Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) delivered his first official 2016 presidential campaign speech Monday during a “convocation” ceremony at Liberty University, a religious institution in Lynchburg, Virginia. During that speech, he announced he would be running for president.
A convocation (from the Latin convocare meaning “to call/come together”, a translation of the Greek ἐκκλησίαekklēsia) is a group of people formally assembled for a special purpose, mostly ecclesiastical or academic, states Wikipedia.
A synodical assembly of a church is at times called “Convocation.”
“Some of the students who witnessed the launch of Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign were…only in attendance so they wouldn’t get fined,” at the fundamentalist Christian school, states the Huffington Post.
Convocation at Liberty University is a mandatory Monday, Wednesday and Friday event — and they are penalized with fines if they skip an assembly.
“They make you come. If you don’t come, you get punished,” said Ana Delgado, a sophomore at Liberty, who said students face a $10 fine for not showing up at convocation, according to National Journal.
Born in Canada to a Cuban father, Cruz does not seem to fear lawsuits over his right to be president.
In the past, “birther” lawsuits challenged Barack Obama’s right to be President, claiming that he was not a natural-born citizen. He was born in Hawaii to an American mother and Kenyan father.
Sheriff Richard Mack, who now heads the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association said in a Blog Talk Radio interview that he believes Cruz is ineligible for the presidency. Mack is known as a prominent “birther.”
Oddly, Cruz has stated that we should abolish the Internal Revenue Service and put “every one of those 110,000 [IRS] agents…on our southern border.” (82,000 people work for the IRS, according to FactCheck.org.)
This is from a man whose father immigrated from Cuba and who himself was born in Canada.
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Liberty Off Campus Living Guide here
(Updated post)
OK, Fine. 