Ted Cruz and Ben Carson, stand up comedians?


In his grandstanding against the Affordable Care Act in particular and president Obama in general, the rhetoric of US senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has been getting more and more extreme. In a speech to the Values Voters Summit, the annual gathering of all the right wing religious nutcases (take a look at the list of invited speakers), he said that Obama is seeking to void the entire Bill of Rights, facetiously including the little known Third Amendment which prevents the government from requiring people to put up soldiers in their homes.

While Cruz may have been saying this jokingly, you can be sure that a significant number in the audience will take this threat seriously, because for them there is no telling what the Kenyan Muslim socialist president will do in his determination to destroy America.

The retired surgeon Ben Carson, one of the newest stars in the extreme right-wing firmament, raised the nutty rhetoric up a notch, saying that the ACA was “the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery” and that it was, in a way, a form of slavery too. Yes, indeedy. Watch

So to sum up: Give people affordable health insurance and the next thing you know, you have made them slaves and the government can order you to turn your spare bedroom into a motel for troops. Which also raises the question: Why is Ted Cruz against providing the troops with housing?

I am beginning to suspect that the VVS is actually a comedy club. But like all comedy club audiences, you always find a few who are not amused by your act and Cruz faced some hecklers.

But despite that minor setback, Cruz handily won the straw poll in the face of strong nutcase competition. The joint second place finishers were Ben Carson and Rick Santorum, himself no slouch in the crazy department which should tell you something about the kind of people who attend this gathering

I think that Cruz may have jumped the shark with his current attempt to shut down the government over the ACA and that his ambitions of being the party’s next nominee for president are becoming almost non-existent. Recall that in the 2012 election, the party establishment clearly favored Mitt Romney. As various other candidates (Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum) challenged and even threatened to wrest the nomination away from him, the establishment managed to shut them down. The party establishment hates Cruz for boxing the party into unsustainable positions and will do the same to him.

The establishment may be weaker now but it is not yet dead. I cannot seem him being able to overcome their opposition, however much he bathes in the adoring hosannas of the crazies.

Comments

  1. yankonamac says

    The whole “little sisters of the poor” shenanigan is just bizarre--they run nursing homes. They have absolutely no service to provide to anyone under the age of 60. Why on earth would anything having to do with contraception have anything at all to do with them? The story goes as far as The Washington Examiner and stops, which any reasonable adult would take with a far bigger pinch of salt than the Onion. Or an actual bag of raw onions. I figure this one is either a bold-faced lie or a clerical error that got blown way out of proportion for shock value.

  2. thewhollynone says

    I don’t blame them for being angry, but they are misdirecting their anger; they should be angry at the people who are conning them and stealing their money and attention.

  3. colnago80 says

    Dr. Carson is also a creationist; it would not surprise me if Cruz is also.

    However, I think that Prof. Singham is taking Cruz too lightly. This is a man of very high intelligence whose capabilities as a demagogue would make Frankenberger, Long, and McCarthy green with envy. He also has a rather unique flair for making stupid arguments sound plausible, in addition to being a first class debater. Liberals will take this man lightly at their own peril.

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