Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

So many bastards, so little time.

Giving up is unforgivable.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Let there be snark.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

You are here: Home / Politics / America / Texas Senate Debate: Congressman Beto O’Rourke Vs. Senator Ted Cruz

Reader Interactions

105Comments

  1. 1.

    WaterGirl

    Thank you, Adam!

    Beto looks like an eagle scout and Cruz looks like the sleaze he is. I swear if Beto was evil and Cruz was good, their photos would not look at all the way the do now.

  2. 2.

    James E Powell

    One of the biggest reasons I love this blog so much is that many of you watch these things so that I don’t have to. I cannot watch Ted Cruz without multiple hues of bile welling up in my throat.

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    @Steeplejack: I thought the first ad was spectacular. Everyone seems to think this one can make a real difference. I guess the idea is that Cruz is out of touch with Texas, but if that’s the case, they should just say it. I think.

  7. 7.

    WaterGirl

    So how do you guys do it when you watch the embedded debate like this? If you refresh to get new comments, that interferes with the video. Do you have two tabs open, one for watching the video and another for posting and reading comments?

  11. 11.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: I think they can just end the debate right now. In the intro they say Cruz is trying for 6 more years. That should be enough for people to recoil in horror.

  15. 15.

    Steeplejack

    @WaterGirl:

    I don’t watch the embedded feeds. I don’t care if it’s Abe Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, debates are tedious as hell, and I’ll catch the high points later. Now if there was a live Tweet stream like Ddale8’s for the Trump rallies, I would follow that.

    And the Brewers-Dodgers game is coming up in a few minutes. I’ll use my live-feed allotment on that.

  17. 17.

    trollhattan

    Follow that money.

    The Washington Post told a prominent Republican lobbyist he’d lose his gig as a contributing opinion writer unless he stopped lobbying for Saudi Arabia, a spokesperson for the newspaper confirmed Tuesday.

    The ultimatum came after the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. permanent resident who was a columnist for the Post and wrote critically of the Saudi government. Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul earlier this month, and allegations that he was killed by Saudi authorities have strained the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia.

    The lobbyist, Ed Rogers, the chairman of the BGR Group, writes for the newspaper’s PostPartisan blog. Kristine Coratti Kelly, a spokeswoman for the Post, confirmed that the newspaper told Rogers he’d no longer be able to contribute if he continued to lobby for Saudi Arabia. She declined to comment further.

    The Saudi government was a lucrative client of Rogers’, but BGR said Monday it would no longer lobby for the kingdom. The firm didn’t provide a reason. The contract was worth $80,000 a month, according to a Justice Department filing. It’s not clear what role the Post’s ultimatum played in BGR’s decision to stop lobbying for Saudi Arabia. Rogers declined to comment.

  22. 22.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    @trollhattan:

    It’s hard to see how any newspaper can defend having opinion writers on the staff who earn money lobbying. At the least, they should make it plain every time any of these people write anything what kind of money they’re making on the side and where it’s coming from. Yeah, Ed Rogers is a sleaze, but the Post has known that forever, and they still hired him years ago and let him spout off.

  23. 23.

    Mary G

    @Steeplejack: I listened to the first question, but Ted Cruz’ voice is so annoying. Plus I had forgotten about the Dodgers/Brewers game, so thanks for reminding me to switch to that.

  25. 25.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    My TV broke before I went to Las Vegas last month, and I haven’t replaced it yet. So I’ve been sampling the streaming-only lifestyle. So far just baseball playoffs and an hour of MSNBC (which put me right off).

    I love Rita Hayworth, but lately when I see her all I can think about is the medieval procedures the studio put her through to “fix” her “flaws.” (E.g., “extensive hairline electrolysis.” Shudder.)

  30. 30.

    Gin & Tonic

    @trollhattan: There’s not a fucking chance in Hell that the WaPo is paying him more than $80k/mo to write a column, so I don’t get why he’d drop the Saudis.

  32. 32.

    Barbara

    @trollhattan: Why am I totally unsurprised that Rogers lobbies for KSA. Also, why does WaPo give any gig to a paid lobbyist, and if they have to it’s almost impossible to imagine someone who would be worse than Rogers. I mean we are talking brain damaged levels of cognitive failure.

  34. 34.

    Miss Bianca

    I’m getting an internal error message on the embedded feed. Is anyone else seeing that, or is it just fuckin’ Safari that’s the problem?

  35. 35.

    Joy in FL

    I just gave up after after about 15 minutes of the debate. To the Universe, I ask for Ted to continue preaching to his choir and for Beto to be speaking to the (soon to be formerly) undecided.

  38. 38.

    Steeplejack

    @Steeplejack:

    ETA: What’s almost as bad is when they have a misleadingly reasonable-sounding guest op-ed by someone from, say, the “Bland Institute for Balanced Policy,” and when I look that up on the Google I find that it’s funded entirely by Genghis Koch, the brother you never hear about.

  39. 39.

    Barbara

    @Gin & Tonic: No, but I bet he is getting 80K a month worth of advertising and free space to spout nonsense aimed at expressing the views of his clients.

  43. 43.

    Steeplejack

    @Mary G:

    “Ted Cruz’s voice is so annoying.”

    That, too. I can barely stand the few seconds in the ad where he says he likes White Castle. Listening to him “debate” would be torture.

  44. 44.

    seaboogie

    @Steeplejack: any early night music? Just took a day off for a lower back/upper ass spasm and claimed a belated birthday massage to treat it. It’s like that extra day off that you wanted, but not exactly like you want it.

  45. 45.

    WaterGirl

    If you can’t stand Cruz but want to hear better, google “Beto twitter” and you can see video of Beto’s answers to each question.

  51. 51.

    WaterGirl

    For those of you who can’t stand listening to Cruz – Beto has a town hall this Thursday – no Ted Cruz at all.

  53. 53.

    WaterGirl

    Cruz looks like a bully who doesn’t follow the rules. He goes over his time and talks over the debate moderators when they try to cut him off.

    Cruz is a bully and a liar.

  55. 55.

    Steeplejack

    @seaboogie:

    I don’t know how jazz-adjacent you are, but lately I have been listening to some pretty good prefab mixes. “Quiet Night of Jazz” is very good, and the other one I liked is something something “Rainy Jazz.”

    Note: These are good links, but I can’t get them to work right now, possibly because I’m streaming the baseball game in another tab.

  58. 58.

    Steeplejack

    @Mike J:

    Yeah, YouTube is screwy for me now too. I was wondering if it was because I was streaming the MLB game in another tab, but I don’t recall having that problem before.

    I even got an error page that was a huge graphic of a cartoon monkey. Go figure. Never saw that before.

  60. 60.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    I’ll just note that both the big lotteries are huge right now, and the lottery websites are like molasses.

    Cause or another effect of whatever is borking YouTube?

  68. 68.

    WaterGirl

    Cruz just said this election is about hope vs. fear. Yep, Cruz is all about Hope.

    Who knew?

  71. 71.

    Jackie

    @WaterGirl: I’m here – sort of. Watching the debate – just not commenting . With you in spirit. I’m not good at watching and commenting.

  72. 72.

    khead

    Beto’s closing statement should have been:

    “You can have pretty much the same economic prosperity without all of the assholeishness if you just vote for the Democrats”

  73. 73.

    Mike J

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I was briefly on the debate team in high school. I sucked at it. A really bad idea, in hindsight.

    I went to debate/speech tourneys but I did news. They throw you a pile of AP copy, you pick the stories, rewrite, and deliver it in 30 minutes. Since I was already doing that at two different radio stations it seemed natural. My news directors thought I was great, were pissed off I was going to to away to college. Speech tourney judges hated me. I put a house fire before a presidential speech, etc. Stuff I learned about news your listeners wanted conflicted with the hard and fast rules of national->state->local.

  74. 74.

    Steeplejack

    @Matt McIrvin:

    This is a good place to plug David Bohm’s excellent book On Dialogue (1996). He makes a persuasive case for a system of structured, “coöperative” dialogue to replace the dishonest “debate” (arguing) that constitutes so much of our public speech. Even if you don’t buy the whole thing, he makes some good points and gets you thinking outside the box, so to speak.

    He has another great book, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980), about the nature of reality and perception, but it’s way out in the quantum theory woo zone. Maybe not for everybody. (Wikipedia on “Implicate and Explicate Order.”)

  75. 75.

    WaterGirl

    I am now going to go watch TV and pretend that Ted Cruz doesn’t exist and say a prayer that Texas is smart enough to vote for Beto.

  80. 80.

    Ruckus

    You all will love this.
    I just checked my email tonight and found in my junk folder (a rather smart folder it is) an email from…. wait for it….. little teddy c.
    I oiled up the navy response language assist and replied to his skevy ass.
    Now if you will all pardon me, I have to go make a donation to his opponent.
    Now that felt good.

  84. 84.

    WaterGirl

    @chopper: That’s exactly what was happening with Booman Tribune earlier tonight, and it seems to be back to normal. There’s some sort of snag on the information highway this evening.

  88. 88.

    Ruckus

    @Ruckus:
    AV News has this headline

    Y Tube is down, so please stand by for the total collapse of human civilization.

    I wonder if little teddy c’s assholyness broke it?

  93. 93.

    WaterGirl

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks. While I wouldn’t mind being benevolent dictator of the world, I have no interest in being a tyrant. But if Cruz wants to wander into a field, I won’t stop him. :-)

  95. 95.

    NotMax

    @Adam L. Silverman

    How times have changed. Back then (in that episode) hamburgers smeared with peanut butter were presented as a decidedly childish and barely palatable choice. Nowadays there are almost surely frou-frou eateries offering the same made with wagyu beef and some sort of specially prepared organic PB on an artisanal spelt bun.

  96. 96.

    Matt McIrvin

    (Of course, many of those could just be XBox players seeing that XBox Live was down, rather than being an indication of some widespread pattern.)

  102. 102.

    NotMax

    @Amir Khalid

    Limited edition Ferrari Testarossa rims, poached to perfection at tableside in a Dom Perignon reduction and lightly dusted with triple-filtered anthrax from fields certified as grazed only by free range sheep.

    :)

  103. 103.

    randy khan

    @NotMax:

    Peanut butter and meat is not so terribly odd. It’s a pretty common combination in satays, including beef satay. And satay is good.

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