Tweet of the Day: Stephen KIng Edition

Cruz, Paul and Rubio, all running for President. Hey, I thought I was supposed to write the horror stories.

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) April 16, 2015

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Ted Cruz Scares Children

Ted Cruz has been taking pointers from Rick Scott on how to scare the Hell out of children. Cruz gave his usual doom and gloom speech about President Barack Obama. Cruz made an analogy about the world being on fire. A scared 3 years-old child asked if the world was really on fire. Cruz said that it was. The man has no shame.

On his own New Hampshire trip, Texas Senator Ted Cruz went on a similar rhetorical journey. "The Obama economy is a disaster. Obamacare is a train wreck. And the Obama-Clinton foreign policy of leading from behind—the whole world's on fire!"

Julie Trant, a child in the audience, took this literally. "The world's on fire?" she asked.

"The world is on fire, yes," said Cruz, not missing a beat as the crowd chuckled. "Your world is on fire. But you know what? Your mommy's here, and everyone's here to make sure that the world you grow up in is even better."

Cruz will never be President because he always comes off as completely reptilian.

Jeb Bush At Odds With GOP On Immigration

I agree with Tengrain on Jeb Bush not running for President in 2016.

The best antidote to illegal immigration is a functioning system of legal immigration… Now is the time for House Republicans to demonstrate leadership on this issue. Congress should not use the present crisis as an excuse to defer comprehensive immigration reform.…we have too often seen what happens when the president oversteps his constitutional authority. Avoiding similar disastrous results will require legislative action by both parties.

Hell will freeze over before Republicans in the House "demonstrate leadership" on immigration reform. House Speaker John Boehner has blamed President Barack Obama for the fact that the House has not voted on immigration reform.

“We’re at a point where my colleagues don’t trust that the president will implement the law the way we would see it passed,” Boehner said at an event hosted by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in San Antonio. “So I’ve put the ball back in the president’s court. He’s going to have to do something to demonstrate some level of trustworthiness.”

Memo to John Boehner: Obama does not run the House of Representatives. You do.

Sen. Marco Rubio released a statement supporting sending new illegal immigrants back to their home countries faster.

“Today I reiterated with our Central American counterparts that it is they who must build a better future at home for their people, with the U.S. as a supportive partner. In light of the recent surge in unlawful border crossings, they owe it to their people to make clear that these dangerous journeys to the U.S. they’ve undertaken are not worth risking their lives for since they will inevitably lead them back to where they started.

Sen. Ted Cruz is proposing withholding funding from Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. All this would do is leave undocumented children in legal limbo for a lonfer period of time. Rubio and Cruz are grandstanding to secure the support of the tea party debate. The majority of the GOP establishment doesn't share Jeb Bush's desire to move forward on immigration reform.

Senate Republicans Don't Heart Ted Cruz

According to Bob Woodward, fellow Republicans in the Senate can't stand him.

Fellow Senate Republicans avoid Cruz at a policy lunch every week, Woodward said. "Witnesses have told me he goes in there and he sits alone," Woodward added. "People will only sit next to him when there are no other available seats. ... He's isolated."

Woodward says that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn't think highly of Cruz.

"McConnell ... thinks that Cruz is literally the most selfish senator he's ever seen in his years there," Woodward told CBS' Bob Schieffer.

Cruz is the man the tea party is talking about being President. Exactly how would Cruz get legislation passed?

Ted Cruz Sucks Up to Donald Trump

Sen. Ted Cruz has retained legal council to officially end his Canadian citizenship. The Daily Beast reports Cruz is seeking the approval of birther Donald Trump.

Still, with so much at stake, we should perhaps be unsurprised to learn that Cruz recently had a man-to-man chat with The Donald about his multi-culti roots. In this week’s interview with the Dallas Morning News, Cruz revealed not only that he has retained a lawyer to cleanse himself of his Canadian-ness but also that he had chewed over the issue with Trump. Cruz was mum on the context of the powwow. Nonetheless, we must give him props for recognizing that no one trumps Trump at hawking crackpot conspiracy theories about presidential legitimacy. Better to kiss the ring and defuse that bomb now than to risk The Donald dredging it up again the next time he needs to goose ratings for The Apprentice.

Republican presidential candidates seeked Trump's approval in 2012. Why? Trump is considered a walking punchline. Trump's constant conspiracy laced attacks didn't hurt President Obama getting re-elected. Do these same Republicans remember when Trump used to bash President George W. Bush?

Ted Cruz is not a serious man. No serious person would be within a hundred feet of Donald Trump.

The Ted Cruz Coloring Book

Think Progress reports Really Big Coloring Books has published “Ted Cruz to the Future™ –Comic Coloring Activity Book.” Kids can color and read unhinged quotes like this from Cruz.

Providing Health Care To People Who Can’t Afford It Is Worse Than War: Cruz’s failed stand against the Affordable Care Act “was so important because millions of citizens believe Obama Care is worse than any war. At least American soldiers have weapons with which to defend themselves.”

My question is what child would want a coloring book of Ted Cruz or any other politician.

Quote of the Day

"If I didn't care so much about our country, I would hope he will get the Republican nomination for president, because that would be the end of the Republican Party."

Sen. Harry Reid

Dubious Rubio Flip Flops on Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Sen. Marco Rubio was one of the authors of the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform bill. Rubio is losing his appeal with the tea party. Rubio is now urging a piece meal approach to immigration reform.

"Any effort to use a limited bill as a ruse to trigger a conference that would then produce a comprehensive bill would be counterproductive. Furthermore, any such effort would fail, because any single senator can and will block conference unless such conference is specifically instructed to limit the conference to only the issue dealt with in the underlying bill,” Rubio spokesman Alex Conant told Breitbart News.

Translation: Rubio's spokesman makes it clear that the Senator doesn't even support going to conference with the House. This is an extremist position. Republicans refusing to have the House and Senate go to conference is one of the reasons why there was a federal government shutdown. The House and Senate cannot bring legislation to President Barack Obama's desk without going to conference. What Rubio is actually proposing is to kill immigration reform.

Rubio has repeatedly shown that he will choke when under political pressure. A perfect example is Rubio's bottled water moment during his State of the Union response.

Rubio participated in the Ted Cruz filibuster to defund Obamacare. When poll numbets turned against Republicans on the shutdown, Rubio lowered his media profile. The Rubio who advocated not funding to government until Obamacare is defunded suddenly went silent.

The Marco Rubio political playbook is take politically unpopular positions to appease the tea party, panic and then take another politically unpopular position to repair the damage to his conservative popularity. This is what a politician with no concern about policy does.

No Love For John Boehner

Pandering to the tea party and not standing up to Ted Cruz has not paid off for House Speaker John Boehner. A new CNN poll shows Boehner's unfavorable rating hitting 55 percent. Members of Congress usually don't poll well under the best circumstances. However, this is painful for Boehner.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi saw their unfavorable ratings go down. Reid had an unfavorable rating of 45 percent in September. This month Reid unfavorable rating went down to 40 percent. Pelosi's unfavorable rating went from 51 percent in September to 47 percent in October.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell weathered the government shutdown better than Boehner. McConnell's unfavorable rating went from 39 percent to 42 percent. McConnell is up for re-election in 2014. He is probably grateful he didn't have as high a public profile in the shutdown as Boehner.

The CNN poll shows the Republican Party with an unfavorable rating of 64 percent. The tea party has an unfavorable rating of 56 percent. Ted Cruz and the tea party is sinking the Republican brand. What is problematic for the Republican establishment is Sen. Ted Cruz promising another government shutdown.

“I would do anything, and I will continue to do anything I can, to stop the train wreck that is Obamacare,” Cruz said when asked by ABC News’ Jon Karl whether he would rule out another shutdown. “The test that matters Jon, is are we doing anything for all the people that are getting hurt from Obamacare?”

Quote of the Day

“The greatest trick the left has ever played is to convince conservatives we cannot win."

Sen. Ted Cruz, at the Values Voters Summit.

Cruz should look at the NBC/WSJ poll numbers before he declares victory.

Quote of the Day: Ted Cruz Hypocrisy Edition

"To reiterate what’s happened since Cruz took to the Senate floor for his 21 hour fakeibuster, he said he would speak in opposition to Obamacare until he could not stand. An hour later, he took a break. His grandstanding efforts were simply a means to rail against President Obama, and in the end, he voted against himself."

Anomaly

It apppears someone who likes to grandstand doesn't like to stand for a long period of time.

Peter King Really Doesn't Like Ted Cruz

Rep. Peter King has called Ted Cruz "a fraud" and doubled down on Anderson Cooper's show. King accuses Cruz of only threatening a shutdown to defund Obamacare only for Cruz's own political benefit. King goes so far as to call Cruz "crazy."

No one likes Cruz. Josh Marshall investigated Cruz's college days at Princeton and Harvard and found that Cruz's classmates couldn't stand him.

Shocking News: No One Liked Ted Cruz at Prnceton & Harvard

Blogger Josh Marshall went to Princeton at the same time as Ted Cruz. Marshall has no memory of Cruz. Marshall asked friends that went to Harvard at that time what they thought of Cruz. Apparently, the words "asshole" and "jerk come up when describing Cruz.

My friend [redacted] went to Harvard Law with Ted. [He] says that Ted shocked people when during the first week, he announced that he was creating a study group and only people with high GPAs from the Big Three Ivies could apply for admission. In short, Ted managed to come off as a pompous asshole at Harvard Law.

Cruz's social skills haven't improved since he became a Senator. It is bad when Chris Wallace and Karl Rove go on Fox News and say Congressional Republicans are pissed at Cruz.

John Boehner Wants To Fail At Defunding Obamacare Again

It appears House Speaker John Boehner has caved to the stupidity of Sen. Ted Cruz. The magical plan put forward by Cruz is that President Barack Obama will sign a bill that either repeals or defunds his landmark health care legislation. All Cruz has to do is get Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to allow a floor vote and promise not to filibuster a bill that would defund Obamacare. Obama would then sign this bill and willingly destroy the crowning achievement of his administration. The reason being because a freshman Senator told him to. All this is pure fantasy.

Speaker Boehner hops on the Cruz crazy train.

“On the CR, we know what the position of this conference is,” Boehner said, speaking before his colleagues. “Every member in this room is for defunding Obamacare while letting the rest of the government continue to operate. We’re going to put Obamacare defunding directly into the CR. And then we’re going to send it over to the Senate, so our conservative allies over there can continue the fight. That’s where the fight is.”

“On every major issue we’ve faced for the past two and a half years, the math has been the same: House Republicans either find a way together to get to 218, or the Democrats who run the rest of Washington essentially get everything they want,” he added, pressing for House GOP unity.

It is debatable if Boehner can get 218 votes. Remember when Boehner pulled his own Plan B legislation?

House Speaker John Boehner's proposal to avert the looming fiscal cliff's automatic tax increases failed to curry enough Republican support Thursday night, after which Congress left for the holiday with no clear end in sight in the high-stakes debate.

Boehner said earlier Thursday that he was confident that his so-called Plan B -- which would extend tax cuts that are set to expire at year's end for most people while allowing rates to increase to 1990s levels on income over $1 million -- would pass the House, and in the process put pressure on President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Senate. But his gambit seemed in doubt later as Republican leaders struggled to get most all their members to sign on -- even enlisting senators like Sen. Rob Portman, to work the House floor -- knowing the chamber's Democrats oppose it.

Boehner and other establishment Republicans are going through with this legislative charade because they fear a tea party movement that doesn't even hold rallies anymore. The defunding of Obamacare will fail just as every other attempt to defund Obamacare has failed. Going through with this charade is more important to Republicans than another stimulus package that could create more jobs. The only jobs Boehner and the Republican House leadership are concerned with is their own.

Update: Rep. Sean (former reality television star) Duffy (R) is talking trash about senators Cruz and Mike Lee. Apparently, Cruz and Lee aren't passionate enough about ending Obamacare. What planet is Duffy living on? (The answer is The Real World: Boston.) All Cruz and Lee talk about is defunding Obamacare.

House agrees to send #CR to Senate that defunds Obamacare. @SenTedCruz & @SenMikeLee refuse to fight. Wave white flag and surrender.

— Sean Duffy (@RepSeanDuffy) September 18, 2013

Here is a NSFW video of Sean Duffy dancing in his underwear. Someone explain to me why this man is in Congress.

Ted Cruz At 25 Percent Off

I have been skeptical that anyone outside of Washington actually thinks Ted Cruz is a serious presidential candidate. Turns out the Republican Party of Iowa is running their 25 percent off K-Mart blue light special to get people to pay to see Cruz speak at their Reagan Dinner.

Cruz is probably not even aware that the price of tickets to see him at the Republican Party of Iowa’s Reagan Dinner has been discounted. Typically tickets to a fundraising event don’t go on sale, but it is one of a few unusual tactics that the current administration at the Iowa GOP seems to like employing. In fact, at the June picnic that Cruz attended for the Republican Party of Iowa, the administration capped the number of people who could attend the event, again, another odd occurrence for a fundraising event.

Even though Cruz likely doesn’t having anything to do with the tickets going on sale, he does have to deal with the perception that it creates. A potential presidential candidate like Cruz wants and needs to draw large audiences in order for the perception of him to equal reality. Discounted ticket prices tell a different story. And while it would never work this way in real life, one has to worry that if tickets had to be discounted by 25 percent after just two trips to central Iowa, what its going to be like in a couple of years?

Marco Rubio or Paul Ryan can come across as affable guys. Cruz is devoid of human warmth or charisma. Cruz is supported by elements of the tea party because he is anti-Obama 24/7. Cruz's tea party supporters couldn't tell you what Cruz's position on the Euro crisis or foreign relations with Pakistan is. Neither can Cruz. Ted Cruz is nothing more than Him DeMint 2.0.

Ted Cruz's Bizarre Appearance At the Heritage Foundation

Sen. Ted Cruz praises noted racist and homophobe Jesse Helms. Cruz said more politicians should say "crazy things." I'm speechless.

“I’ll tell you something … the very first political contribution I ever made in my life was to Jesse Helms. When I was a kid, I sent $10 to Jesse Helms, ’cause they were beating up on him, they were coming after him hard and I thought it wasn’t right, and at the time my allowance was 50 cents a week,” the Texas Republican said. “I am willing to venture a guess that I may have been Jesse Helms’ single largest donor as a percentage of annual income.”

Cruz also recalled a story about when a young Helms received a campaign donation check from John Wayne. He explained that, according to the story, Helms figured out how to get in touch with Wayne and called to thank him for the support.

“Apparently Wayne said, ‘Oh yeah, you’re that guy saying all those crazy things. We need 100 more like you,’” Cruz said. ”The willingness to say all those crazy things is a rare, rare characteristic in this town, and you know what? It’s every bit as true now as it was then. We need a hundred more like Jesse Helms in the U.S. Senate.”

Cruz reminds me of this scene from Airplane!

Ted Cruz is the New Jim DeMint

Via Crooks and Liars: Sen. Ted Cruz continues to endear himself to both members of Congress.

“Madame President,” Cruz said to Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), who was presiding over the Senate session, “the senior senator from Arizona urged this body to trust the Republicans. Let me be clear, I don’t trust the Republicans.”

“And I don’t trust the Democrats,” he continued after a beat. “And I think a whole lot of Americans likewise don’t trust the Republicans and the Democrats because it is leadership in both parties that has gotten us into this mess.”

Cruz is denying the right of House Republicans to conference with the Senate on the budget. Cruz is opposing his own party. This is the kind of stuff Jim DeMint used to do. DeMint supported letting the government default based on his own lack of understanding of economics. Even Mitch McConnell, in all his grandstanding, was not that crazy. Cruz, like DeMint, isn't in Congress to pass legislation. Cruz and DeMint both believe in making government dysfunctional and pissing off their colleagues.

I was not surprised when DeMint left the Senate to run the Heritage Foundation. It was obvious DeMint hated government and the people that worked there. My question is why did DeMint ever run for the Senate in the first place. I wouldn't be surprised if Cruz doesn't run for a second term. Hispanic Republicans are turning on Cruz.

“I’m disappointed in Ted Cruz because he is capable of being a leader on the immigration issue like Rubio,” said Artemio Muniz, the chairman of the Federation of Hispanic Republicans, an offshoot of the Republican Party of Texas. “He has the conservative pedigree to take the lead and be the guy and close the gap between the Hispanic community and Republicans, but he has chosen another route.”

Count on Cruz to block the immigration reform bill in the Senate. It doesn't matter that the Republican Party is losing Hispanic voters. Someone has to be the new Jim DeMint. Before DeMint was Joe Lieberman. There is always one member of the Senate that gets a power thrill from behaving like an asshole.

Update: Salon columnist Joan Walsh fired off this tweet.

Wow, Ted Cruz is kind of a skeezy huckster. Will Republicans start to notice?

— Joan Walsh (@joanwalsh) May 24, 2013

Quote of the Day

"I hope my colleagues in New York and New Jersey won't hold my vote against Sandy relief against me now that Texas needs federal aid."

Sen. Ted Cruz

Calling Ted Cruz a hypocrite would be an understatement. Cruz doesn't care about the people that needed aid during Hurricane Sandy. Cruz only cares about protecting his seat. Which explains is sudden love for federal aid being spent on his state of Texas.