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The End Times are Near
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Tag Archives: GOP
Ted Cruz Doesn’t Debate
Sen. Ted Cruz (TP-Texas) has mastered the art of the non-debate. Here are the 10 basic rules:
- Never actually answer a question, it’s a sign of weakness.
- Never admit you made a mistake – other than a clerical error.
- Have a bag full of ready-to-deliver snarky comebacks and veiled insults.
- Talk over your opponents during their time.
- Attack the media whenever possible – especially when they are reporting truthfully about you.
- Perfect a disgusted, dismayed look that says – I can’t believe they aren’t smart enough to take everything I say for the gospel truth.
- Use that finger.
- Begin response with vicious attack on questioner – then segue to warm and meaningless family anecdote.
- When disgusted, dismayed look doesn’t work – turn to icy stare.
- Never actually answer a question.
Brilliant Attorney Ted Cruz Can’t Figure Out How to Follow the Law
Multiple outlets are reporting that Sen. Ted Cruz (TP-Texas) failed to report as much as $500,000 in loans from Goldman Sachs that may have been used to help finance his longshot 2012 Senate campaign. Cruz is downplaying this as an “inadvertent” filing error, but part of his Senate campaign was premised on his anti-Wall Street rhetoric and the fact that he was getting preferential loans from a Wall Street giant (that also employed his wife) would not have fit well into that narrative. Cruz explains one of the loans as a “standard margin loan” that you would have with any brokerage account. Red calls BS on that one. There is nothing “standard” about margin loans and they are the easiest way for the average investor to get in trouble and rack up big losses. Red sees potential trouble for the high-flying Tea Party darling in the weeks running up to Iowa. Ted’s “nothing to see here, move along” explanation doesn’t pass the smell test and how did the oh-so-brilliant attorney from Texas not manage to follow disclosure laws which are pretty damn clear on their face. Isn’t interpreting law supposed to be his strong suit?
Is it Just Red, or is Ted Cruz’s New Ad Just Plain Weird?
Sen. Ted Cruz (TP-Texas) launched a new TV ad in New Hampshire featuring hordes of well-dressed “accountants and lawyers” invading the US across what is supposed to be the Rio Grand and a border fence (notably, no one is seen actually scaling the fence). The focus of the ad is a claim that if the aforementioned hordes of accountants, lawyers and presumably other professionals were illegally crossing the border and driving down salaries for those occupations, then the swells would be up in arms about illegal immigration. First, this presupposes that illegal immigration has actually suppressed wages and implies that GOP policies which have helped to keep real incomes flat ever since Reagan’s inauguration have nothing to do with the problem. Second, it’s just plain weird.
Which Way Does Donald Trump Go?
Does Ted Cruz Lack Coattails?
GOP leaders are growing increasingly alarmed at the prospect of a Ted Cruz (TP-Texas) dcandidacy. Many wonder whether the Texas firebrand’s extreme positions and rhetoric (not to mention his abrasive personality) will turn off independents. If he is the nominee, concern is growing that his lack of down ballot pull will endanger the GOP majority in the House. Meanwhile, Democrats are enthused by the prospect. The Texas Tribune has more.
Some Democrats in Washington, D.C., are floating the idea that Ted Cruz could be as injurious to the GOP’s hopes of holding its majority in the U.S. House as the bombastic Donald Trump.
And, as the Tribune’s Abby Livingston reports, some Republicans give some credence to the argument. Former Virginia Republican Congressman Tom Davis said Cruz, as his party’s nominee, could harm candidates in the Northeast and Midwest while potentially helping candidates in the western states.
“I think it has to play out, but there is nervousness with Cruz, who is clearly not part of the establishment, that you don’t find with [Marco] Rubio or [Jeb] Bush or [John] Kasich in some of those districts,” Davis told the Tribune.
“Campaign operatives from both parties point to the 26 GOP-held seats that are in districts where Obama won a majority of the 2012 popular vote,” Livingston writes. “The Republican fear — and Democratic hope — is that Cruz falls short of 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney‘s performance and throws those seats into contention.”
For its part, the Cruz camp discounts such talk. “The way Cruz wins the election is by energizing Republicans and then making the argument to independents and even Democrats for how his conservative principles are what will provide real opportunity and improve their lives,” Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said in an email to the Tribune.
Red files that last comment from the Cruz camp in the “Wet Dreams” folder. But he is also wary of the Dems thinking that a Cruz nomination will benefit them. Never underestimate the power of a complete and total ideologue in a polarized voting public.
Quote for the Day
“You don’t have to be popular with other senators, but you need to be respected by other senators if you have what it takes to be President of the United States . . . I mean, Barack Obama wasn’t popular with all the other senators, but he was respected . . . I don’t think Ted [Cruz] has the respect of his fellow senators.”
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D- Mo.)
At lunch today, someone told Red that several months ago, Sen. John Cornyn asked a local GOP power broker (the source of the story) if there was something he could do to get rid of Cruz.
How Would a Real “Tea Party” Fare in Texas
The divide in the GOP is playing itself out on the national stage as the Tea Party wing (represented by Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, etc.) fights it out with the Establishment wing (represented by Jeb!!!!$$$$?, Marco Rubio, John Kasick, Chris Christie, etc.) while the Insanity wing (Donald Trump and Ben Carson) leads the way. Meanwhile, Red wonders how his many Republican friends can continue to stand with a party in which 43% of its members think Pres. Obama is a Muslim, which believes we can deport 11 million people back to wherever they came from without any problems, still believes that supply-side economics works, and wants to return to the gold standard.
Simply put, the Republican Party needs to break up. We will have your Grandfather’s Country Club GOP which believes that responsible governance is a good thing, that not all government is inherently evil, understands that many aspects of modern commerce require reasonable regulation, recognizes that compromise is an essential part of life, and which has more or less sane fiscal policies. Then you will have a Tea Party which will be ideologically pure and stand for kicking out every last undocumented alien, huge tax cuts for the very wealthiest, bring back the gold standard, making gay marriage illegal, destroying any right to choose, instituting religious tests for office, allowing guns everywhere, repealing the 17th Amendment, instituting property ownership requirements for voting and any other policy that will insure that the upstanding good, white people of America remain in control.
The Texas Tribune has the breakdown on just what might happen if the GOP were to fracture.
Candidate filing is underway and guess what, Captain Obvious? Almost everything that’s competitive in Texas races will come to a head in the March primary and not in the November general election.
That said, recent polling shows that not only are there strong factional differences between Tea Party and non-Tea Party Republicans, but also that the anti-establishment types are a sizable part of the Texas GOP.
The latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll asked Texans which primary they’d be voting in; 50 percent said Republican and 35 percent said Democrat. It also asked how they would vote in a congressional race if there were candidates from the Republican, Democratic and Tea Parties. Once again, 35 percent chose the Democrats. The Republican number dropped to 22 percent, and the Tea Party got 17 percent. The percentage of “don’t know” responses rose, too.
One of the poll’s co-directors, Daron Shaw of the University of Texas at Austin, reads that to say that 43 percent to 44 percent of the GOP primary voters are Tea Party voters. That faction is relatively small in the Legislature, especially in the Texas House. But they’re bucking for a promotion, talking about entering enough candidates in the 2016 elections to seriously challenge the conservatives now in power.
The races will firm up over the next month; the filing period that opened on Saturday continues through Dec. 14.
Anticipating Tonight’s GOP Debate
With all the hubbub, hoo-hah, and general commotion surrounding Dr. Ben Carson’s claim to have stabbed someone as a youth, Red anticipates that the other presidential hopefuls on the GOP side may feel compelled to come up with their anecdotes showing how they have risen from their troubled past and become the better person for it.
Rand Paul – Once refused to tip his hairdresser when she cut his hair too short.
Ted Cruz – Never killed anyone himself, but his Dad Rafael, was part of team of assassins who were dispatched to kill deposed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Bautista but were thwarted when FB had the impertinence to die of a heart attack just days before the planned assassination. Ted himself did once unleash a brutal tongue lashing that reduced a first grade classmate to quivering jelly after cutting in front of Ted in the boy’s restroom. Ted really had to pee very badly.
Jeb!!!!$$$$? – Whacked a fraternity brother up side of the head with a pledge paddle when he refused to give Jeb!!!!$$$$? a copy of an old Econ 101 final. Jeb!!!!$$$$? made a C.
Marco Rubio – Tried to attack a convenience store clerk with a switchblade. Luckily, it was only Marco’s switchblade comb.
Carly Fiorina – Too many school yard cat fights to pick out one in particular.
Donald Trump – Paid local toughs to beat up kid who made fun of his hair. This happened more than once.
John Kasich – Food fight in the men’s locker room at his country club. Couldn’t get a decent tee time for several months.
Chris Christie – Sat on little brother until he forked over allowance.
Mike Huckabee – Body slammed gay man in the mosh pit.
Bobby Jindal – Peed in neighbor’s back yard.
Red’s Awards from Last Night’s GOP Debate
While much of the media is focused on who won or lost, Red believes that, much like U6 Soccer, everyone who shows up deserves a participation award. So in no particular order, Red gives the following awards to the participants in last night’s GOP debate:
Jeb!!!!$$$$? – The Why am I Even Here and Not Already Been Proclaimed President Award
Ted Cruz – The Angriest Man Alive Award
John Kasich – The Hopelessly Rational Human Stuck in a Lunatic Asylum Award
Donald Trump – The “Fuck You” Money Award
Mike Huckabee – The Just Damn Glad to be Here and Insult Fat People Award
Ben Carson – The Smooth Jazz FM Radio Deejay Award
Chris Christie – The I Can’t Believe I’m Losing to These Guys Award
Carly Fiorina – The Sure I Was an Incompetent CEO but With Enough Lies People Will Forget Award
Marco Rubio – The Vote for Me Because I’m Not Yet Tired and Old Like Bush Award
Rand Paul – The Really, We Almost Forgot You Were There Award
GOP Debate Bingo Card from USA Today.
Paradise in Hell 
