I realize that Rafael’s schtick is a variant of Cleek’s law (the opposite of what Obama said, updated daily), but is there no bridge too far? Does anyone really think that the problem with cable providers is the bootheel of excessive government regulation that’s crushing their natural inclination to innovate in an unfettered free market? And if you don’t agree that this statement is one too far, is there anything that Cruz could say that would cause his hardcore base to pause for a moment and wonder about this guy?
Marcion
Do you really need to ask?
dmsilev
Did Obama use his time travel abilities *again* to retroactively institute Ted Cruz’s weird vision of net neutrality? Because I’m not sure the cable companies have ever been “fair”, never mind “bold and innovative”. In this temporal continuity, that is.
Jamey
Cruz is an affirmative-action baby–Princeton needed to meet its quota of blockhead-Americans that year…
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Of course Rafael is right. It’s just like the problems with the US economy are due to poor people having too much money. It’s self-evident. If only the government would get out of the way, then everything would be the best it can be.
/snark
Cheers,
Scott.
Linda
When he posted that crap on his own Facebook page, other conservatives pointed and laughed.
Baud
Yes. The entire GOP. For at least a decade now.
drkrick
It’s hard to believe anybody who supports Ted Cruz chooses to do so as a result of evaluating his policy stands. It’s a pure identity play that’s almost impossible to dislodge as a result of things he does or says.
Violet
How dumb can he get? Dumb and Dumbererer.
max
I realize that Rafael’s schtick is a variant of Cleek’s law (the opposite of what Obama said, updated daily), but is there no bridge too far?
No. Since the R’sare practicing cultlike tactics, the folks who have already joined up are either gullible or dedicated to a cause so the dude would have have to go so far out there he was overtly offending against some form of basic morals to disrupt R control.
Does anyone really think that the problem with cable providers is the bootheel of excessive government regulation that’s crushing their natural inclination to innovate in an unfettered free market?
They don’t know, so they don’t care. What they do know is that Obama is pro-government and he’s black so they’re anti. Note the care with which he used to craft an empty statement to make his policy preferences sound like the opposite of what they are.
And if you don’t agree that this statement is one too far, is there anything that Cruz could say that would cause his hardcore base to pause for a moment and wonder about this guy?
Nope.
max
[‘He can’t broaden his base though. Not like that.’]
Bobby B.
More like How dumb can MSM get to grovel to this schmuck? Mr Todd, Mr Schieffer, belly up to the trough tomorrow (sorry, tomorrow Todd has Jindal and Schieffer has McCain…)
Schlemazel
My favorite comment was on a gizmodo story about NN. Some puffed up asshole strongly supported Crudz against the evil Obama . . . then ended his rant with “fuck Comcast”
That is the level of idiot we have to deal with.
Professor
Can someone define or explain what ‘Free Market’ means, please? As far as I know, Capitalism does NOT allow or entertain Competition or the so called ‘free market’.
Mike J
Well Obama says net neutrality is about cable companies not being about to extort internet businesses and the Republicans say it’s just a way for Democrats to seize the communications centers and control public discourse.
Who’s to say what’s right? It must be somewhere in the middle. There’s no possible way one side could possibly be 100% correct and the other 100% wrong. We’ll just have to agree that there’s some truth to both.
Gian
in order to alienate his base he would have to advocate forced abortions for married white women, to be done in cuba, paid for with government money.
as we saw in Saipan, forced abortions for some women is the fucking awesome free market to the GOP base
Tommy
I work on the Internet for a living. I use Netflix and Hulu on a daily basis. I recall being online and there was no Google, Facebook, or Twitter. You can’t allow any firm better access. Thre is both a better Google or Facebook out there. Just have to give them a chance.
Violet
Well, he could declare himself the antichrist and that might turn off some fundies.
Roger Moore
The question is not how dumb he is, but how dumb he thinks the Republican base is. That’s a pit with no known bottom.
JPL
@Violet: You’re right. He being caught in bed with another male would be explained away.
Roger Moore
@Mike J:
I’ve got a great idea; let’s listen to what the cable news people say. They obviously have no interest in what happens to cable companies, so their opinion must be completely neutral.
srv
Cable companies are just following in the footsteps of railroad barrons. Regulatory Capture of liberal government serves as the tool by which to stifle competition and progress. Nothing will come of this, other than Obama shakes down a few easily villified businesses for some library coin.
Roger Moore
Of course there is; he could agree with Obama about something. That would get the base wondering about him right quick.
Baud
I don’t blame Obama.
ETA: Dagnabbit, Roger Moore.
azlib
rIf R’s were really for the “free” market, they would wholeheartedly support “net neutrality”, but in reality Cruz and his ilk are just supporters of the monopolist and the wanna be monopolists.
PIGL
@JPL: it’s happened before. I think they’ve even explain away the dead girl.
JPL
@Roger Moore: @Baud:
Good job!
WereBear
@dmsilev: Indeed, the very concept of this being what cable companies do pegged my irony meter into the WTF! zone.
I need to get a new one, anyway…
Violet
@JPL: Yep, if he were caught with another man they’d find a way to explain that away. Maybe if a history of pedophilia, complete with hard drives fulls of photos and a trail of kids willing to testify, were unearthed then that might put a damper on things. There would have to be some solid evidence though.
If he truly lost his mind and started raving about how black people were the devil–and I mean in public forums–the GOP might hesitate. They like their racism dog-whistle style. Public declarations aren’t appreciated. Pulls the veil off.
The only other thing would be if he turned anti-corporate. Suddenly he’d be a brown from Canada, not a Proud American.
hildebrand
Time to make Cruz sit down and watch John Oliver. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU
JPL
@Violet: I would have thought that his attack of Hagel would have left some damage, but the whackos cheered. Baud and Moore are correct. He’d have to agree with Obama on something big, i.e. ACA.
KG
@Professor: are you looking for the reality based definition or the wingularity definition?
In the real world, a free market is one in which as many barriers to entry as possible in the market are eliminated (including things like insider trading, unfair competition, and market capture), allowing businesses and consumers to deal fairly with each other regarding goods and services.
In the wingularity, a free market is better defined as oligarchy, wherein the second golden rule is followed (“he who has the gold, makes the rules”).
It’s the difference between organized basketball (with referees) and pick up ball (where you don’t call a foul unless there’s blood, broken bones, or teeth missing)
Gian
@PIGL:
http://www.americanpolitics.com/20010808Klausutis.html
Kropadope
@Bobby B.:
They’re smart to grovel to him. Clearly he’s fighting their fights for them, for free. They don’t even have to get their hands dirty and lie themselves.
Citizen_X
If Cruz wholeheartedly supported Obama on something, the wingnuts would instantly curse Obama for not supporting Obama.
Look, the end of the sentence does not have to agree with the beginning of the sentence, all right? If you think it does you must be some kind of commie elitist.
bago
Holding websites hostage and demanding ransom while bribing politicians to look the other way isn’t innovation. It’s fucking theft and corruption.
Profitable though.
WereBear
LOL. In their minds, the Anti-Christ is the one who wants peace, prosperity for all, equality… I’ve read the Slacktivist version of Left Behind! I know all about it!
Speaking of which, as a PSA, Slacktivist is bringing his first such 200 posts out in Kindle form, so EVERYONE be on alert to buy it and help the guy out. He lost his journalism job during the crash, and we all know those aren’t coming back.
And they are flatout hilarious!
JPL
@Gian: Rand Paul will make sure that Joe stays put being a shrill on morning joe.
Mike G
@bago:
Theft, corruption and political bribery is pretty much the real definition of “free enterprise” for Republicans at this point.
Terrye C
Actually there are a lot of Republicans who do not agree with Cruz. On a lot of things. Especially this.
Violet
@Terrye C: Oh, sure. And there are unicorns and flying pigs too.
Citizen_X
@Terrye C: Also: soon, the Republicans will be unveiling their money-saving, “market-based” alternative to Obamacare!
(Note: there already is such a thing. It’s called “Obamacare.”)
300baud
It kills me that the so-called free-market advocates couldn’t recognize a market if they stumbled into one. 90% of American broadband consumers have two choices at most. Many have just one. One vendor does not a market make and even with two you generally get two approximately equivalent choices, one slightly cheaper. That is not the kind of market that produces innovation.
Not that we needed further evidence that Ted Cruz is a mendacious halfwit, but here we have it.
Roger Moore
@Terrye C:
It would be great if they would stand up and let themselves be counted, rather than hiding and waiting until the dust has settled to let their opinions be known. It would be even better if they voted that way.
MattF
As mm says, you just have to play ‘opposites’ with Obama, and the base will sign on. Yes, it really is that simple. And yes, that’s exactly what Crazy Ted is doing. Maybe not so crazy, but we shall see.
ETA: Bear in mind that Ted is a brilliant lawyer, so he won’t ever have a problem finding an argument.
satby
Cruz doesn’t speak to the policy desires of his fans, he speaks to their id. He’s on their team, and it’s all about supporting their team and winner take all.
satby
@Roger Moore: yeah, people who vote Republican occasionally mix it up voting for one of the Paul family and then brag about how they aren’t lockstep Republicans.
WereBear
Who has said this besides Ted? Or, is it sarcasm?
I mean, he did get into Princeton… but W went to Yale and Harvard.
Amir Khalid
@MattF:
I hear this from time to time. I’m aware Ted Cruz went to a very prestigious law school. But is he known for any particular bit of brilliant lawyering?
Kropadope
@satby:
Libertarianism doesn’t share any of it’s ideological underpinnings with the “modern” Republican party and they certainly aren’t deriving their “facts” from the same information sources.
P.S. Aren’t both Pauls elected Republican politicians?
Kathleen
@MattF: I really wish Obama would warn us about the dangers of drinking ammonia and bleach.
Howard Beale IV
We need to stop calling it Net Neutrality and call it it what it really is-it is “The Bill of Rights Of The Internet”.
MattF
@WereBear: I don’t think there’s much question that Ted is very smart. He’s always been on the winger fast track, the talent scouts found him early. That said, his attention is always turned toward his own ambition and toward solidifying his relation to the base. FWIW, I think his model is Nixon in the late ’60’s– another smart guy who needed, very badly, to be President.
satby
@Kropadope: adjust your snarkometer
Kropadope
@satby: Et tu
Cacti
Net neutrality stifles innovation.
A lack of affordable healthcare helps you live the American dream more fully.
Global warming can’t be real because Jesus.
Corporations have private religious beliefs not contained in their corporate charter.
This is your 21st century GOP.
Comrade Luke
As this guy said, on Twitter:
and:
Pretty simple.
Thor Heyerdahl
Given Ted Cruz’s extreme playing of the rubes, someone said here at BJ that President Obama should come out against drinking bleach. Here’s my satirical take on what might happen.
President Obama strongly urges US public against drinking bleach. Analysts have placed Clorox stock at a “strong buy” recommendation.
Joseph Nobles
Toobin’s article on Cruz is a must read.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/30/the-absolutist-2
Amir Khalid
Cruz’s utterances are, strictly speaking, bullshit. That is, he doesn’t care if it’s true or false or whatever; neither does his audience. It doesn’t matter to him or them what he’s saying, only that it must sound like he’s against whatever Obama is for. His words shouldn’t be considered for their truth-value, only for their efficacy as an Incantation of Bonding with his base. As long as they work on that level, his audience will keep right on saying, “Ted Cruz is our guy!”
I like to think of Cruz as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice from Fantasia. He knows how to do the incantation and get a result, but may well not have learned to control the process. Maybe, as with Mickey, the brooms and their buckets of water will at some point overwhelm him.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: He is a very successful appellate lawyer.
Tree With Water
A Bridge Too Far? I don’t understand why people remain the least bit incredulous at the work-a-day scale of lies told by the republican party. Not in 2014. Not after those people and that party engineered and unleashed the Iraq War with lies, big and small. What else does anyone need to know in order to gauge the depths of their depravity? And that is the perfect word, for they are all utterly depraved.
Iowa Old Lady
As others have said, Cruz is like Joe McCarthy, crazy and charismatic. That suggests he’s like a fever that has to run its course. But if anyone can speak the truth to him in public, that will help a little. The media isn’t going to though.
Did they for McCarthy? Any media historians among us who know?
MattF
@Iowa Old Lady: Once upon a time…:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/10/edward-murrow-joseph-mccarthy-60-years-later_n_4936308.html
Tommy
Just going to watch Nebraska play Wisconsin. Seems like a middle of the nation kind of thing to do.
d58826
‘Stupid’ is a requirement to be a republican. OT in that it isn’t net neutrality but still an example of GOP stupidity and short sighted hatred of Obama. The states that have turned down the Medicaid expansion, in addition to losing the direct federal money (approx. 400 billion over 10 years), are also losing 16k new jobs, plus an additional 167 billion dollars over 10 years to local hospitals. Approximately 7.7 million people will not have coverage and studies estimate that there will be 17000 additional preventable deaths a year. I am sick of listening to these so-called prolife Christians (or is it cretins) tell us of their love of Jesus and the personal relationship they have with the Lord. Heaven knows we are all sinners and fall short in the ‘doing good’ department but this is just planned callous indifference. They are as indiffernt to their fellow humans as Blankenship was to the 29 miners that he killed. If this is what it means to be a Christian and an American, I think I’ll passed on both
trollhattan
@Iowa Old Lady:
I don’t know where the “charismatic” comes from. On camera he’s a priggish, oleaginous, squinty motormouth. And that voice, that annoying squeak of a voice. I’m unconvinced he can be packaged for national consumption. Of course, he certainly disdains being a mere senator so where to go from here…?
Tree With Water
@Iowa Old Lady: Funny you ask. I just read Charles Pierce ‘out for the weekend’ at Esquire.com, and in it he wrote:
“..More people in the establishment press carried Joe McCarthy’s water than didn’t. That’s why Edward R. Murrow’s show was so singular in its courage. Most of the establishment press carried the government’s water on Vietnam for far too long. That’s why Walter Cronkite’s editorial on the subject had so great an impact — and even then, Cronkite’s point was that the war was simply not worth the cost, not whether it ever had been a good idea. … Tabloids predate bloggers by more than a century. All of this was done by the established, credentialed press, and a lot of it was done as the press became more established, more educated, and allegedly more professional.
Iowa Old Lady
@MattF: Great link. Thanks. I’d probably heard that about Edward Murrow before but I’d totally forgotten.
@trollhattan: He looks like Fred Flintstone to me. I judge his charisma by his ability to manipulate a whole lot of people. Of course, Palin is, by all accounts, charismatic too.
Amir Khalid
@d58826:
“Cretin” is a corruption of the French chrétien, which means Christian.
Iowa Old Lady
@Tree With Water: That’s another great citation. Ask at BJ, and you receive.
Another Holocene Human
@dmsilev:
Nope. Not when they lobbied to get a local monopoly and then take away price control authority from local government. Bold, yes. Innovative, not quite so fancy as ATT and the mobile carriers when it comes to bogus charges to rip off customers with. I suppose that’s coming.
d58826
@Amir Khalid: ah ha just a different word for the same breed of hypocrite.
Another Holocene Human
@Linda:
So deliciously true.
Note that Rand Paul has been quiet. Obama just killed him at his troll the young’uns game.
trollhattan
@Iowa Old Lady:
I certainly won’t question his ability to carry, oh, say, 27% of the population who are always ready for their perfectest candidate who will “take back their country” and hand it over to them.
Here’s another item. He’s nearly a decade younger than the president yet seems decades older. There’s no way in hell he’ll bring out the youth vote, but I’ll bet the Republicans believe he can. Because of course he can, just look at how he relates to the hippityhop generation.
Full metal Wingnut
@Jamey: He probably got an undeserved Hispanic bump actually.
Another Holocene Human
@Gian:
No he wouldn’t–the women are s1ut55! and the trip to commieland would be educational! take your chastisement and come back ready to be a submissive wife to a real ‘Murican. “Happy is he who dasheth the little ones against the rocks.”
Another Holocene Human
@srv: srv, so jaded and above it all … persistent activism since the early 2000s doesn’t exist, all that lobbying by ordinary citizens culminating in POTUS making an aggressive statement on the issue is meaningless … it’s still the 1990s and Clinton and Gingrich are giving away no-strings millions$ to telecoms and cutting away broadcast regs like old cobwebs again
d58826
The only two words that I can associate with my cable company are 1. Greedy and 2. Incompetent
.
Another Holocene Human
@azlib: “free” market is a deceptive word. When i was in school I was taught that the free market had the government in the role of fair play cop. It’s a “fair play” market, not a “free” market, especially as “free” has come to meant “coercion” in today’s lexicon. (Free to tote loaded long guns around and intimidate strangers in public places.)
An unregulated market is the monopolist’s or oligopolists’ playground. Net neutrality, besides being consistent with English common law (which USAmericans have had a problem with ever since they started banning Blacks and people who might possibly be J00000s from public accommodations, requiring the gov’t to pass a new law making that explicitly illegal) is a government-enforced fair play zone, the little guy will have the same access as the big guy, as far as bandwidth is concerned. Btw, you still have to negotiate server space and ISP rates, lolol. This utterly boils down to cable companies moving to extract the same rent out of entertainment companies that they do through cable rates, which have been insufficiently regulated by a compliant congress, using the excuse that, well, nobody has to buy cable.
They are only doing this because they want to extract a dead rent or toll every time you stream a movie. Although worst case scenario when they get away with this is that your internet starts to resemble AOL in 1997. NoooOOOOOooooo!!
Another Holocene Human
@Violet: He’d lose the rabid fans if he were ever seen advancing a bill and then compromising with Obama, I mean the Kenyan Usurper on it.
Then he’d be a weak sellout coward owned by the corporations who refuses to lead. And more ragespew that’s got a lot of overlap with lefty ragespew, it would be comical if it all weren’t so sad.
danielx
I can’t read “cable providers” and “unfettered free market” in the same sentence without snorting coffee. Cable providers function in anything but an unfettered free market now, and they like it just fine that way, thankyewverymuch. As to innovation, the only innovations I’ve noticed from my cable provider in the last ten years or so are innovative ways to extract more money from customers while providing the same shitty service.
As to how dumb Ted Cruz is, it’s the wrong question – from what I’ve heard he’s actually pretty bright. Now if you were ask how dumb can he sound, particularly in the interest of keeping the base stoked, there’s no plumbing the depth of that particular hole. They don’t care whether what he says is true or accurate, provided it helps keep up their daily outrage requirement.
d58826
@Another Holocene Human: In today’s world a ‘free market’ is one in which the 10% are free to steal from the other 90%. The idea that there is a ‘free market’ independent of social intervention is absurd. The laws of physics and chemistry exist outside of the human condition. Two atoms of Hydrogen and one of oxygen will make one molecule of water whither there is a human being to watch it or not. The right wing complains about government regulation but without it there would be no market only brute force. Contract law is a form of regulation and it allows people to transact economic activity with the expectation that the ‘deal’ will be adhered to and if it isn’t then some form of coercion will be applied. Even in a barter society there is an unspoken/unwritten contract – i.e. you either give me the fish that you promised in exchange for the furs I gave you or I will give you a fat lip.
dance around in your bones
Ok, another pithy and quite witty comment of mine just disappeared into the cosmos, where I suppose it is more welcome. How often does the cosmos get to talk to bi-pedal formed organsims with big brains?
Check out the big brain on Brad!!!! Pulp Fiction
Another Holocene Human
@Terrye C:
There were a lot of Democrats who didn’t agree with Dennis Kucinich but he didn’t have a 20-person block-everything caucus in the House who blew up a budget deal and caused gov’t not to pay its bills. While Cruz is widely hated he’s also widely feared and has more than some 3-5% moonbat support that will never win a presidential preference primary in any of our lifetimes.
Which is to say both sides don’t do it. Wake up and smell the cat turds.
Another Holocene Human
@Howard Beale IV: Bill of Rights? Don’t make it so complicated.
If it were any other industry, what Comcast did to Netflix would be a shakedown and RICO would apply. We’re past anti-competitive practices and into protection racket territory at this point.
burnspbesq
@300baud:
The situation you describe is the tell that residential broadband is a natural monopoly that ought to be regulated the same way we regulate electric and gas and used to regulate POTS. Don’t know when or why we unlearned that.
Another Holocene Human
@Full metal Wingnut: There’s actually a not-insignificant chunk of the US Hispanic population who either have land claims that predate statehood (and were lucky enough not to be deported during the early 20th century or “relocated” or whatever the sanitized UN term is for that) or who are Cuban and had the way paved for them or otherwise identify with some sort of aristocratic or elite background and got their citizenship the “right” way who identify with somebody like Calgary Cruz and back him 100% and in fact any difficulty they’ve had whatsoever with INS or profiling (or that their parents did) is more grist to the mill that migrant farm workers and refugees should just suck it up and be born with all the advantages that they did.
Another Holocene Human
@d58826: I used to spend hardcore time on a “fiscal conservative” blog where most of the posters were Republicans. They knew this and they were furious about what Wall Street was up to but kept voting for Republicans. Now the Dems haven’t been sooo much better but they’ve been better on margin which economics tells us is where the action happens. With Clinton I could see the equivocation but Obama saved the fucking economy following conventional wisdom, get over it, you were wrong, he (and Bernanke) were right, and some of the most corrupt Dem senators either changed tack or quit. Why rage about cheaters and keep voting in the cheaters’ bought and paid for pols? Oh yeah, because you think Dems take your munnies to give the “undeserving” “free stuff”.
Enjoy your impotent ragegasms, dumbasses.
gocart mozart
@Amir Khalid:
Cruz served as a law clerk to J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 1995 and William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States in 1996.
After graduating from Princeton, Cruz attended Harvard Law School, graduating magna cum laude in 1995 with a Juris Doctor degree. While at Harvard Law, Cruz was a primary editor of the Harvard Law Review, and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and a founding editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review. Referring to Cruz’s time as a student at Harvard Law, Professor Alan Dershowitz said, “Cruz was off-the-charts brilliant.” At Harvard Law, Cruz was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics.
Cruz has authored 70 United States Supreme Court briefs and presented 43 oral arguments, including nine before the United States Supreme Court. Cruz’s record of having argued before the Supreme Court nine times is more than any practicing lawyer in Texas or any current member of Congress. Cruz has commented on his nine cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court: “We ended up year after year arguing some of the biggest cases in the country. There was a degree of serendipity in that, but there was also a concerted effort to seek out and lead conservative fights.”
In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz drafted the amicus brief signed by attorneys general of 31 states, which said that the D.C. handgun ban should be struck down as infringing upon the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Cruz also presented oral argument for the amici states in the companion case to Heller before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
In addition to his success in Heller, Cruz has successfully defended the constitutionality of Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds before the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court, winning 5-4 in Van Orden v. Perry.
In 2004, Cruz was involved in the high-profile case, Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, in which Cruz wrote a U.S. Supreme Court brief on behalf of all 50 states. The Supreme Court upheld the position of Cruz’s brief.
Cruz served as lead counsel for the state and successfully defended the multiple litigation challenges to the 2003 Texas congressional redistricting plan in state and federal district courts and before the U.S. Supreme Court, which was decided 5-4 in his favor in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry.
Cruz also successfully defended, in Medellin v. Texas, the State of Texas against an attempt by the International Court of Justice to re-open the cases of 51 Mexican nationals, all of whom were convicted of murder in the United States and were on death row. With the support of the George W. Bush Administration, the International Court of Justice argued that the United States had violated a treaty by failing to notify the convicted nationals of their opportunity to receive legal aid from the Mexican consulate. Texas won the case in a 6-3 decision.
Cruz has been named by American Lawyer magazine as one of the 50 Best Litigators under 45 in America,by The National Law Journal as one of the 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America,and by Texas Lawyer as one of the 25 Greatest Texas Lawyers of the Past Quarter Century.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Cruz#Legal_career
The stupid is an act for the rubes. He is a smart, radical demagogue and therefore dangerous.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@gocart mozart: Yup. That and “The Absolutist” piece at The New Yorker (kindly linked above) are chilling. But the thing to remember is that “brilliant” people make mistakes in politics, too. Look at Robert Bork.
It’s not inevitable that Cruz will win. But we shouldn’t underestimate him. (Or anyone else on their side, for that matter.)
Cheers,
Scott.
randy khan
On the cable innovation point: Whatever you think of what they’re doing now, it’s actually true that high speed Internet was introduced in the U.S. by the cable industry. When cable modem service was first offered, the best that consumers could get from the phone company usually was 768 kbps, and the starter service from cable companies was at 1.5 Mbps. More typical cable modem service at the time was 3 Mbps. DOCSIS, the protocol used to provide Internet access over cable, was a genuine innovation and, more important, spurred the telcos to upgrade their DSL (which still is far behind cable modem service in most places) and to start offering fiber-based services like FiOS.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: Which is why they need to be destroyed. Without the slightest notion of giving them quarter.
Wipe them out. All of them.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Thor Heyerdahl: Gold.
Morzer
Insert sane, non-racist, fact-based utterance of choice here.
tommydee
This entire political issue is about raising money.
dww44
@Linda: @gocart mozart: I have long believed this:
He is the most dangerous of all the GOP politicians and we mock at our own peril. He’s the closest relative to Joe McCarthy I’ve ever seen. He will smash Rand Paul to smithereens. We do NOT want his hands on the reins of power.
kindness
One good thing I have seen this week that even on some ostensibly right sites people identifying themselves as Republican are calling Cruz stupid, a liar and a tool of Comcast/AT&T. They say they want internet neutrality. The kind us liberals say we want.
There’s hope. Won’t stop Cruz from being a tool. That’s his schtick.
Full metal Wingnut
@Another Holocene Human: Believe me, I know. I’m a white Cuban, I come from a family of Republicans, born and raised in Miami. Cubans, at least the white elites and middle class who came after Castro took power are unlike all other Hispanics. Fast tracked to citizenship and yet they all want to pull the ladder up behind them. I’m still in contact with that little bubble of delusion, it’s kind of sad.
Full metal Wingnut
@gocart mozart: I was gonna add, the law is not a profession of geniuses and the people even at the cream of the crop schools aren’t uniformly brilliant. But the ones who snag Supreme Court clerkships are pretty goddamned smart.
Cruz is not a dumbass or a true believer. He’s a highly intelligent opportunist. In this manner he’s kind of like a Nixon. Although much as I loathed Nixon, I feel like I saw some humanity in him and got to see what made that complex man tick. Not so for Cruz. He’s not a damaged soul with a chip on his shoulder like Nixon. He’s a smart asshole. He’s dangerous. Far more dangerous than Aqua Buddha. Rand Paul may be a pretty decent politician, but he’s a half wit compared to Cruz.
chopper
@dww44:
He would be truly dangerous if he weren’t as charismatic as a wet dishrag.
Cervantes
@Full metal Wingnut:
Just wondering when your acquaintance with Nixon began. Did you know him in the ’40s, before he became Vice President?
Cervantes
Senator Ted Cruz thinks mouthwash will stop halitosis from being ‘bold, innovative, and fair.’
Senator Ted Cruz thinks food will stop famine from being ‘bold, innovative, and fair.’
Senator Ted Cruz thinks medicine will stop disease from being ‘bold, innovative, and fair.’
Senator Ted Cruz thinks thinking will stop Republicans from being ‘bold, innovative, and fair.’
Hmmm …
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
I think you are (vastly) oversimplifying, to the point of being mistaken. The English word cretin was taken (around 1779—first documented use in English) from the legitimate French word crétin, which has the same definition as in English but also formerly (sometimes as cretin or crestin) had the meaning of a “wretch or innocent victim.” That word was derived from the Vulgar Latin christianus, which does translate as “Christian,” but in the sense of a generic person, e.g., an “ordinary soul.”
To say that cretin comes directly from chrétien, implying or hinting at some humorous “Christians are cretins” jape on the part of persons unknown, is extremely problematic.
Cervantes
@Steeplejack:
Right. The word “cretin” arose as a sort of defense of certain people so deformed and disabled that others referred to them as beasts as opposed to Christians. (In that time and place, “Christian” and “human animal” were sometimes used as synonyms in opposition to “brute” or “beast.”)
Steeplejack
@Cervantes:
Thanks. Wasn’t sure I was making my point clearly, but it seems to have gotten across.
Full metal Wingnut
@Cervantes: Very clever. I’m not claiming to know the man, but his bitterness and inferiority complex is not exactly a secret. Read a book, smartass.
Cervantes
@Full metal Wingnut:
Keep your shirt on. I was asking an actual question: when you describe Nixon (explicitly and implicitly as above), are you taking into account his behavior in the ’40s?
Morzer
@Steeplejack:
Much as paganus originally meant someone from a country district, thus hick from the sticks, before it became a pejorative term for the rubes who refused to embrace the bright, shiny, new religion of the city slickers.
Cervantes
@Morzer:
Not quite.
The Latin paganus originally meant “villager” or “civilian” as opposed to miles, which meant “soldier.” When Christians began to call themselves “soldiers of Christ,” they also applied the opposite term pagan, i.e., “civilian,” to non-Christians.
It had nothing to do with any “bright, shiny, new religion of the city slickers.”
West of the Cascades
Perfect, perfect response to Cruz from The Oatmeal: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/net_neutrality
West of the Cascades
Perfect response to Cruz from The Oatmeal: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/net_neutrality
Enhanced Voting Techniques
odds are his base don’t know jack about tech – Ryand Paul is the one who panders to the techi conservatives. I assume Cruz’s base is the old school know nothing conservatives.