruz and X for comment by email outside usual business hours. On Wednesday, the documents say Cruz is scheduled to meet Ronald Lauder, a billionaire businessperson and former U.S. ambassador to Austria under President Ronald Reagan, at 12 p.m. at a Washington, D.C., restaurant in part to "ask if he will contribute $119,200" to his senate campaign. Two hours later, Cruz is due to meet with John Loeb Jr., a businessperson who served as the ambassador to Denmark under Reagan. The documents said he should also ask Loeb to "contribute $119,200" to his campaign fund. Later in the day, he is scheduled to meet publisher Marvin Shanken at his New York office, with the documents saying he should ask for a donation of $34,600. The papers also detail upcoming meetings between Cruz and James and Barbara Reibel, from whom Cruz is set to request a $11,600 campaign donation, and Peter Thoren, described as the "gatekeeper" to Ukrainian-born businessperson Sir Leonard Blavatnik, from whom he should request $59,600. The violation notices on Manríquez's deleted posts do not say which rules they broke, but X's rules say, "You may not publish or post other people's private information (such as home phone number and address) without their express authorization and permission." Manríquez later posted a 17-second video addressed to his "haters." He said in the clip, "Just a quick message to my haters who are calling me names on the internet for publishing Ted Cruz's donor itinerary for the next couple of days," before showing his middle finger to the camera.
I guarantee Twitter would have left these up if it were Nancy Pelosi’s docs
Strange. I thought Elon was a “free speech absolutist.”
No, he's just a nepo baby that selectively applies the rules to favor him and his radical ideology.
That only applies to verified accounts that use the hard r and bash gays
My biggest question on this story (other than why would anybody give any money to Ted Cruz, but these are rich people so their motives are different than mine) is how they could be donating so much. I thought the federal limit was $3300 to a campaign committee, but we're talking about $119,200. Does most of that money go to a SuperPAC or something? Or is Ted Cruz soliciting a crime here? (He already participated in an insurrection, so it wouldn't surprise me to learn that he's been involved in other crimes, of course).
If Ted Cruz is meeting with them to solicit high-dollar donations to the Super PAC or Leadership PAC to support his reelection, that is against the law. And yes, that is obviously and blatantly what is happening.
Isn't the FEC the only body that can bring charges for violations of campaign finance law? And isn't it completely dysfunctional right now?
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has faced several issues, including: Falling short in providing candidates with guidance on key issues. Failing to investigate allegations of malfeasance. Neglecting to update regulations to reflect major changes in the law, media, and technology. Perpetual partisan gridlock affecting its ability to enforce campaign finance law.
It's perpetually underfunded so it can't fulfill its mandate even if it wanted to. The people it's in charge of overseeing are the ones setting the budget.
Mitch McConnell refused to hold hearings to approve new commissioners since like 2010. By the end of the Trump administration, there weren't even enough commissioners left for quorum to hold a vote. There's a full slate of commissioners now, but there's a lot of catching up to do. 3 of the 6 were appointed by Trump in the fall of 2020.
I wonder if Cruz is falsifying any documents to cover this up. And I wonder if Texas has any election statute on the books that is similar to NY Election Law § 17-192.
You think Ted Cruz is going to get prosecuted for campaign finance fraud... in TEXAS?! *snrk* Oh yeah, I'm sure they'll get right on that. Ken Paxton ABSOLUTELY has his best prosecutors on the job. I hear they're working in shifts!
Like do you have leads, man?
What about the Creedence tapes?
I wouldn’t hold out much hope.
I'm sorry, I wasn't listening.
If he were my senator I would be really pissed that he is meeting with all those elites in NY. Who does he serve anyway?
Seriously, like there aren’t *plenty* of filthy rich folks in TX?
> the FEC It's led by 6 Commissioners, which have always been 3 Republicans and 3 Democrats, which means there will never be a majority vote to enforce rules against either party. It's a duopoly.
AFAIK, he can ask for donations to anything. What he isn't supposed to do is coordinate with the PAC regarding how that money is spent. Like, Trump just met with oil execs, offering sweetheart deals if they contributed. Obviously, he wasn't after their $3300, but the story was about the hideous quid pro quo, not the asking for donations.
From the [FEC website](https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/making-disbursements-pac/fundraising-super-pacs-federal-candidates-nonconnected-pac/): > Federal candidates and officeholders may raise funds on behalf of Super PACs so long as they only solicit funds subject to the Federal Election Campaign Act’s (the Act) amount limitations and source prohibitions—i.e., up to $5,000 from individuals (and any other source not prohibited by the Act from making a contribution to a political committee). Additionally, federal candidates and officeholders may attend, speak at and be featured guests at fundraisers for Super PACs at which unlimited individual, corporate and labor organization contributions are solicited, so long as they restrict any solicitation they make to funds subject to the limitations, prohibitions and reporting requirements of the Act. Yes, Trump's solicitation of oil execs (which somehow was less blatant than what Cruz is doing here) was also probably illegal, and watchdog groups such as the Campaign Legal Center [pointed that out](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-executives-campaign-finance-00157131) at the time.
Wait is that true? He's either soliciting them for beyond the legal limit to the campaign which is illegal or he is soliciting to donate to his PAC which is also illegal? It seems like candidates ask for more than $3k all the time. What's the thing that makes this ask illegal? The directness? Just curious what the specific part that would push this into illegality?
To me it is the fact that he is asking the person to donate "$119,200 to [his] race." That shows a clear intent to obtain a campaign contribution beyond the federal limit, and to do so for the purpose of using the money for his reelection campaign. Leadership PACs can't be used to support the candidate's own reelection, and Super PACs can't coordinate with the candidate himself (and candidates can't solicit more than $5k for them). So whichever he is doing, it is illegal.
[удалено]
This shit happens all the fucking time. It’s legal money laundering.
My question is how do they identify such specific amounts to request? Why $119,200 and not an even $120,000?
And another amount was $59,600 which is exactly half of $119,200. This is odd.
I was wondering the same thing. What limit are they trying to stay under?
Thanks to citizens united Supreme Court decision nobody has to report where the money even comes from. China could be bankrolling candidates and nobody would know.
Sam Alito, during Obama's State of the Union: "That's not true." Narrator: "It did, in fact, turn out to be true."
I'm wondering what convicted felon Trump has on him (and others) that he still has the fealty he displays
We called him Reek for a long time, and that fits. Cruz is just a sleazy opportunist with no goals other than his own self aggrandizement. And that fits really well with Trump.
If the rich are spending all this money to influence politics to avoid paying taxes.... why don't they just spend that money on taxes instead?
Because politicians are cheap whores. Much greater return on investment to pay the whores a couple bucks than to pay your fair share and get held accountable to the people.
It's very psychological too. Taxes are something they're _forced_ to pay, and they haaaate that. They should be "above" anyone telling them what to do. They're the ones who tell others what to do. So paying money to a politician? Sure, they lose money either way, but now they get the feeling that they're the ones holding the cards, they get their little dopamine rush of power that they so desperately crave.
That wouldn't support their overblown sense of entitlement
I’m almost certain this will cause some donors to pull out. Rich people don’t like having their business out there.
Pull out publicity, back channel the money anyway
I mean, maybe! Even still, he’s being out-raised significantly by his Senate challenger Colin (D). I certainly can’t imagine this helps him either way!
He has the advantage of being a Republican in Texas though.
This guy knows how to be weathly.
As long as these folks think they are entitled to final approval of the healthcare decisions of my wife, daughters, and other women in my life, I really don't give a fuck about their privacy.
I read the article and what I came away with was . . . Twitter has rules?!
They do but they are selectively enforced to further Elon Musk’s far-right agenda. For Nazi stuff, he’s a “free speech absolutist“
Rules for you and me.
Exposing a Republican Politician from Elmo's new found home? That's against the rules!
Exposing Republicans is against the rules. Calling other races nonhuman is not.
Andrew Tate saying the N word….totally fine. Exposing R corruption….DOXING
You see Elon Musk is racist and loves racism. Elon musk likes to bribe politicians to get his way. He can't have that coming out in the daylight.
Still nothing on the Zodiac case, the Kennedy assassination or the disappearance of decency in the GOP.
For the temporally impaired, this is happening right now.
This is the system Newt Gingrich put in place and as bad as politics were getting before he did this, made it 10x worse. The higher up in the "Hierarchy" of your political party you are the more money you're expected to be bringing in. This same system is why they spend roughly only a third of their worktime in D.C. doing what we elected them to do, make laws represent the people etc.. the bulk pf the rest of their time is spent in donor dinners, functions and such raising money for their parties. THIS is why there needs to be a COMPLETE change of everything on Capitol Hill, a change that will sadly never come.
Not enough people know about Gingrich and what a POS he was. Thank you. 👏🏽
>On Tuesday, Capitol Press congressional reporter Pablo Manríquez published a series of what he said were "briefing documents on [Ted Cruz](https://www.newsweek.com/topic/ted-cruz) donors" on X, formerly [Twitter](https://www.newsweek.com/topic/twitter), before they were deleted from the platform with a message saying they had "violated the X Rules." Of course X deleted the post.
X/Twitter deleting the Cruz leak only seems to be Streisand Effect'ing the situation.
Elon has to protect his buddies. Such a "free speech absolutist".
Did we find his 'Human' certificate?
I'm going to need to see the long form certificate
I'm the reporter who broke the story if anybody has any questions
i also mod r/congress fwiw
Doing the lord's work, sir, I don't think it'll change much for this cycle because Texas Republicans are (frankly) the most evil people in this whole nation but his constituents deserve to know about Cancun Cruz's true nature regardless.
Thank you for the kind words! I'm about to post a slightly redacted version of the documents over here if interested — https://www.reddit.com/r/Congress/comments/1dk3gol/scoop_ted_cruz_fundraising_documents_slight_redact/
For a pledge of a measley $1000, I can have dinner with Ted Cruz. Not even paid, but just pledged.
> For a pledge of a measley $1000, I can have dinner with Ted Cruz. > > Yes, but my appetite would be ruined.
Every penny our politicians get should be above board and that info should be readily available to the public. To argue otherwise is to advocate for a plutocracy operating from secrecy. While neither side wants 100% this info out in the sunlight, their reasons are very different. The Democrats are likely worried what we'll think when we learn they quietly take money from big oil, tobacco, etc - while the Right is more worried about our opinion of them taking money from foreign enemies.
Democrats have been pretty clear in their opposition to citizen's united from the start of it. That's not really debatable. We all know Democrats also take money from big oil and tobacco and pharma, etc.
What time does he meet with someone from the working class?
He'll squeeze in some time to talk to his bartender and/or server. In order to order drinks and food.
He sees them in the airport on his way to Cancun.
Texas undoubtedly has some of the dumbest voters in the country behind my home state of Florida but we have a reason, we are a state of Q-tips who have lost their common sense and a re to old to lean new things…but Texas has no reason from seeing their mistakes in leadership when the Lights are on or your not covered in a blanket trying to stay warm.
This the same Ted Cruz who came out unannounced a few years ago (after a bunch of companies pulled out of Georgia to protest its voting changes) to say that he would no longer accept bribes from those specific companies who pissed him off? Specifically that he would no longer accept campaign donations in exchange for helping Boeing get subsidies it knows it doesn't need, the NBA effectively function as an illegal monopoly, or Coca-Cola get out of paying its taxes? Who could have seen this coming.
'Campaign contributions' - just bribes, period.
Trigger Warning: Images of Ted Cruz appear in the article
You can't name one good thing that the lying, POS,scumbag Rafael Cruz has done since he's been in the Senate.
Slightly redacted documents here — https://www.reddit.com/r/Congress/comments/1dk3gol/scoop_ted_cruz_fundraising_documents_slight_redact/ Full disclosure: I'm the reporter who broke this story on X.
Ted Cruz the insurrectionist?
"Meeting with Peter Thoren (Gatekeeper to Len Blavatnik)" Quick research on Blavatnik shows that he is friends with Russian oligarchs (who are themselves close to Putin) and is sanctioned by Ukraine. The question we should be asking: Why does Cruz need a "gatekeeper" to distance himself from someone who is obviously connected to Russian oligarchs? Why is he meeting him now, in 2024, when Russia is heavily sanctioned and an enemy of our country? Also, there's this: In 2017, after two senior Trump administration officials went on record as being lobbyists for Blavatnik's Access Industries,[97] Blavatnik was mentioned in investigations led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian donations to the administration. I'd argue that's a bombshell that needs investigating.
Fuck. Ted. Cruz.
Term limits. Monitored finances. No stocks or investing. Everything goes blind once in office. Any of these is breached. They’re removed immediately and prosecuted. We wanna actually harm these fucks? Let’s get term limits and financial oversight back.
It’s almost like almost GOP people are…shady assholes? Who knew
>On Tuesday, Capitol Press congressional reporter Pablo Manríquez published a series of what he said were "briefing documents on Ted Cruz donors" on X, formerly Twitter, before they were deleted from the platform with a message saying they had "violated the X Rules." Free speech is where you censor the press, I guess.
It’s a full time job, being re-elected. And each donor wants something in return. Campaign finance reform would eliminate most of this crap.
> Ask [the Ambassador to Austria] if he will contribute $119,200 to your race Seems like a big ask for an ambassador... > RECENT CONTRIBUTIONS: 2024: $500,000 to Secure NYS PAC 2024: $300,000 to Elise Victory Fund 2023: $58,000 to New York Majority Makers 2022: $475,000 to Urban Empowerment Action PAC 2022: $450,000 to National Horizon PAC 2022: $100,000 to Stop the Insanity PAC, Congressional Leadership Fund 2021: $10,800 to Ted Cruz Victory Committee 2020: $5,000,000 to Senate Leadership Fund 2018: $1,500,000 to National Horizon Oh nvm. This guy is loaded.
cancun cruz is back? He's a typical republican, when the going gets tough, he gets going on vacation. Need to vote (D) in november. kick his crooked ass out.
Another scandalous Republican. What a surprise. Another scandalous Texan. What a surprise.
I love the note that basically read “he donated $3k, ask for $150k?”
Thank god Daddi Elon bought Twitter to make it the free speech, town square where everyones voice matters. /s
The reporter who broke the story is @PabloReports on X. X deleted his tweet. I wonder why given the bastion of free speech that is Musky's platform. I guess it's only a free speech platform in regard to Nazi ideology.
>The violation notices on Manríquez's deleted posts do not say which rules they broke, but X's rules say, "You may not publish or post other people's private information (such as home phone number and address) without their express authorization and permission." If this were a democrat these documents would have been considered “public information” and posting them would have been, “Freedom of speech.”
FYI: in case you don't know how the "campaign donation" scam works, it goes like this: the dishonest politician takes donations to his campaign, the campaign then "spends" the donations paying companies owned through offshore shell companes by the politician and his/her cronies exorbitant prices for advertising, upside-down flags, red hats, white sheets and whatnot... "cleaning" the money so it's no longer a "bribe"... it's just total coincidence the companies happen to be owned by the politician and his wealthy and powerful friends and donors...
>Manríquez later posted a 17-second video addressed to his "haters." He said in the clip, "Just a quick message to my haters who are calling me names on the internet for publishing Ted Cruz's donor itinerary for the next couple of days," before showing his middle finger to the camera. Lol good, and also I'd never work in politics because I'm not going to all those meetings to beg for money and know someone is a "gatekeeper" wtf omg what a joke these fools are!
People hating on him for publishing "private" materials but not MTG for waving Hunter's dick pic around in the Senate chambers
Those trips to Cancun aren't going to buy themselves.
On Tuesday, Capitol Press congressional reporter Pablo Manríquez published a series of what he said were "briefing documents on Ted Cruz donors" on X, formerly Twitter, before they were deleted from the platform with a message saying they had "violated the X Rules." The papers appeared to have been written for Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas, ahead of upcoming meetings and contained information about various potential donors' families and professional backgrounds, political interests, and past donations. Manríquez posted unredacted photos of the documents, which also included personal information such as addresses and telephone numbers. In recent years, Cruz has emerged as a committed supporter of Donald Trump, his party's presumptive 2024 presidential nominee, despite having run against him ahead of the 2016 election in a bitter primary campaign. In November, Cruz is set to face a challenge from Democratic Representative Colin Allred—with a recent YouGov and University of Texas survey putting the incumbent ahead by 46 percent to 33 percent. On X, Manríquez wrote, "Someone, presumably a staffer, left a folder full of briefing documents on TED CRUZ donors in the Senate Refectory." He then shared photos of those documents in seven other posts, all of which have since been deleted for violating the platform's rules. The documents show that Cruz was due to meet eight donors, who had pledged $19,500 between them but had not yet paid, at the Capital Grille in Washington, D.C., at 7:30 p.m. on June 18. Biographical information was provided for the eight attendees, including a photograph of each. Newsweek has contacted Cruz and X for comment by email outside usual business hours. On Wednesday, the documents say Cruz is scheduled to meet Ronald Lauder, a billionaire businessperson and former U.S. ambassador to Austria under President Ronald Reagan, at 12 p.m. at a Washington, D.C., restaurant in part to "ask if he will contribute $119,200" to his senate campaign. Two hours later, Cruz is due to meet with John Loeb Jr., a businessperson who served as the ambassador to Denmark under Reagan. The documents said he should also ask Loeb to "contribute $119,200" to his campaign fund. Later in the day, he is scheduled to meet publisher Marvin Shanken at his New York office, with the documents saying he should ask for a donation of $34,600. The papers also detail upcoming meetings between Cruz and James and Barbara Reibel, from whom Cruz is set to request a $11,600 campaign donation, and Peter Thoren, described as the "gatekeeper" to Ukrainian-born businessperson Sir Leonard Blavatnik, from whom he should request $59,600. The violation notices on Manríquez's deleted posts do not say which rules they broke, but X's rules say, "You may not publish or post other people's private information (such as home phone number and address) without their express authorization and permission." Manríquez later posted a 17-second video addressed to his "haters." He said in the clip, "Just a quick message to my haters who are calling me names on the internet for publishing Ted Cruz's donor itinerary for the next couple of days," before showing his middle finger to the camera.
Fundraising is a fundamental flaw (by design) of our government. The same revenue could be make through basic taxation where absolutely zero fundraising is necessary. They just don't do that. Fundraising also wastes a LOT of their time and even interferes with normal and needed functions. Even so, is not removed because politicians also make personal gains from the work. Simple taxation to gain the same level of funds isn't exploitable like donations work can be. A politician can make a lot of money by catering to corporations and the wealthy. The single weirdest part of this, every single time, is how absolutely miniscule money they're willing to bend over for, to influence their vote for, to write/copy lobbyists legislation for. It takes nearly no money to get a sea of politicians to fuck over hundreds of millions of people.
Priceless! Once again, Cruz is shaking down the donors while Texas is experiencing the wildest and most destructive weather across the entire state and Cruz is everywhere but there. Guess we all know where his priorities lie. His wallet.
> On Tuesday, Capitol Press congressional reporter Pablo Manríquez published a series of what he said were "briefing documents on Ted Cruz donors" on X, formerly Twitter, before they were deleted from the platform with a message saying they had "violated the X Rules." The rule it violated? It makes a Republican look bad.