Ted Cruz continues to be a trailblazer as he becomes the first Hispanic person to flee FROM Texas TO Mexico because of ICE
— Wayne Lawson, PhD (@WayneALawson) February 20, 2021
Could not happen to a more deserving simulacrum of a human being…
Texas is freezing, but the roast of Ted Cruz is on https://t.co/UB0DQU0V87
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) February 19, 2021
WaPo reporter Ashley Parker, FOR THE WIN:
Usually, it takes at least one full day in Cancún to do something embarrassing you’ll never live down.
But for Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), it took just 10 hours — from when his United plane touched down at Cancún International Airport at 7:52 p.m. Wednesday to when he booked a return flight back to Houston around 6 a.m. Thursday — for the state’s junior senator to apparently realize he had made a horrible mistake…
Cancún-gate checked nearly every possible box of a scandal. The sad-sack black roller suitcase and oversize canvas tote, awaiting its beach debut! The fleece half-zip as part of the classic frumpy Dad ensemble! The 6 a.m. scramble to book a return flight! The politician seeming to blame his preteen daughters! The adorable family dog, possibly left home alone! The police escort! The leaked text messages, with a “Real Housewives of Houston” mood!
And the hypocrisy of a man who has trashed fellow politicians for vacationing during crises — vacationing in Cancún during a crisis himself…
Just when the situation seemed like it couldn’t get much worse for Cruz — his statement about coming back Thursday, after all, had been misleading at best — a cute pooch entered the narrative. Houston-based journalist Michael Hardy had driven by Cruz’s house Thursday and snapped a photo of the front of his home — lights off, tiny white fluff ball staring out of the glass front door…
Would you guys watch a limited action/adventure docuseries about my undercover mission to rescue Ted Cruz’s dog? Asking for Netflix.
— Randy Rainbow (@RandyRainbow) February 20, 2021
everyone is ragging on Dinesh D'Souza but it is undoubtedly true that the best thing Ted Cruz can do for a place is to leave it.
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) February 18, 2021
only ted cruz could make the excuse “I’m fucking useless anyway” and get total agreement amongst both his detractors and supporters
— kilgore trout, ted’s travel agent (@KT_So_It_Goes) February 18, 2021
“As soon as I heard that guy’s iPhone make the shutter click sound, I began to have reservations” https://t.co/mgAvMsM8xA
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) February 18, 2021
Ted Cruz cutting his Cancun vacation short so he can show he takes the Texas emergency seriously by … going on Hannity
this is not a joke this is literally what is happening
— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) February 19, 2021
"As I got a luxury full body massage at the Ritz Carlton spa, I would have been reading many documents & taking many phone calls" https://t.co/qOnXQDzvx5
— Centrism Fan Acct ?? (@Wilson__Valdez) February 19, 2021
If Ted Cruz were an ordinary dude, and he did a Mexico roundtrip in less than 17 hours, the DEA would be waiting on his lawn when he got home.
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) February 18, 2021
.@tedcruz welcome back to the US, found these while you were gone pic.twitter.com/kb1TKs1JhP
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) February 18, 2021
Asked about Ted Cruz Cancun trip, @presssec said White House focused on Texans without power or resources they need. "We expect that would be the focus of anyone in the state or surrounding states who was elected to represent them. But I don't have any update on his whereabouts."
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) February 18, 2021
— PatriotTakes ???? (@patriottakes) February 19, 2021
phdesmond
that’s some rich Cruz material. thank you.
lurker
not first! yay
ETA: now that i have established my position –
Cruz almost makes it too easy to criticize him. Cannot see how he could get elected in very many other places besides TX. Unfathomable.
Chetan Murthy
@lurker: Louisiana (Diaper Vitter), Mississippi, Alabama (Roy “actually, it’s ephebophilia” Moore), Idaho (Larry “WIde Stance” Craig), need we go on?
Jerzy Russian
Christ, what an asshole!
jl
Cruz has really impressed me with this stunt. Like a lot of the Ivy league GOPers who want to be the next Trump (so ridiculous, I can’t type it without chuckling), he’s pretty bland. And skeevy. Bland and skeevy is unappealing. Sort of like wet moldy cardboard.
But this ongoing series of pratfalls and exploding cigars is so hilarious and spectacular, it’s breath taking, awesome. The self-owns and self-debunkings are works of art, of the highest order.
Only downside is that the one useful function a Senator Cruz could ever perform would be to help Texas and Texans get the assistance needed to come of the disaster. But, he was too busy lounging in the warm beachside sun to do anything for his suffering constituents. In this case, karmic justice was swift, merciless, and hilarious, which is also a rare thing.
Pete Downunder
I recall Al Franken’s great line: “I like Ted Cruz better than my colleagues do. And I hate Ted Cruz”.
West of the Rockies
Thrid!
Honestly, I mostly hope this event causes those Texans who vote Republican to rethink matters. Hopefully, this sad and tragic situation does serious damage to the whole success-by-bootstrap-lifting mythos
*Well, I was Thrid! when I started this…
jl
@West of the Rockies: Getting on TV and advertising what his constituents need, getting on the phone to wheedle Biden into springing aid, and telling his staff what is needed so they can work the strings at FEMA, is the only useful work I can imagine that Cruz could ever do.
But it’s work, and the cold was unpleasant, so Cruz missed probably the only potentially useful days of his working life.
Shalimar
“I’ll believe in climate change when Texas freezes over.” – Ted Cruz
No One of Consequence
I had not seen that last one. That’s art right there.
Peace,
NOoC
John Revolta
And just think: This yutz was runner-up for the GOP Prez Candidate!
Deep bench my azz
jl
I don’t think the irresponsibility and callousness of Cruz’s excellent sun soaked beach vacay adventure makes any difference to the GOP primary voting base.
But if a virtuoso Trump style shock jock politician in Texas wants to make fun of him, get up some mean memes and generally ridicule Cruz about it, and call him a LOSER, the Cruz might be in trouble. But in the pit of the GOP base, I don’t think anyone cares whether he bothers to do what most of us would consider to be his job.
FelonyGovt
Has anyone posted about how that awful NewsMax organization criticized Champ Biden as “dirty, disheveled and an unpresidential” dog? What nerve. A well loved 14- year old rescue.
phdesmond
off-topic.
Virginia now has more women in its state legislature than ever before
Mariel Padilla · January 7
Mary G
All he had to do was put on a Carhart and a pair of cowboy boots and show up somewhere with a TV crew, a few cases of water and some tough talk and he would’ve been golden. He probably could even have survived the radio silence of 12 hours, which equals eight months on Twitter, and the lying about when the trip was planned and when he’d intended to come home, but leaving his little dog Snowflake alone in a freezing house in a position to be seen staring sadly out the front door waiting for his or her humans to come back was just the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. I already hated him, but now I hate him at a nuclear level.
prostratedragon
Someone who actually worked on one of Cruz’s campaigns told this one:
Q — Why do so many people take such an instant dislike to Ted Cruz?
A — It saves time.
jl
” Would you guys watch a limited action/adventure docuseries about my undercover mission to rescue Ted Cruz’s dog? Asking for Netflix. ”
No, I will not watch that.
I read that Cruz’s bodyguard took care the dog. Steven Wright could make a nice short flick out of that heartwarming interlude. (not joking, Cruz wasn’t there to irritate the poor dog, so, heartwarming in a wistful way, since the dog probably senses that Cruz will come back)
phdesmond
@No One of Consequence:
the giant frozen daiquiri glass? yes!
jl
@FelonyGovt:
” Has anyone posted about how that awful NewsMax organization criticized Champ Biden as “dirty, disheveled and an unpresidential” dog? What nerve. A well loved 14- year old rescue. ”
I am waiting for the reaction to the first time Biden washes and waxes whatever that muscle car is that he likes on the WH lawn. That will be a hoot.
Edit: I read a history of the WH, I think on its website. Used to be when this country actually was busy doing stuff, people didn’t worry that much about what the damned president did with the damned WH grounds. Some presidents had big frowsy gardens, there were greenhouses, a couple had cows munching on the grass, or a zoo of pets. I think one of them liked horseshoes, so dug a horseshoe pit.
I decided I don’t care about the WH looking all 100 percent distinguished.
Steeplejack
Let’s have some jazzy music! “Fly Me to Cancún.”
NotMax
“Of course I turned right around and came back. Place was crawling with Mexicans!”
//
mrmoshpotato
Again – the Zodiac killer is a drug trafficker.
ETA – and I’m sure his trash wife is too.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: I believe, Wilson had sheep during WWI.
jl
@FelonyGovt: The WH history says that crows, myna birds, parakeets, and parrots used to be popular presidential pets. I guess maybe they were good company for small talk.
So, let’s chip and get Biden a parrot, who can add commentary to pressers. A myna bird probably better at imitating correspondents, though. Let’s get him both, one of each shoulder.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
A flock of sheep running off some endless lawn in front of a manner house is the first damn thing you see in those BBC historical shows. Whatever the latest thing was, it had a flock of sheep that ran off an endless lawn in front of a manner house into some trees. I got bored after that and would turn it off.
So, that means it’s classy and historical. We need to get one for the WH to keep up with the Brits.
Amir Khalid
There’s always been an ineluctable … skeeviness, let’s call it that, about Ted Cruz. It’s my abiding impression of the man. It amazes me that he has a political career at all.
scav
At this point, I’m not entirely sure that this sort of brazen irresponsibility won’t rocket him to the top of the hard-core QQQ wing. Forget about shooting somebody in the street and not losing voters. Real liebral owning men abandon entire states! Weeping about all those frozen losers is socialism, etc etc. Tim Boyd is regretting missing the flight south.
patrick II
@jl:
Warren Harding had a squirrel named Pete.
Anne Laurie
IIRC, the horseshoe pit was Bush the First’s project. He said it was for the grandkids. Would’ve been considered elitist & privileged if a Democrat did it, but…
Amir Khalid
@jl:
I’m still waiting for the Biden family kitty to be announced.
SiubhanDuinne
@FelonyGovt:
Just saw that on the wee hours rerun of BriWi’s show. Disgusting, even for Newsmax.
R-Jud
That photo in the WaPo tweet is really something. He looks like he’s auditioning to be a new Belushi brother. Or trying to distract the press with his Brando-in-The-Godfather impersonation.
Amir Khalid
@R-Jud:
I don’t recall that John or Jim ever looked that creepy.
James E Powell
Cruz always reminds me of Mr Haney from Green Acres in that every word out of his mouth is just bullshit. I mean, it isn’t even good enough to call them lies. Just stupid bullshit.
R-Jud
@Amir Khalid:
I didn’t say he’d pass the audition.
satby
@NotMax: You meant that as snark, but someone once told my mother that Cancun was nice but had too many Mexicans. My mother just said “you do know it’s in their country, right?”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The smart play for Cruz would have been to claim he was scoring a big drug deal in Mexico and planning on using the money for disaster relief,
prostratedragon
Pets of U.S. Presidents, from wikipedia. T.Roosevelt had a large number and variety of pets, which is no surprise, but so did Coolidge, which is a big surprise considering his stick-like reputation.
tybee
Rafael looks like he’s related to Grandpa Munster
Starfish
@Shalimar: That quote was fake.
SFAW
@West of the Rockies:
You’ll always be thrid in out hearts!
No, wait, that not … never mind
SFAW
@John Revolta:
That’s not fair. The GQP does have a deep bench … of assholes.
SFAW
AL –
GREAT title for this post!
Shalimar
@Starfish: I suspected as much, since I’m pretty sure Ted calls it global warming rather than climate change. But I saw it in a tweet-box from 2016, so at least someone went to some effort.
SFAW
@scav:
I dunno, I thought he went south pretty quickly.
Kristine
Not sure about Cruzin’ for a losin’. Every time he’s up for re-election, McConnell is shown to have an approval rating in the 20s and is described as the least liked political figure in KY and yet he still wins. I fear having that R after the name may also work in TX. “He may be a worthless pos, but he’s our worthless pos.”
And yes, I know TX isn’t KY. And yes, I would love to be wrong.
trnc
One thing I’m sure would never cross Cruz’s mind while he’s hiding behind his daughters – preteen Malia and Sasha probably would have been volunteering where they could.
Foser:
My only gripe here is use of the word “vacation” instead of the more appropriate “getaway.”
lowtechcyclist
I think this must be someone’s parody, because the notion that Ted Cruz would say something this perfectly oblivious has my too-good-to-be-true-ometer buzzing like crazy. But I’m gonna toss it in here anyway:
https://twitter.com/pantomath__/status/1362812145075855361
Barney
“We’ve gone on holiday by mistake!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD2P9Px3enI
(though I presume Cancun had better weather than the Lake District …)
Steeplejack
Couldn’t find this last night, but it deserves to be on the record.
Rand Careaga
@Pete Downunder:
A couple of years ago I had occasion to chat up a midswestern Senator at a fundraiser in Berkeley. I asked her if Ted Cuz was as charming in person as he was on television. She very tactfully replied “Actually, I think I get along with him better than most of my colleagues do.” —which of course conveyed “Yeah he’s an asshole” clearly but in perfectly anodyne language.
Tim Hall
lyin ted gone cancun,
sittin in a big hotel,
people down in austin
got many sad tale to tell
lyin ted gone cancun,
actin like he don’t know,
people down in houston
got no place to go
lyin ted gone mexico,
smokin a big cigar,
people down in ft worth
shiverin in their cars
lyin ted gone to cancun,
he don’t care at all
Dan
@jl: You would think that a man who hopes to be president one day would put on his resume helping Texas citizens get through one of the worst crisis the state has ever endured.