Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) whined today that judicial nominees being sent to the Senate by President Joe Biden for confirmation are too left wing and liberal to gain his vote, but his complaints were quickly fact-checked by a reporter who reminded him that many of the judges nominated by former president Donald Trump were so inferior that their own peers considered them to be unqualified for service on the bench.
According to Jen Bendery of Huffington Post, Cruz began by saying Biden’s nominees were “extreme!”
Ted Cruz to reporters: Biden's judges are "extreme!"
Me: Lots of Trump's judges were unqualified.
Cruz: "Ackchyually, the caliber of judges that Trump nominated was exceptional."
Me: Ten were rated "not qualified" to be judges by ABA. Zero of Biden's.
She then used facts to swat down the Texas Republican.
Let's look at some of those unqualified judges that Ted Cruz supported.
There was Steven Grasz, who earned an embarrassing and unanimous “not qualified” rating for being “unable to separate his role as an advocate from that of a judge." https://t.co/D5qDcLQDe3
There was also Jonathan Kobes, 44, who earned a “not qualified” rating because he didn't have the experience and “was unable to provide sufficient writing samples of the caliber required” of a U.S. circuit judge. He could not write, folks. https://t.co/hm2oMi0tZf
Ted Cruz also voted to confirm Lawrence VanDyke to be a federal judge, a guy whose *own colleagues* described him as “arrogant, lazy, an ideologue, and lacking in knowledge of the day-today practice including procedural rules.” https://t.co/iJseTKPUw0
Those are just some of Trump's TEN unqualified judges who the GOP confirmed anyway.
An unqualified rating is otherwise rare.
And Cruz's claim that ABA is simply partisan goes out the window every time GOP senators celebrate one of their nominees getting a positive ABA rating.
Those are specifically Trump's court picks who actually got confirmed.
Here's a sampling of some who were even too crazy for Republicans to support. In the world of judicial nominations, it was a RIDE during the Trump years. pic.twitter.com/UsLJEt06Xd
He is referring to Judge Dale Ho, a longtime voting rights lawyer, who said in his confirmation hearing that a comment he made about being a “wild-eyed sort of leftist” of how others may have described him, but not how he sees himself.
Ted Cruz loves to try and present himself as some sort of great legal mind because he earned his law degree at Harvard. But he’s really not all that bright. He’s also a habitual liar and so blatantly partisan that he can’t admit when he’s wrong.
But today, Teddy got hit with a giant dose of facts and karma. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving douchebag.
Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy made a complete fool of his himself today during a Senate hearing on the causes of gun-related crime when he attempted to suggest that the city of Chicago had become a “shooting gallery.
Kennedy was questioning Dr. Megan Ranney of the Yale School of Public Health when he suggested that crime isn’t rising in Chicago as a result of law-abiding residents carrying guns, but rather is because liberal prosecutors are letting dangerous felons run free.
That led Ranney to remind the senator that his home state of Louisiana could also be called a “shooting gallery.”
“Mississippi, Louisiana, and Missouri actually have higher firearm death rates.”
Ranney is absolutely right. Louisiana has one of the highest murder rates in the United States, with 21.3 homicides per 100,000 people in 2021, according to figures from the National Center for Health Statistics. The only state with a higher rate is next door in Mississippi, which has 23.7 homicides per 100,000 people.
Despite Ranney’s facts, Kennedy asked, “What about Chicago?”
Ranney: “I don’t live in Chicago,” she replied. “It’s not my primary area of research.”
She added that crime in cities such as Chicago is likely caused by “easy access to firearms” and “lack of great education.”
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA): “Why do you think that Chicago has become America's largest outdoor shooting range?”
Dr. Megan Ranney of the Yale School of Public Health: “Mississippi, Louisiana, and Missouri actually have higher firearm death rates.” pic.twitter.com/K70KPNZ7As
Taika Waititi is best known for directing Thor: Ragnarok and Jojo Rabbit, but he’s also active in humanitarian causes, including the 2012 NBC Super Bowl featurette “Brotherhood of Man,” which led to him directing failed former president Donald Trump.
According to Waititi, working with Trump was a major pain in the ass and also gave him some interesting insights into the Donald, who had not yet decided to run for president.
Speaking with actors Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes on their Smartless podcast, Waititi recalled that Trump was not exactly a delight to direct, according to The Daily Beast.
“I directed Trumpy,” Waititi giggled. “There was a piece of paper with a list of demands,” Waititi said, when Bateman asked if Trump had any on-set “specifications.”
Trump had a helper present who flattered him constantly, Waititi explained. “He had a sort of like a make-up person who was also his ego booster. So she would like, touch him up and say ‘Oh Mr. Trump, oh Mr. Trump, you look fantastic.’”
“[The camera] had to be a certain height to make him look a little thinner,” Waititi added. “I think it had like a sort of, whatever the pantone of orange was that he had to appear as on screen.”
Trump is known to be fond of whatever shade of bronzer he has applied to his face, and the uneven application of it has led to lots of public humiliation.
In part, this is because the conversation about the president’s looks — particularly his trademark hue — is more than skin-deep. It has given his opponents an easy way to ridicule him (comparing his skin to Cheetos, or hoisting large orange balloons in his likeness) that does not touch upon the substance of his presidency or policies, and is in a way reminiscent of the president’s own nicknames for his enemies like “Mini Mike” (a reference to former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s height) or “Sleepyeyes Chuck Todd” (Trump’s derogatory name for the Meet the Press host).
Trump has suggested he doesn’t use makeup, but now we know that’s just another of his endless lies.
Though he was once the most powerful member of the House of Representatives, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) probably won’t ever be invited to teach a class on American history.
A tweet McCarthy posted Sunday has come under criticism for being utterly ignorant of warfare and the ulterior motives of U.S. foreign policy.
The posting, which included a video, claims, “In every single war that America has fought, we have never asked for land afterward — except for enough to bury the Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.”
Think for one moment. In every single war that America has fought, we have never asked for land afterward—except for enough to bury the Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for freedom. pic.twitter.com/XbReeVvWPX
Of course, as almost anyone who has taken the most rudimentary course in history knows, McCarthy’s claim is complete bullshit.
As a matter of fact, McCarthy’s own California congressional district wouldn’t exist if Mexico hadn’t turned over that land to the United States at the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848.
That set off a wave of mockery and history lessons aimed directly at the California Republican.
This guy represents California in Congress — one of 9 current states whose territory the US won in part or whole during the Mexican War of 1848. Then there is the Spanish American War that saw the US take Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Otherwise solid history. https://t.co/2dGwsIp8gT
What's really amazing about this transparent lie is that he was so confident about it, he shared this clip himself. That's how far down the rabbit hole too many of us are when it comes to a kind of phony patriotism built upon myth and distortion. https://t.co/sZah1BOcYV
Think of all the wisdom from this man we’d be deprived of if his home state of California had never spontaneously risen from the sea and attached itself to the United States https://t.co/1GL8Rbohna
If you don’t even know how your home state became a state you should have ZERO say in how teachers teach history. Let alone be a member of congress. https://t.co/aZ99rVlwYH
This is complete ignorance. Nearly half of our land mass was seized after the Mexican War and we took the Philippines and Puerto Rico after the Spanish American war. https://t.co/7JwJOTZDOE
In the surest sign yet that failed former president Donald Trump is toxic to the party that has sworn undying allegiance to him, the Republican National Committee (RNC) is facing a major cash crunch and having to make major financial cutbacks less than a year from the 2024 election.
The Washington Postreports the RNC is hemorrhaging money and cannot manage to get donations from large or small donors.
The Republican National Committee disclosed that it had $9.1 million in cash on hand as of Oct. 30, the lowest amount for the RNC in any Federal Election Commission report since February 2015. That compares with about $20 million at the same point in the 2016 election cycle and about $61 million four years ago, when Trump was in the White House.
The Democratic National Committee reported having $17.7 million as of Oct. 30, almost twice as much as the Republican Party, with one year before the election.
Oscar Brock, a member of the Tennessee GOP, said he cannot understand why times are so lean for the RNC:
“We’re going through the same efforts we always go through to raise money: the same donor meetings, retreats, digital advertising, direct mail. But the return is much lower this year. If you know the answer, I’d love to know it. The staff has managed to tighten down on expenses to keep the party from going into the red.”
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel tried to downplay the financial problems facing her party, suggesting all will be well once Republicans have a presidential nominee.
“I think there’s more donors just fully committed to their candidate right now, saying I am all in, and once the nominee is set, I’ll be there. That’s what I hear more than anything. And they’re really solidly in the camps of their candidate, which is normal. There’s nothing unusual about this, because they know that once their candidate gets in that we will merge and that we’ll be working together to win the White House.”
But not everyone in the GOP is as sanguine about the financial crisis facing the party, with some suggesting McDaniel is the problem.
“The RNC’s electoral record since 2017 speaks for itself,” said Virginia RNC member Patti Lyman, who opposed McDaniel when she was reelected to another term in January. “The damage from that chair election goes far beyond the drop in donations. Our base was demoralized.”
However, McDaniel appears to have the support of failed former president Donald Trump, who said just last month that she had “done a fantastic job” and calling her “a real good friend.”
But in private, Trump seems to be less than sold on McDaniel, according to the Post:
Donors sometimes complain to Trump about McDaniel, and Trump has been asking people what they think of her, which is often an ominous sign that someone is losing their standing with him, according to three people close to the former president, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal discussions.
If money is indeed the mother’s milk of political campaigns, the GOP is currently sucking hind teat, and that suggests their electoral prospects are less than rosy in 2024.
