Tag Archives: GOP

Canadian born right-wing fanatic Ted Cruz threw his hat into the ring of the American Presidency last week. So you know what that means folks? The Republican Clown Car is officially open and the parade of lunatics, each laughably unqualified for President and, to quote Mitt Romney (when he was trying to appeal to conservatives) “severely conservative”, because yes, it is kind of a disease of the mind. Yet most of these clowns may have a chance… at winning the primary, though I wouldn’t put money on that and I certainly would never bet on any of them winning the presidency. We all know who has a chance, Jeb. The rest of these morons are here to fill out the GOP variety show’s long running time.

Ted Cruz is the quintessential example. He is so perfectly the man who will never be President, that I am contemplating making “Cruz to victory” a slogan for the misguided candidate. He’s so implausible, he showed up to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University where students are required to attend political speeches or they literally get fined $10. Even then, many walked out and others wore Rand Paul t-shirts!  Not a stellar start for that man that caused a government shut down for no apparent reason.

Worse still, the political betting odds folks (yes people bet on politics) have him way down below Joe Biden and just above a guy named Martin O’Malley who I honestly had to look up because he is an unknown. I suppose he can take pride in being above Paul Ryan at this point, though he is below Mitt Romney in many odds and since he has officially dropped out of the race, that’s laughably bad! The official word is that Cruz stands at 33 to 1, barely better than people who have never even expressed interest in running for president at all, like Andrew Cuomo and others who can’t possibly win like Bob McDonnell who just got convicted of taking bribes (also a Soapblox Political Obituary honoree).

So let’s take a walk into the implausible, with the top 10 things that are more likely to happen than waking up to the nightmare of a Ted Cruz Presidency!

We will start with one that already happened:

Ted Cruz Joins Obamacare

The man who has opposed Obamacare since day 1, railed against it too many times to count, pushed for the 50+ pointless votes against it, pushed for a government shutdown over it…

Signed up for it already!

Yes. He had his healthcare through his wife, an executive at the deplorable Goldman Sachs, though she left her posh job to help Cruzin’ for a Bruzin’ over here on his failed presidential bid. So this isn’t more plausible than a Ted Cruz Presidency, it’s already a reality. It may show the grand delusions that his wife has, because seriously, she should keep her day job. It’s also a big reason why a hypocrite like Ted Cruz can’t and won’t become president.
OK, now on to the real list:

1.) President Chris Christie

Just a few years ago, Chris Christie was one of the most popular politicians in the country with a 70% range approval. Today he is in the high 30% range after two of his closest friends and aids brought the George Washington Bridge to a screeching halt just to make a political point. Christie claimed incompetence, as they always do, and everyone fell on their sword. To think that New Jersey would not know a good corruption scandal when they saw it is laughable.

Though, say Hillary doesn’t run and Jeb comes down with a really bad case of Tourette Syndrome. Christie could step in, as American’s ponder an unknown Democrat like Jim Webb or fat jokes for 4 years. The odds still aren’t very good, even here, though Ted Cruz couldn’t even win the nomination, so Americans would be more likely to wake to the realization that “Chris Crisco” will be the lazy joke used nightly about their president.

 

2.) Ambassador to Mexico – Rick Perry

The only governor Texans are deeply embarrassed about more than George W. Bush is his replacement, Rick Perry. Even if they elected him three times. He’s the guy who said he would abolish 3 government organizations on day one and could only remember two of them (never mind he wouldn’t have any authority to “abolish” any government organization). I think most Americans wouldn’t want Rick “Oops” Perry representing their local PTA, let alone the country to any organization, certainly not a nation as important to United States interests like Mexico.

However, let’s say that Jeb wins the presidency, something I’m quite certain will not happen, though is very plausible, Perry helps Jeb carry Texas, and to make it a little more believable, let’s say he has embarrassing video footage of brother W. Bush drunk, snorting coke and hitting on interns in the Texas Governor’s mansion during a private get together (remember ol’ W. was once an alcoholic coke head so it’s not a reach to think he fell off the wagon once or twice). Perry threatens Jeb with the footage unless he can give him a position of respect like Secretary of State or something. Jeb laughs then offers Perry Ambassador to Mexico because sending him to a country fighting an internal war with drug lords could take care of Perry all together, yet most importantly, gets him out of the US and out of the spotlight.

I know, it sounds like a Steven Soderbergh movie, though remember he usually picks true stories. It’s implausible though still more likely than a Ted Cruz Presidency.

 

3.) Women get equal pay

Now this one is just sad, though experts predict that by 2050, women will receive the same pay for the same work that a man does. That’s long after the US mission to land humans on Mars is expected to be complete, to put it in perspective. The sad part is, the laws on the books already guarantee that a woman should be paid the same wage, passed way back in the 1960s, and the Lilly Ledbetter Law that Obama signed only makes it easier for women to sue (she had a hard time getting proof and when she did, the courts dismissed her evidence). So that means the problem is a cultural problem. You can’t force people to set their wages under US law, so corporate America are just a bunch of douchebags and we have to wait for their male dominating culture to die out.

Still, it will eventually happen while Ted Cruz being president, will not.

 

4.) The US and Iran become official allies

George W. Bush lumped Iran in with Iraq and North Korea as the “Axis of Evil”. A statement so stupid it was laughed at the night it was announced. The Germany-Italy-Japan Axis Powers called themselves the Axis Powers and Hitler himself said it was the Axis for which the world will turn. That’s scary! The Nazis were good at marketing fear. Yet Iran and Iraq fought a war that killed well over a million people between each other. Less Germany and Italy, more Germany and Russia. They are sworn enemies and their not even the same religion (Sunni vs Shiite). Neither had any contact with North Korea. Interestingly though, Pakistan helped North Korea’s nuclear program and they are, or were, our ally.

Iran has always gotten a bad wrap. I began to write a whole history of why then realized it was too long for this article. The reasons for Iran and the US hating each other go back a long way, though mostly involve the US acting out of self-interest making things a whole lot worse in the process. Ultimately, America feels butt-hurt about the hostage crisis, though our involvement was far more sinister including a coup of their democratically elected prime minister Mossadegh, supporting the brutal actions of the Shah (as long as the oil flowed) and giving Iraq chemical weapons to use on Iran (great work Reagan). The regime that is in place in Iran runs essentially the same secret police only now they look for “pornography” which can be an R rated movie or anything that shows a women revealing her hair! So the long and short of it is that Iran got screwed again with the creation of the Republic though Iraq invaded shortly thereafter so the regime was strengthened by standing firm against Saddam Hussein.

Since then, the younger people, by-in-large, growing up in Iran today don’t hate the West. They prefer openness with the West, more freedom, an end to the bureaucratic involvement in social issues. Many who supported the Revolution died in the war and an entire generation was lost. The gap between young and old is so great that many social upheavals have already occurred. For instance before Bush came to power, they elected a moderate government that wanted a peace treaty with the West. When Bush came in, he embarrassed them by demanding too much and the regime was laughed out of office. The self-fulfilling prophecy of the Axis speech came less untrue, when Ahmadinejad came to power. He was a cartoon villain who represented the military and the old guard. His re-election was possibly rigged and sparked the Green Revolt. The Theocracy eliminated many moderates in their midst and potential threats. Yet the passed election saw a moderate cleric win the presidency overwhelmingly, regardless. He has been open to the talks and Obama is trying not to redo Bush’s mistake. They want an agreement that will last long enough for the old guard to die. Then the younger generations will be firmly in power and begin to unravel the old theocratic oppression. The Theocracy knows this and is playing passive aggressive. The current Ayatollah ended Ahmadinejad’s future political career and has both yelled “death to America” one day while supporting the peace talks the next. He also laughed off the Republican 47 letter that was supposed to kill the deal. The talks are close to a deal and we could see the groundwork for US-Iranian peace that could last generations!

Considering all that, it’s amazing that some of the dumber examples of Americans, aka the Republicans, still see the world through the view of the Rambo cartoon that aired in the 80s. It’s the one where all the bad guys resemble terrorists of the time (including one that looked like the Iron Sheik) who conspire to make the world unsafe for democracy because… well because they’re bad guys.
With all that oil in Iran, that even Dick Cheney once purchased while at Halliburton (breaking sanctions) is so tempting that in the end, the Republicans will come around, as they did with Bush’s agreement with Gaddafi in Libya, and he was one of the guys Reagan bombed!

Yet Iran could even become an ally? Yes, they already kind of are in the fighting against ISIS, though we support the Saudis against Iranian backed rebels in Yemen. The whole region is a mess though the Persians are better educated and more open to democracy than most of the Arab nations. If they were to pull the plug on Hezbollah in Lebanon and come to terms with the reality of Israel (which seems a little far-fetched at this current date, though just watch), in exchange for a lifting of sanctions which comes with all that juicy oil revenue, it could happen.

Still, it’s pretty far off and possibly never could come to fruition, though I would peg those odds far better than a Ted Cruz Presidency.

 

 

5.) Republicans accept Climate Change as fact and offer their help to stop it

So far, Republicans are in complete denial about Climate Change, even though it’s evidence is everywhere. While the trend has been increasingly hotter and hotter summers, the Republicans pointed to an anomaly in the early 90s as the hottest summer, until 2014 broke the record that is. While 99% of scientists agree Climate Change is real and man-made, they always point to the one whacko who somehow got a PhD. The Koch Brothers thought they had one such scientist, and paid him to prove all the others wrong. He came back with the opposite conclusion and concurred with the 99% of scientists. I’ll bet he didn’t get a good present from the Koch Brothers that year!

Climate Change denial is rampant, though declining. While Rick Perry told people to pray for the horrible droughts that continue in Texas to end, others began to wake up. What you hear now from sensible Republicans (which are the few) is that Climate Change is real though it’s not man-made and there’s nothing we can do about it anyway so drill baby drill! An even small number is starting to believe it’s caused by humans though they still say things like, ‘let’s wait for the science to prove out’ or ‘there’s nothing we can do about it anyway so let’s all go out and buy SUVs and aerosol spray.

With California now officially heading into one of the worst droughts it’s faced (and there have been many) and Texas heading for another record year of Dust Bowl watch, it’s a wake up call, especially since those are hands down the two most populous states. California accounts for a fifth of all produce and is one of the world’s largest exporters of rice. It’s going to hit a lot of people where it hurts. For those that are sniping partisan comments about “Liberal California”, they’re moment of gloat will be short-lived, especially since this is an issue of national crisis.

Republicans will have to get on board, especially because Texas is already heading for a severe water shortage and Florida (the nation’s third most populous state) is surrounded by water on all sides and is close to sea level. A rising sea will drown Miami completely, take out the keys and swamp Tampa Bay and the Panhandle. Even Rush Limbaugh’s original home of Palm Beach will be devastated. Keep in mind as well that Florida has thousands of lakes and swamps that will be inundated with saltwater.

These issues will force Republicans to take it seriously… eventually. So it’s an inevitability. As things have gotten worse faster than anyone predicted, expect it to happen sooner than many think. They won’t admit they are wrong, they will simply wake up one day as if it was their issue all along, like they are trying to do with income inequality. The people will see through it as always, though we will need their help so noone will care.

Again, this will happen, which is more than I can say for Ted Cruz becoming President.

 

Conclusion

I had 10 or 15 more of these things, some ranging from the outright ridiculous like Lady Gaga running for political office to Bill Maher joining the Christian Coalition to things possible though improbable like the Pope allowing women to become Priests to the NRA backing common sense gun control. Though they will have to wait for another day. In the end, I went with things I knew would be more probable for sure and included only a couple of the humorous ones because I found that these issues are important milestones to note, even if a few need to happen a lot sooner than later (looking at you equal pay issue).

Though Ted Cruz’s probability of being president is so low that I probably have a better chance at being president, stranger things have happened and the future is impossible to predict. So if some crazy set of circumstances does come to light and Ted Cruz manages to win the nomination, do everything you can to keep this lunatic, right-wing extremist self-absorbed idiot who keeps a painting of himself on his own wall from winning. He is too scary to contemplate, which is why even conservatives don’t really like him that much. Imagine Ted Cruz with his finger on the Big Red Button? No thank you!

Since Mitt Romney seems to have a better shot at winning and he has officially left the race, we will more than likely never have to.

I think old friend Stephen Colbert sums up Ted Cruz and his misguided self martyr complex better than anyone could.