Republicans: continued

[Joe]

Yeah, that one has the added benefit of being real.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Ah, it warms the cockles of my heart and makes me happy as a little girl. When a born bootlicker gets to do his stuff on national television, it is a spectacle to behold.

'Cruz Begs Tucker to Forgive Him. Tucker Makes Cruz Beg Harder.'

A day after Tucker Carlson publicly scolded him for the unforgivable sin of calling the Jan. 6 insurrection a “violent terrorist attack,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) hightailed it to the Fox News star’s show on Thursday night to grovel for forgiveness.

Yet, while Cruz repeatedly claimed he’d made a “mistake” due to “sloppy and frankly dumb” phrasing, Carlson wouldn’t let the Texas senator off the hook—prompting the one-time presidential contender to plead harder for Carlson’s approval.

Cruz, one of eight senators who objected to the certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory, drew Carlson’s wrath on Wednesday when he solemnly described the deadly Capitol riot as “a violent terrorist attack” during a Senate hearing.

Carlson, who has downplayed the violence of Jan. 6 and suggested the insurrection was a “false flag” orchestrated by federal agents, wondered “what the hell’s going on,” while accusing Cruz of “repeating the talking points that Merrick Garland has written.”

...

“There are a lot of dumb people in Congress. You are not one of them. Smarter than I am. And you never use words carelessly,” Carlson kicked off the interview. “And yet you call this a terror attack when by no definition was it a terror attack. That was a lie. You told that lie on purpose and I’m wondering why you did.”

After saying he contacted Carlson the night before to ask to come on and tell his side, Cruz then claim the way he phrased his words “was sloppy and frankly dumb.” Carlson, however, was having none of it.

“I don’t buy that,” the Fox star interjected. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! I’ve known you a long time since before you went to the Senate. You were a Supreme Court contender. You take words as seriously as any man who’s served in the Senate. And every word—you repeated that phrase, I do not believe that you used that accidentally. I just don’t!”

“Tucker, as a result of my sloppy phrasing it’s caused a lot of people to misunderstand what I meant. Let me tell you what I meant to say,” Cruz implored. “What I was referring to are the limited number of people who engaged in violent attacks against police officers. I think you and I both agree that if you assault a police officer, you should go to jail. That is who I was talking about.”

Again saying his “phrasing was sloppy,” Cruz insisted he “wasn’t saying the thousands of peaceful protesters supporting Donald Trump are somehow terrorists.” Carlson, though, remained unconvinced.

[Joe]

Too bad Cruz couldn't just fall back on the truth and say, "Hey Tucker, you know they call me Lyin' Ted, right?"

[L'Emmerdeur]

I think 'Lyin' Ted' is pretty weak sauce, as most of the one-term wonder's insult nicknames actually are. A habitual and incorrigible liar naming somebody else a liar isn't all that wounding, in my opinion. Mendacity is the sea these rancid shits swim in--a more specific cut is desired. 'Teddy Lickspittle' or 'Spineless Ted' are to the point.

Regarding Cruz's (naturally) duplicitous effort at placating the perpetually disconcerted Carlson, all I have to say is-- Those fucking fact-checkers. Horrible people!

'"Sloppy" wording this week? Ted Cruz actually called the Capitol assault a terrorist attack at least 17 previous times'

Cruz's description of the January 6, 2021, assault as a "terrorist attack" was promptly criticized by some others on the right -- including Fox host Tucker Carlson, who is an influential figure in Republican politics. So in a remarkable moment on Thursday, Cruz went on Carlson's show to try to depict his Wednesday words as a careless slip.

Cruz claimed, "The way I phrased things yesterday -- it was sloppy and it was frankly dumb."

Carlson immediately interjected to say, "I don't buy that," noting that Cruz is known to be a precise speaker.
Cruz insisted he had used "sloppy phrasing," saying he meant to accuse of terrorism only people who committed violence against police officers. Cruz continued, "It was a mistake to say that yesterday." But Carlson reiterated that he didn't believe that Cruz made an inadvertent error.

Nobody should.

Cruz's use of "terrorist attack" was not some sort of one-time accident. In fact, he had described the Capitol riot as a terrorist attack or broadly described rioters as terrorists over and over for months -- at least 17 previous times in official written statements, in tweets, in remarks at Senate hearings and in interviews.

CNN asked Cruz spokesman Steve Guest how Cruz's claim that his "terrorist attack" phrasing on Wednesday was "sloppy" is compatible with the senator's numerous past uses of the exact same phrasing. Guest emailed a response that disparaged CNN and other media outlets but did not provide an explanation.

Then, more than two hours after this article was originally published, Guest sent a second statement in which he called the premise of the article "false." Guest said, "Of course there are many instances of Sen. Cruz using the word 'terrorist' in regard to violent assaults on police officers. ..." (In fact, Cruz had repeatedly used "terrorist attack" to describe the Capitol riot in general, not just the assaults on officers at the Capitol.) Guest also said that Cruz's actual "mistake" was "not explaining the difference between acts of violence and peaceful protest." And Guest again disparaged CNN and other media outlets.

[Joe]

Yes, as our vacationing media critic from the Great Slave Lake has pointed out, fact-checking is inherently biased. However, if Lyin' Ted is too kind, I can offer a more biting take from the right. Not that it will matter.

Ted Cruz Debases Himself for the Base

What an extraordinary disappointment Ted Cruz is. On paper, the man should be a star. He’s intellectually gifted, he has a remarkable memory, and, on the vast majority of public-policy questions, his political instincts are sound. But he’s a coward, and, at this level, cowardice represents an intractable flaw.

Worse, Cruz is transparent in his cowardice. One must assume that Cruz believes himself to be a practitioner of political chess, and yet he seems oddly unaware of his tendency to prefigure each and every move through a loudspeaker. On Wednesday, as part of a mawkish paean to the Capitol Police, Cruz described the events of January 6, 2021, as “a despicable act of terrorism.” A day later, he went on Tucker Carlson’s show to explain sorrowfully that “the way I phrased things yesterday was sloppy, and it was, frankly, dumb.” What had changed in the interim? Nothing had. This wasn’t Ted Cruz carefully debating the meaning and suitability of words and making a handful of concessions in the process; this was Ted Cruz noticing that his previous position had made him unpopular with his base and finding another one on the fly. Its accuracy notwithstanding, there was nothing “sloppy” about Cruz’s use of the word “terrorism.” Indeed, he had used that word in both official statements and interviews on a number of occasions before this week, including on January 7, 2021, on January 8, 2021 (twice), on January 25, 2021, and in May 2021. The difference this time was that someone with a big platform attacked him for it, and, coward that he is, he couldn’t take the heat.

As a tactician, Cruz is as subtle as an air raid. Back in June 2015, he said, “When it comes to Donald Trump, I like Donald Trump. I think he’s terrific. I think he’s brash. I think he speaks the truth.” In May 2016, he said that Trump was “a pathological liar” and “a narcissist at a level I don’t think this country’s ever seen” who “doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies.” Cruz did not arrive gradually at this second asseveration via a process of constant revision, speaking up only when not doing so had become unbearable; rather, he decided overnight that it made political sense to shift gears, and then did just that. Announcing the alteration, he told his audience that he was “going to do something I haven’t done for the entire campaign, for those of you all who’ve traveled with me, all across the country: I’m going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump.” In other words: Before today, I was lying. Now, I’m not. Trust me!

Queen Victoria often complained of William Gladstone that “he speaks to Me as if I was a public meeting.” Ted Cruz suffers from a similar problem. He has no personality outside of elective politics; he finds it hard to read a room or adjust to new circumstances; and he seems genuinely to believe that his audience is incapable of noticing his machinations, even as he telegraphs them for all the world to see. There is a great deal of “How do you do, fellow kids?” about Cruz. Groveling before Tucker Carlson, he said that he’d misspoken. But there was not a single person in America — including Carlson, who laughed derisively — who believed him. Given his objectives, Cruz would have been better off had he simply said, “Look, Tucker, I still want to be president, and your taking shots at me is hurting me, so tell me what I need to say to make you stop, I’ll agree to say it, and then we can all move on.”

[Brian Peacock]

We don't mind if our politicians are liars, it's their hypocrisy which really gets our goats.

[Tero]

Republicans send trans people back to chromosome based toilets:
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-pol ... m=news_tab

[Tero]

Republicans propose 6 week abortion ban. Morning after pills will be popular.
https://www.1011now.com/2022/01/10/abor ... gislature/
The state does not gave the money to pay people suing abortion providers. It's just a ban.

[Tero]

Fauci calls Republican a moron:
WASHINGTON (KSNT) – White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci got caught on a hot mic Tuesday calling GOP Senator Roger Marshall a “moron” then uttering “Jesus Christ.”

The incident came after Sen. Marshall asked Fauci about his annual salary. During a hearing, Marshall asked Fauci why he hasn’t released his salary and alluded that the “big tech giants” were keeping it from becoming public.

https://www.ksnt.com/news/kansas/hot-mi ... l-a-moron/

[Tero]

Republican motorcycle mama sounds like a liberal:
Zimmerman said she wants to focus on key issues that matter to CO-3.

Water issues, forest and land management issues, mental health and the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy are all key platforms on which Zimmerman said she will focus.
https://www.chieftain.com

[Tero]

Republican motorcycle mama sounds like a liberal:
Zimmerman said she wants to focus on key issues that matter to CO-3.

Water issues, forest and land management issues, mental health and the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy are all key platforms on which Zimmerman said she will focus.
https://www.chieftain.com/story/news/20 ... 157940002/

[Tero]

Lauren Boebert and dozens of Republicans on twitter are making fun of Fauci "making monkeys transsexuals with gov't money." The university team paid by NIH examined the result of giving male hormones to female monkeys to see what effect it had on the immune system. The target was to explain risk of hormones to these women from HIV. It was not a conclusive experiment. Probably a waste of money.

[Tero]

Biden continues to hate white folks:

JOE BIDEN: It's also time to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. I've been having these quiet conversations with members of Congress for the last two months. I'm tired of being quiet.

So what is this, John Lewis Civil Rights Act that grouchy old Joe Biden is tired of being quiet about? Well, at its heart, the bill would give the federal government the power to control how elections are conducted across the country. The bill requires states to obtain pre-clearance from the federal government before they can set the rules of their own elections.

What does this mean? Well, it means, among other things, that states would no longer have the authority to require voter ID or registration at the polls. States would also lose the power to pick the locations for polling sites, as well as the ability to draw the boundaries of their own congressional districts. Oh, that's what it's about.

<and Haitians>
The idea is this country is too racist to allow states to run their own affairs. Nancy Pelosi has to run them. Only she is not racist enough to conduct elections.
Everything about that claim is absurd. If America is so racist, then why have tens of thousands of Haitians stuck across our border this year? Nice to hear someone answer that question or even ask it, but the idea itself is totally unconstitutional. We know this because the Supreme Court was pretty clear about it almost 10 years ago, back in 2013. This is not allowed. It's never been allowed. And in fact, known (he means NO) sane population would ever allow it. Not voluntarily, anyway.
<snip>
JOE BIDEN: I will not yield, I will not flinch, I will defend the right to vote our democracy against all enemies, foreign and, yes, domestic.

Enemies within our own country, we will kill them. It's kind of amusing to see Joe Biden call other people extremists. The message: Give me total power over your life or else I know you're a dangerous radical. It's pretty funny, but it's also not funny.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker- ... ing-rights

[Tero]

Gaetz's ex-girlfriend arrives at federal courthouse, expected to testify before grand jury

[Tero]

Documents for 5 sets of fake electors had identical fonts and content:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/rachel-ma ... 0-election