Texas Senator Ted Cruz helped promote a Big Lie about the 2020 election that directly led to the January 6 Capitol siege. He'd really prefer we forget all this, though. He already has!
On the "season premiere" of his must-miss podcast “Verdict," Cruz discussed the wacky events of the past month as if he didn't play an active role. Check out this asshole's episode description.
Apple
We have already seen: Congress counted the votes of the Electoral College! Some members of Congress objected to that same vote, which is totally normal and not at all antidemocratic! “Rioters" (not TERRORISTS with a specific political allegiance and agenda) stormed something, Joe Biden was inaugurated, and his nameless predecessor was impeached. But wait ... the worst is yet to come! Ted Cruz has turned 50.
Conservative podcaster Michael Knowles happily indulged Cruz as he rewrote history that's barely a month old. The senator performed the role of a common Ben Sasse or Mitt Romney who's shocked and appalled by the insurrectionist in chief's election fraud lies.
President Trump's rhetoric I think went way too far over the line. I think it was both reckless and irresponsible, because he said repeatedly, he said over and over, he won by a landslide, there was massive fraud, it was all stolen everywhere.
That evidence — the campaign did not prove that in any court, and to make a determination about an election it has to be based on the evidence.
And so simply saying the result you want — that's not responsible.
Let's comb through the dusty, old Wonkette archives and pull out this post from January 2. We covered how Louie Gohmert, who is somehow still a member of Congress, argued that if the courts refused to overturn the election because his mad king's claims had no merit, then MAGA patriots would have no choice but to become violent. (Accepting their clear loss like grown-ass adults was apparently not an option.) Cruz failed to call out his fellow Texan's rhetoric as “reckless and irresponsible," because he was busy making his own craven play for MAGA voters.
Instead, Cruz released a joint statement with 11 other seditious senators calling for an “emergency 10-day audit" of the states the previous White House squatter falsely claimed he'd won in a landslide. (Most of those states already had “audits" or recounts, and Biden won again and again and again, etc.) This request had no basis in the law and, as Rep. Liz Cheney pointed out, couldn't have seriously taken place in the time allotted.
This is what Cruz said in his statement. (We're presuming he's the kind of asshole who'd write the whole thing himself and make everyone else sign it. We're good with that assumption.)
Voter fraud has posed a persistent challenge in our elections, although its breadth and scope are disputed. By any measure, the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes.
Those are legally accurate sentences! However, Cruz didn't bother noting that the “allegations of fraud and irregularities" were all Kraken bullshit. That wasn't responsible!
Cruz also cited a poll showing that 39 percent of Americans thought the election was rigged. This was evidence of the previous occupant's active undermining of our democratic institutions, but Cruz, in an actual instance of "begging the question" found in the wild, presented it as proof of concept.
But, whether or not our elected officials or journalists believe it, that deep distrust of our democratic processes will not magically disappear. It should concern us all. And it poses an ongoing threat to the legitimacy of any subsequent administrations.
Ideally, the courts would have heard evidence and resolved these claims of serious election fraud. Twice, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to do so; twice, the Court declined.
That last paragraph is especially odious when you consider Cruz received a law degree from a law school. The Supreme Court didn't just decline to hear evidence and resolve claims of so-called “serious election fraud." It rejected a December 8 request to overturn Biden's win in Pennsylvania and later ruled that Texas had no standing to toss out the electoral votes from other states (go figure). The MAGA mob might not understand the law, but Cruz does. His accomplice, Senator Josh Hawley, also knows the law but he objected to Pennsylvania's electors on “constitutional grounds" that had already made it to the Supreme Court. The Court had spoken. The Kraken had no case.
Cruz made the rounds on Fox News, promising that after the emergency audit, individual states would "evaluate the Commission's findings and could convene a special legislative session tocertify a change in their vote, if needed."He clearly offered hope to the MAGA mob that the election results could be altered. This was the previous occupant's mad dream, as well. Cruz was slimy enough to think he could work all the angles. More honorable people than Cruz would vote to certify Biden's win and he wouldn't get his hands dirty.
Instead, a violent mob invaded the Capitol. Innocent people died, and Cruz will forever share the blame even if continues to insult our intelligence.
[ JoeMyGod ]
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yes. look at Stephan Miller
The santorum stain is notoriously tenacious.