|
March 13, 2015
Greetings,
It’s always a pleasure to hear from Texans. While I’m here in Washington, it’s great to visit with constituents at our regular Texas Tuesday coffee meetings and hear from families, students, and local leaders. If you’re coming to town this spring, and would like to join, please reach out.
Keep Texas strong,
Ted Cruz
Sen. Cruz Holds Hearing on NASA’s Budget Priorities
Click to view video
On Thursday, Sen. Cruz held a hearing with NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden in the Space, Science, and Competitiveness Subcommittee to examine the President’s Fiscal Year 2016 Budget request for NASA.
“As we begin the process of putting a roadmap together for the future of NASA there is one vital question that this committee should examine. Should NASA focus primarily inwards or outwards beyond lower-Earth orbit? Since the end of the last administration we have seen a disproportionate increase in the amount of federal funds that have been allocated to the Earth Science program at the expense of and compared to Exploration and Space Operations, Planetary Science, Heliophysics and Astrophysics which I believe are all rooted in exploration and should be central to the core mission of NASA,” Sen. Cruz said in his opening remarks.
Sen. Cruz displayed the following chart that demonstrated the decreased funding for exploration and space operations and asked Administrator Bolden if the current budget proposal was inhibiting manned space flight and exploration:
Sen. Cruz remains concerned that the priority of earth science is compromising NASA’s space exploration, and he concluded, “You have spent a great deal of time at this hearing defending the importance of earth science, defending the importance of weather observation. I think everyone would agree with that…. NASA’s core competence is not Texas soil conservation. Now I’m a Texan, I love our Texas soil, but there are a lot of people studying Texas soil, you’ve got a whole Department of Agriculture that spends a lot of time and energy studying the soil in Texas and everywhere else, which is fine, but that isn’t what makes NASA special.
See the full release here.
Sen. Cruz Discusses the Dangers of a Nuclear Iran with Hugh Hewitt
On Wednesday, Sen. Cruz spoke about the dangerous repercussions of a nuclear deal with Iran on the “Hugh Hewitt Show.”
In the interview, Sen. Cruz said, “I think it is revealing that the Obama Administration and its defenders cannot defend the substance of this foolhardy deal with Iran. And so they're doing everything they can to distract from it. Last week, all they could discuss was Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech, and their perceived myths of protocol. This week, all they can discuss is the letter, because they cannot defend on substance a deal that will lead inexorably to Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, which poses an enormous threat, the single greatest threat to America's national security, of anything on the globe...”
He continued, “Last year, Khamenei, in 2014, speaking to a large crowd in Tehran, said falsely, America is the greatest human rights abuser on the face of the planet. The crowd responded by chanting in unison death to America. And indeed, every day, or every year, rather, Iran celebrates as a holiday what they call death to America day. That's an actual holiday in Iran. Here, we have Thanksgiving, we have Christmas, we have the 4th of July. Every year in Iran, they celebrate death to America day, which is the anniversary of Iran in the 1970s taking Americans hostage. There is a reason Iran calls Israel the little Satan and America the great Satan. And I believe neither President Obama nor his team understand that these are theocratic zealots whose religious extremism and radical Islamic theology makes the risk of their using a nuclear weapon to murder millions unacceptably high.”
Listen to the full interview here.
Earlier in the week, Sen. Cruz joined 46 Republican colleagues in signing a letter to the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding the ongoing nuclear negotiations and making clear that any agreement reached with the President not approved by Congress is nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei.
Read the text of the letter here.
Sen. Cruz Commemorates 50th Anniversary of Selma March
On the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” that occurred on March 7, 1965 in Selma, Alabama, Sen. Cruz issued the following statement:
“Half a century ago, the root of evil and injustice stained our nation's history as hundreds of civil rights advocates were attacked in Selma on their way to Montgomery.
“Today, our hearts are heavy as we remember that Bloody Sunday at the Edmund Pettus Bridge where 600 were blasted with tear gas and beaten with clubs. It was an assault on the dignity of each man, woman, and child, and on the rights bestowed on them by God alone, regardless of race, ethnicity, or background.
“Yet, the sojourners did not give into the hostility. They stood at the precipice of freedom for all, and they began again, on March 9, and then again on March 21, with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. leading more than 3,000 marchers. By the time they reached the state capitol in Montgomery on March 25, more than 25,000 supporters - black and white - walked hand-in-hand.
“It was a pilgrimage for justice, and for the voting rights of every citizen to be realized. It was a moment of hope for the nation, for as Dr. King read James Weldon Johnson's prophetic words:
‘We have come over a way
That with tears hath been watered.
We have come treading our paths
Through the blood of the slaughtered.
Out of the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam
Of our bright star is cast.’
“The truth prevailed, Congress soon after adopted the Voting Rights Act, and today Dr. King's dream marches on as we commemorate the brave men and women who carried the light to Montgomery.
“Though injustices still pervade our neighborhoods and cities, we celebrate how far we've come. And we remain committed to bending the arc towards justice.”
|
