You may have noticed I don’t particularly like Ted Cruz. That’s not because of his politics, which probably obviously I disagree with in almost every particular. It’s him. I’ve wanted to do a post about this because it turns out Ted and I have a history, though one I didn’t even know about (or perhaps remember) until after he was elected.
Last year, I heard there was a Tea Party guy running for Senate in Texas named Ted Cruz. I didn’t think a lot about it (since it wasn’t a competitive race in the general) or have any sense I had any connection to him. But then after he was elected I started noticing and thinking, wow, this guy seems like a royal jerk.
And at some point my wife said, “You don’t remember?” Read More
Former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) lays it on the line for his fellow Republicans.
Tennesee denies gay spouses driver’s license name changes.
It’s a bit off our national radar at the moment. And recent events make it not terribly surprising. But the Egyptian government has now formally banned the Muslim Brotherhood and ordered its assets seized. Read More
TPM Reader AF sums it up nicely …
You probably saw Ted Cruz talking to Chris Wallace yesterday. At the end of the segment, he says if his plan A fails in the Senate, he wants the House to pass portions of the budget with an ACA defunding provision to the Senate and then see if the Senate and Obama will reject them.
On Twitter this weekend, Ted Cruz’s speech writer and strategist Amanda Carpenter went off when she heard Chris Wallace say that top Republicans were feeding Wallace oppo research against her boss Ted Cruz. And it’s true. He did say that. “This has been one of the strangest weeks I’ve ever had in Washington and I say that because as soon as we listed Ted Cruz as our featured guest this week, I got unsolicited research and questions, not from Democrats but from top Republicans, to hammer Cruz,” said Wallace. And what’s the surprise? A top McCain aide says McCain, “F*cking hates Cruz.”
These tweets are from Amanda Carpenter, Ted Cruz Speech Writer and “Senior Communications Advisor.”
@DavidMDrucker @SenLeeComs How do we know? Has Reid ever been tested. Have Republicans ever stood up to him??
— Amanda Carpenter (@amandacarpenter) September 22, 2013
LaPierre on #MTP: "The outrage outta be placed on an unprotected Naval Base."
— Sarah Boxer (@Sarah_Boxer) September 22, 2013
Obviously a military installation isn’t inherently secure just because it’s brimming with guns and heavier armaments. But it is kind of telling when we’ve gotten to the point that the NRA is claiming the country’s military bases are part of the gun-phobic girly-man culture that is supposedly responsible for all our other mass shootings.
The day after the horrific DC Navy Yard massacre I told you about Thomas Hoshko, CEO of the defense contractor ‘The Experts’ who hired assailant Aaron Alexis, and the gargantuan yacht he uses to wine and dine defense officials. Now we learn that just over 24 hours after the attack, Hoshko emailed Navy Secretary Ray Mabus offering his firm’s services to help get a handle on the Navy’s security problems.
You already heard about that incident in Michigan in which two men with concealed carry permits and handguns got into a road rage incident and managed to shoot each other to death when the guns came out. Well it turns out there’s a bit more to the story. Read More