I’ve been wondering just who the fuck this junior Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, thinks he is. I know, everyone’s been comparing him to the late Senator Joseph McCarthy, due to his disrespectful and appalling attempt to besmirch former Senator Chuck Hagel’s reputation.
The Wikipedia bio of Cruz immediately provides some clues:
Cruz served as a law clerk to William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States, and J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Cruz was the first Hispanic ever to clerk for a Chief Justice of the United States.
In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz assembled a coalition of thirty-one states in defense of the principle that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. Cruz also presented oral argument for the amici states in the companion case to Heller before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
In addition to his victory in Heller, Cruz has successfully defended the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds, the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools and the 2003 Texas redistricting plan.
Cruz also successfully defended, in Medellin v. Texas, the State of Texas against an attempt by the International Court of Justice to re-open the criminal convictions of 51 murderers on death row throughout the United States.
Cruz was endorsed by David Barton, founder and president of WallBuilders; the Club for Growth, a conservative political action committee; Erick Erickson, editor of prominent conservative blog RedState; the FreedomWorks for America super PAC; Princeton University professor Robert P. George; nationally syndicated radio host Mark Levin; former Attorney General Edwin Meese; Tea Party Express; Young Conservatives of Texas; and U.S. Senators Jim DeMint, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and Pat Toomey. He has also been endorsed by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and former Texas Congressman Ron Paul, Michigan Congressman Justin Amash, and former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum.
Now there’s an all-star lineup of right-wing idealogues (shudder.)
Jane Mayer provides more information in her piece in the New Yorker:
Two and a half years ago, Cruz gave a stem-winder of a speech at a Fourth of July weekend political rally in Austin, Texas, in which he accused the Harvard Law School of harboring a dozen Communists on its faculty when he studied there…Cruz made the accusation while speaking to a rapt ballroom audience during a luncheon at a conference called “Defending the American Dream,” sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a non-profit political organization founded and funded in part by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch. Cruz greeted the audience jovially, but soon launched an impassioned attack on President Obama, whom he described as “the most radical” President “ever to occupy the Oval Office.”…He then went on to assert that Obama, who attended Harvard Law School four years ahead of him, “would have made a perfect president of Harvard Law School.” The reason, said Cruz, was that, “There were fewer declared Republicans in the faculty when we were there than Communists! There was one Republican. But there were twelve who would say they were Marxists who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government.”
In a follow-up article, Jane Mayer discusses the response from Cruz’s spokeswoman (who actually responded in an interview with The Blaze-I provided the link if you want to hold your nose and dive in, the comments are psycho, too.)
And a couple of articles from Politicus.com provide some slightly more tongue-in-cheek descriptions Cruz’s recent spotlight-hogging performances.
Unfortunately, Senator Cruz has the backing of some people with deep pockets and too much power. Maybe that’s why he seems to feel that he can say anything, regardless of the truth, with little impunity. So far, the only good thing Cruz has done is to make John McCain and Lindsey Graham look almost honorable.
This is our Open thread, what’s on your minds?
Cruz is just one more Reich-whiner who can’t get it that any conservatives smart enough to become professors at a prestigious school like Harvard, inevitably go into more lucrative private practice. That always leaves it to the ‘Marxists’ to become the teachers.
Note to Turtle: Sorry, I crashed right after my last comment last night. BBC America is doing an episode of each Doctor, one a month, for the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who. January was the first Doctor, and last night was the second Doctor. Wendy Padbury is the actress who played companion Zoe Heriot, who, from my perspective, was part Gidget, part Agent 99, but smarter.
Ted Cruz makes me believe in reincarnation. He looks a lot like Joe McCarthy. And he is an asswipe just like Joe McCarthy.
Cruz is quick to accuse people but so far, he hasn’t provide one name for these so called Harvard ‘commies’ which means that they don’t exist. If he can’t name names, then he is talking trash. Cruz is what is known as a bullshit artist.
Commies, and birthers, and birchers, oh my!
Ten phrases that progressives need to change. Whenever someone refers to these, we respond with the changed wording.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/02/24/10-phrases-progressives-need-to-ditch/
How ridiculous is Beckyboy? He’s getting smacked down by professional wrestlers.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/wwe-wrasslers-remind-glenn-beck-theyre
Oh, only rhetorically. Pity.
Damned “librul media”! I’m getting really, really, sick of this “both sides are to blame” crap. I would love to ask the author two questions. “How many bills sponsored by Democrats have even made it to the point of an up or down vote?” and “How many GOP bills has President Obama vetoed”?
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_THE_POLITICS_OF_RISK?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
they cheer him in Austin and hate the president just as much….
HOUSTON (AP) — Ted Cruz glanced at his black cowboy boots, beneath a silver Texas belt buckle, waiting for the admirers to stop clapping.
His arrival had turned a drop-by at a Houston lumber yard into a virtual campaign rally. At an earlier stop near Austin —at a gun manufacturer that churns out AR-15 rifles — cheering fans crowded next to employees, and one held a sign reading “Ted Cruz rocks!”
The new troublemaker of the U.S. Senate was home again, and savoring nothing short of a victory lap.
In just seven weeks on the job, the insurgent Republican elected with the tea party’s backing and bankroll has run afoul of GOP mainstays, prompted Democrats to compare his style to McCarthyism and has voted against nearly everything of significance that came before him.
http://www.chron.com/default/article/Cruz-s-tactics-boil-Washington-but-impress-Texas-4304107.php
me can only hope the GOP aligns behind Cruz for 2016….it will spell the end of their world.
not if they succeed with their election rigging plans. We may be getting a preview of our next president.
Can someone born in a foreign country (other than Kenya, of course) become President?
Yes, if s/he is born of American parents.
What kind of bird is that, fatherbob? It looks familiar but I just can’t put a name to it.
i don’t know….i hoped someone would comment on it. it’s from Rattlesnake Springs, just south of Carlsbad Caverns National Park. here in New Mexico.
it was taken by Big Ram Photography, and i haven’t any idea that it is….i had hopes our resident birding experts would have some feedback.
i thought i was one cool little bird..
No expert here, that’s for damn certain.
(appears to be of the Wren family)
Rock Wren
or
possibly a House Wren
Canyon Wren
Bewick’s Wren
Sorry, no links but maybe a juvenile Sedge Wren or Winter Wren?
It looks like we all agree it’s in the wren family!
looks like your Bewick’s Wren…..same photographer too..
Used to be classed as the Winter wren, but now re-classed as the Pacific wren. Native to the western US.
Thankfully, no. Cruz was born in Canada.
Yes, he was born in Canada, but, if you look at the ‘Personal’ section on wiki, his parents (particularly his father) have some confusing backgrounds.
Among the little-known and shamefully under reported menaces of the upcoming sequester: congress members might have to fly commercial. Any more such draconian cuts and they’ll be buying their own drinks:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/post/air-force-chief-sequester-might-ground-lawmakers/2013/02/22/c1bc9992-7d21-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_blog.html
Oh dear. The poor, poor Congress person will have to stand in line with everyone else. They will be standing in line with people that are pissed off because of the long lines and the long wait caused by Congress’s inability to act. Wonder how that will turn out. Meanwhile, President Obama will still fly on Airforce One.
He actually said one thing that makes sense. He said that the key to trying to reduce gun violence is “people control”. Of course, he then goes off into conspiracy land instead of following his argument to it’s rational conclusion that the way to control people who are buying guns is at the point of sale.
http://crooksandliars.com/news-hound-ellen/fox-guest-downton-abbey
Old white guys
Many Republicans preach morality but do the opposite, as the latest scandal underscores.
Who knew that seeming double-centenerian Pete Domenici was such a player? None of us, it turns out, until this week, when the former longtime Senator of New Mexico admitted to an extra-marital affair with a colleague’s [Senator Paul Laxalt of Nevada] daughter, which produced a now-thirty-something son.
Domenici is certainly not the first politician to suffer from “Strom Thurmond’s Disease”. You may remember the late Senator Thurmond, he of the presidential campaign in 1948 based on the segregation of the races – something he couldn’t personally accomplish with the hired help in his own household (let’s call it an Early Schwarzenegger). Just two weeks ago, at the age of 87, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, his bi-racial child who could not acknowledge her father publicly until his death in 2003, passed away herself. Just another sad story of conservative hypocrisy, and in Thurmond’s case, one of many dalliances with women not his wife for the “family values”-spouting, Lost Cause romantic.
This is not to say this kind of thing doesn’t happen on the Democratic/liberal side. I have two words for you. John and Edwards. Yet, the difference is that like most Republicans, Domenici was abundantly concerned what was going on in our private lives if we were gay, a woman, or a President being impeached in the 1990s over an affair. He was a moral exemplar, you see, who was so pristine and pure you’d think he brought the Ten Commandments down from the Sandia Mountain Range just outside his birthplace of Albuquerque. He could deign to lecture us all, including then President Bill Clinton.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/02/201322315115227904.html
I like Seth McFarlane but he was just awful at the Oscars last night.
And would some please “Tupac” Kanye West, please?
someone.
Carrion….
well……i feel like a real dumbass, i missed 3
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-sequestration-quiz-20130212-quiz,0,2730874.story
OK, Father Bob, you made my day! I aced it.
I missed the “axe” comment, the year 1985 and another….
i’m a blithering idget…
I didn’t do so well. I got 50%. I’ll blame it on the wine that I have been drinking. 🙂
Mostly trivia…don’t sweat it.
@beardedstoner: I didn’t know Ikea even sold food. Do you have to assemble it yourself?
Hmmmm.
via DK
concerned teen:
Crazy Uncle Pat:
What? He didn’t try to sell her a bottle of DemonOut!?//He’s slipping in his dotage.
Just saw at DU that Keith Olbermann is going to be on Craig Ferguson tonight, if you can stay up late enough or have DVR. I checked and he’s listed on my cable guide.
Love it. Thanks for the link.
Montana GOP county chairwoman posts picture of a cardboard box trap from a “plot to kidnap the president,” with watermelon as bait. But don’t you dare call them racist:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/25/jennifer-olsen-montana_n_2759484.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
These sons of bitches are as racists as it gets. Wonder how they will act when Hillary gets elected.
Or , what was it? …”bitter bible-thumpers clinging to their guns”? Something like that. T
hey really got upset about that, as they thumped their bibles and waved their guns and bitched about how a Muslim foreign Antichrist must have stolen the election and is hell-bent on taking away their Bibles and their guns.
There might have been some progress in that a lot of these assholes appear to have gone from being openly “proud racists” to shamed racists.
The trouble is of course, they are still racists, and they don’t now feel ashamed, they just know the majority reaction to them will be cries of “Shame! Shame!” which they complain is “repression”—which it is, but because there’s good reason and humanism behind the shaming, because racists are cruel and destructive people.
.
Hix. Pointy white hat Hix.
A picture is worth a thousand words even if the text is considerably less than a thousand words.
Oh, that is good.
That and this equal I’d say:
Dear Outraged Republicans demanding drastic cuts to balance the budget.
YOU FUCKERS started TWO WARS, OFF BUDGET on MY CREDIT CARD!@
Crawl under a rock and let the adults fix YOUR MESS!
PS. I think some of these charges on my credit card are fraudulent. Can I open a fraud investigation?
I remember seeing a charge for 9 billion labeled “Pallets of cash for Iraq:.
Disputed it, but lost.
That’s what happens when you respond to e-mails that began
“Dearest honorable friend, I am CEO of a multinational corporation currently living in the UAE..”
I recall it being more like ‘Yellow Cake! Aluminum Tubes! WMDs! Be afraid!”