Ted Cruz Just Wants to be an American in Peace

Do you think Sen. Ted Cruz's quest to answer the questions about his citizenship is a prelude to an eventual run at the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2016? Well, he has no idea what you're talking about.

Do you think Sen. Ted Cruz's quest to answer the questions about his citizenship is a prelude to an eventual run at the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2016? Well, he has no idea what you're talking about. Cruz said it was merely about his current job as a freshman Texas Senator. "Serving as a U.S. senator, I think it’s appropriate that I be only American," Cruz told CNN's State of the Union. "There’s a lot of silliness," he said. "I thought it was a reasonable question when The Dallas Morning News asked for my birth certificate so I gave it to them." Cruz was born in Calgary, see, and there was some debate surrounding whether or not he could legally run for the White House because of his Canadian citizenship. Cruz renounced his Canadian citizenship, though. Our neighbors to the north have so far remained ambivalent to losing Cruz from their ranks.

Colin Powell thinks the President should speak out more about race relations, especially in the wake of the Trayvon Martin verdict in Florida, he said on CBS's Face the Nation. The former secretary of state also said he doesn't think the Martin verdict will have any sort of long term effects on American law, though he did say it was a dark moment for Florida's judicial system. "I think that it will be seen as a questionable judgment on the part of the judicial system down there, but I don't know if it will have staying power," Powell said. "These cases come along, and they blaze across the midnight sky and then after a period of time, they're forgotten." Powell said he thinks there's still work to be done to bridge the races together, and that he wants Obama to speak about race in America more often. "I'd like to see him be more passionate about race questions, and I think that was an accurate characterization of some of the things that we were exposed to. I mean, in my lifetime, over a long career in public life, you know, I've been refused access to restaurants where I couldn't eat, even though I just came back from Vietnam, we can't give you a hamburger, come back some other time," Powell said. "And I did, right after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, I went right back to that same place and got my hamburger, and they were more than happy to serve me now. It removed a cross from their back, but we're not there yet. We're not there yet. And so we've got to keep working on it. And for the president to speak out on it is appropriate. I think all leaders, black and white, should speak out on this issue."

Sen. Bob Corker would like to know all about what the National Security Agency is doing, and he'd like to know soon, thanks. At least that's what he told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace on Sunday. Wallace asked whether he knows everything about what the NSA is doing to spy or not spy on Americans. Corker said no, he does not know. "I'm not on the Intelligence Committee, and obviously they are privy to information that I am not, but absolutely not," Corker said. "And that's why I wrote a letter to the president this week to ask that the head of this organization come in and brief folks from top to bottom." Corker suggest the heads of the NSA should come in and give lawmakers a full run down of every operation currently in place so they may determine what oversight is necessary. "Look, I appreciate efforts to keep Americans secure," Corker said. "At the same time, this is in front of us, we are not in front of it. ... The American people want to know that those of us who are elected, (Rep.) Eliot (Engel) and I know, understand fully what's happening here. I don't think we do. I would imagine there are even members of the Intelligence Committee themselves that don't fully understand the gamut of things that are taking place."

Scott Brown also dodged 2016 questions on Fox News Sunday. Brown attended the Iowa State Fair last week, prompting a query from a fellow panel member about his intentions. "I'm going to focus on taking my message as we've talked about tonight of inclusiveness and a bigger tent, as obviously our panel here has said," the former senator said. "Because right now, there needs to be room for everybody in our tent in order for us to be effective. So I'm going to travel around the country and see what happens," he said. He's going to travel across the country, eh? Sure sounds like he's campaigning, but the semantics can be confusing.

NBC uploaded the entire episode of Meet the Press that preceded the March on Washington. Watch that if you do nothing else today: