Tag: Sen. Ted Cruz

Saturday Soother – October 9, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Truro, MA – August 2021 photo by Tom Baratz

(Wrongo and Ms. Right have temporarily relocated the house of Wrong to Truro, MA for two weeks.)

With all of the talk about debt limits and infrastructure, America hasn’t focused on Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) delaying the nomination of 59 would-be US ambassadors. He’s said he’ll block dozens more. From the NYT:

“Democrats call Mr. Cruz’s actions an abuse of the nomination process and the latest example of Washington’s eroding political norms. They also say he is endangering national security at a time when only about a quarter of key national security positions have been filled.”

Cruz has put sand in the gears of the nominating process by objecting to the Senate’s traditional practice of confirming uncontroversial nominees by “unanimous consent.” His delaying tactic means that each nominee requires hours of Senate floor time while other major priorities, including Biden’s domestic spending agenda, compete for the Senate’s attention.

Cruz has had help from some of his Republican colleagues. Only 12 State Department nominees have been cleared for a full Senate vote by the committee, because Republicans on the committee have assisted in the foot-dragging.

Cruz says that he’s doing this to protest Biden’s stand in favor of Nord Stream 2, a gas pipeline project from Russia to Germany.  In May, Biden waived congressionally imposed sanctions on the project. Nord Stream 1 got started in 1997. Nord Stream 2 was finished last month. There has been criticism of both projects since the 1990s because they provide Russia with some leverage over European energy security, while also circumventing Ukraine, which operates a competing pipeline for Russian gas.

But the project helps Germany, and Biden decided to prioritize our relations with Germany.

Cruz isn’t alone. Noted Republican weenie Sen. Josh Hawley, (R- MO), is vowing to block all national security nominees over the Biden administration’s handling of Afghanistan. He wants Secretary of State Blinken, Secretary of Defense Austin, and national security adviser Jake Sullivan to resign.

Cruz also delayed the debt limit deal negotiated between the Dems and the Republicans this week. A deal emerged on Thursday in which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) agreed to support a short-term debt extension, giving Democrats time to pass a full extension in December.

The Parties had planned to let the fix go through with a simple majority vote, but Cruz overturned that arrangement by insisting on a filibuster, meaning that the deal needed to find 60 votes for cloture in the Senate. That caused McConnell to find ten Senate Republicans to vote for it. In the end, 11 Republicans voted for cloture, and then the Dems passed it on a party-line vote.

But EVERYBODY knows that ending the filibuster would be wrong because the filibuster ensures bipartisanship.

There isn’t a clearer example of how the Senate filibuster has become a tool, not to protect the minority, but simply to sow chaos. Today, it is used to stop Biden’s appointments, or to slow down his legislative priorities. Historically, it was used to block civil rights legislation.

Never before has the filibuster been used so cavalierly.

Democrats have discussed filibuster carveouts for the debt ceiling and voting rights. McConnell’s agreement to allow Republican votes for cloture on the debt ceiling was largely a message to Democratic Sens. Manchin and Sinema, showing that the system still works. He’s saying to them that they can count on McConnell and the Republicans when the Democrats can’t muster the votes they need if the vote is in the national interest. So they shouldn’t vote for a filibuster carve-out.

The clever McConnell has made Schumer’s job over the next few months even more difficult.

The weekend is upon us, so it’s time for our Saturday Soother. Tomorrow, we will be enjoying the Wellfleet Art & Oyster Crawl, where you walk between art galleries that offer wine and oysters to the an increasingly tipsy crowd of potential buyers of local art.

For you, take a few minutes to leave the machinations of Cruz, McConnell, and Schumer behind. Grab a seat by a window and listen to Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott play “Over the Rainbow” from 2020’s “Songs of Comfort and Hope“.

The album was inspired by the series of recorded-at-home musical offerings that Ma began sharing in the first days of the COVID-19 lockdown in the US:

While this performance is instrumental, here’s a sample of the lyrics:

When all the clouds darken up the skyway
There’s a rainbow highway to be found
Leading from your windowpane
To a place behind the sun
Just a step beyond the rain

Somewhere, over the rainbow
Way up high
There’s a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 21, 2021

Believe it or not, on Monday, Merrick Garland finally gets a hearing in front of a Senate committee! Whether he will be confirmed remains to be seen. John Pavlovitz nails it, and also nails Ted Cruz:

“Ted Cruz represents the heart and soul of the Republican Party: that’s why he left people in pain, that’s why he fled a crisis, that’s why he will be defended by his callous Republican counterparts—and why so many GOP voters will vote for him again, should they survive their cruelty.”

More:

“…Cruz is the defective moral compass of those who’ve spent the past twelve months doing everything they could to be a deadly pandemic’s greatest allies and causing nearly half a million Americans to die;
after four months of stoking fake election fraud conspiracies that incited a murderous assault on our nation’s Capitol….after weeks of being so enamored with defending their disgraced cult leader’s non-existent honor, they’ve been useless in creating a stimulus plan to rescue those millions whose lives have be upended by a historic health crisis he did nothing to combat.”

As Pavlovitz says, there’s no sense of right and wrong with the GOP, only what they believe they will get away with. On to cartoons.

Ted left for Mars:

Ted didn’t forget:

Finally, Mexico is concerned Texas isn’t sending their best:

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Monday Wake Up Call – March 7, 2016

Today’s wake-up call is for the Republican Party.

Beginning with Barry Goldwater in 1964, the Republican Party began its deal with the Devil by starting their catering to those on the farthest Right edge of the political spectrum, inviting people who traffic in anger, hatred, religious zealotry, and fearmongering of those not like them, inside the GOP tent.

The election of Ronald Reagan helped bring these zealots some legitimacy, not because he was one of them, but because he had courted them in his first run for the White House.

We forget that in 1976, an evangelical Christian who taught Sunday school, and who endeavored to follow Christ in his daily life ran for President and won. But, despite Jimmy Carter’s strong Christian beliefs, Evangelicals went heavily for Ronald Reagan in 1980. Because they admired his Christian faith? No, his faith seemed situational. But he projected what they perceived as strength and leadership.

Evangelicals ignored one of their own in favor of a secular Republican who talked tough and affected an air of someone who could talk tough when events called for toughness. Turns out that for Evangelicals, like many groups, are primarily concerned with political power; their need for a theologically-sound candidate takes a back seat whenever it has to.

That’s the reality today, as it was back then. Trump is barely Christian, and Cruz is solidly Christian, but the politics of the Christian Right demands fealty to a political agenda that tolerates hatred, exclusion, and intolerance. Therefore, Trump and Cruz quality.

The contrast between the Democratic and Republican parties couldn’t be more sharply defined.

Since the late 1800s, when businesses were undertaking tremendous consolidation, leading to the formation of trusts, Republicans supported business, despite the fact that business was beginning to prey on people and overshadow the government.

After the brief Republican Progressive period from 1890-1917, in which Republicans were the force behind “trust-busting”, they have advanced an increasingly exclusionary and discriminatory agenda, denying a collective responsibility to care for our fellow human beings in favor of elevating corporate interests along with their view of individual liberties above all else. Government is an instrument designed to show strength, project American power, and enforce a neo-liberal, dog-eat-dog economic worldview, one that will take the social contract back to where it was in the early 1900’s.

Democrats understood that government needs to be more than a police and fire department. One of the most important roles assumed by government was ensuring that we create a level playing field for all citizens, that corporations were not first among equals in America. They also believed that we must look after those who are down on their luck by providing a social safety net.

Government was not to be primarily an instrument for projecting power and protecting the influential, but rather one of ensuring the American social contract, while protecting our citizens from the abuses of big business.

After years of courting the Radical Right, thinking that they could be kept under control, Establishment Republicans now understand that, not only do they no longer have control, the inmates are now running the asylum – poorly. Faced with the reality that the bill for their deal with the Devil has come due, Republicans trotted out Mitt Romney to make the case against The Donald, who responded with crude personal insults and inappropriate sexual innuendo:

COW Trump Miracle Worker

Congratulations, Republicans, you have only yourselves to blame. Now, you desperately need a Wrongo Wake up Call. To help you wake up, let’s return to the “small hands” innuendo of the last GOP debate.

Here are the Talking Heads doing “Born Under Punches” live in Rome in 1980, from their great album, “Remain in Light”. This 8-minute live version is worth your time, since it includes spectacular guest guitar work by Adrian Belew, who played with Frank Zappa and King Crimson.

Some think the guitar that Belew is playing was originally jimmy Hendrix’s (the one he burned at the Monterey Pop festival). Frank Zappa repaired it, and loaned it to Adrian Belew, whose main influence was Hendrix.

The bassist in the white dress is Tina Weymouth who is (still) married to Chris Franz, the Talking Heads guitarist. Here are some sample lyrics:

Take a look at these hands
Take a look at these hands
The hand speaks, the hand of a government man
Well I’m a tumbler born under punches, I’m so thin

Hmmm. Is Trump a government man?

Those who view the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Thursday Cartoon Blogging?

We will not have Sunday Cartoon Blogging this week, as Ms. Oh So Right and the Wrongologist will be in Vermont at a wedding. However, some are too good to pass up. There will be a 9/11 column on Friday. On to cartoons!

Kim Davis is out of jail. She remains on the case, however:

COW Kim Davis

 

“I want you to go down to Morehead Kentucky, and instruct Kim Davis to stop putting words in my mouth”

Last week saw the incredible shrinking NFL Commissioner Goodell:

COW Godell

 

The surprising track races continue:

COW Track Race

 

With Hillary looking weaker, Dems consider a relief pitcher:

COW Warm up the Lefty

The Iran deal now has a bullet-proof minority in the Senate. Time to get frisky:

COW Peace Prize

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the time, Wrongo thought that awarding Mr. Obama the Nobel Peace Prize was a mistake. It was also a mistake for Mr. Obama to accept it. We will see if the Iran deal holds, and if it promotes peace in the Middle East.

Why Trump and Cruz hang out together:

COW TrumpCurz

And the GOP explains their Wall strategy:

Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press

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Our Summer of Dickitude

(You may have noticed our sporadic blogging. Wrongo is nearing the end of a year-long project that will be operational in Chicago during the week of August 9-15. During these days leading up to the project’s start, it has been all conference calls and negotiations with 3rd parties. Regular blogging will return during the week of 8/16.)

Let’s look at the one part of the American summer that is seeing rapid growth, that of rampant Dickitude. We start with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) saying about the Iran deal:

If this deal goes through, the Obama administration will become the leading financier of terrorism against America in the world…I’ve heard this referred to before as the ‘Jihadist Stimulus Bill’.

Expect full blown, uncensored, nuclear Republican crazy until after the Fox debate.

You probably didn’t know that Ted Cruz is a sci-fi/comic book fan, a fact highlighted in an interview published last week by The New York Times Magazine. Mr. Cruz told Fox News that his top 5 superheroes are: (see below from a tweet by Andreu Aitch)

Cruz heros

Rorschach, who you may not know, is one of the main characters of Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Rorschach is a man who gives lip service to living by a morally unassailable, black and white code, but who nevertheless picks and chooses much of what he considers to be right and wrong entirely based on his own prejudices. Rorschach is the kind of person who murders people for the “greater good”.

Rorschach’s epitaph is:

Never compromise, not even in the face of Armageddon.

Doesn’t that seem like Cruz’s philosophy, where he’s willing to publicly fight his party’s leadership and shut down the federal government in order to spare his country from the impact of Obamacare? You might find a guy with a philosophy that prioritizes principle over peace, even though it might bring nuclear war, to be a risky person as your president.

BTW, why do our newsies want us to pick our president based on what cartoon character he likes best?

Speaking of Dickitude, what about Walter Palmer, the lion-killing dentist? The unauthorized killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe, apparently was a poaching. This recalls that Palmer pleaded guilty in 2008 to the poaching of a black bear in Wisconsin, so Palmer is a serial poacher. And, in 2009, Palmer agreed to a settlement with the Minnesota Board of Dentistry over allegations that he sexually harassed a receptionist. Without admitting guilt, Palmer settled and paid $127,500 to the woman, who also was his patient.

Let’s hope he does time in Zimbabwe.

Moving on, The Hill reports that Federal prosecutors charged Rep. Chaka Fattah, (D-Pa), Wednesday in a 29-count indictment with racketeering, conspiracy, bribery and wire fraud. The FBI and IRS launched its probe of the Congressman’s activities in March 2013. The indictment alleges that, in connection with his failed mayoral bid in 2007, Fattah and his associates borrowed $1 million from a wealthy supporter and disguised the funds as a loan to a consulting company. He then created sham contracts and made false accounting records, tax returns and campaign finance disclosure statements.

In another alleged scheme, beginning in 2008, Fattah lobbied individuals in the executive branch in an effort to secure an ambassadorship or an appointment to the US Trade Commission for 69-year-old lobbyist Herbert Vederman, for which Vederman paid Fattah an $18,000 bribe.

Want to bet he is re-elected?

Finally, Rick Perry said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the shooting in Lafayette, Louisiana show that gun-free zones are “a bad idea”. He said he believes people should be able to take their firearms to the movies:

I think that you allow the citizens of this country, who [are] appropriately trained, appropriately backgrounded, know how to handle and use firearms, to carry them. I believe that, with all my heart, that if you have the citizens who are well trained, and particularly in these places that are considered to be gun-free zones, that we can stop that type of activity, or stop it before there’s as many people that are impacted as what we saw in Lafayette.

Imagine adding guns to a dark, loud environment. What could possibly go wrong? Especially if some sort of escalation were to occur, and a group of true heroes packing handguns are there to intervene. Hundreds of people in a dark theater shooting at the same time to “defend” themselves.

OTOH, we have zero interest in actually dealing with the problem:

Layfayette debate

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