Can the jammed list of GOP (Grand Old Party aka the Republican Party) US presidential hopefuls stoop any lower? We’ve had Donald Trump, the billionaire property developer, shooting his mouth off about Mexican immigrants, now we have Ted Cruz, the the ostrich-skin boot -wearing junior senator from Texas, shooting a machine gun in order to fry his breakfast bacon. No, really, I kid you not. Head over to YouTube and see for yourself.
Rafael Edward Cruz, despite being born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father, is perfectly at liberty to run for the office of president. Jack Maskell of the Congressional Research Service, assures us Mr Cruz is a ‘natural born citizen’ because he meets the criteria of “children of US citizens born abroad, and those born abroad to one citizen parent who has met US residency requirements”. (Funny how cries reverberated nationwide from GOPers when the current US President ran for office, accusing him of being unAmerican because of having a Kenyan father. The last time I checked, Hawaii became a US state in 1959, and the President was born there in 1961.)
But I digress. Mr Cruz runs on an overload of righteous rhetoric believing, which I suppose to be a politician one must, there is absolutely no chance of his pronouncements being way off base and which sometimes, so authorities on various issues assure us, are flat out wrong. I write of his belief that whilst global warming is real, there is no evidence of man-made climate change, and claiming government researchers “are cooking the books…. actually adjusting the numbers.” James Powell, a geochemist and adviser to presidents Reagan and the first Mr Bush, found from a sample size of 10,885 peer-reviewed science publications, “only two articles rejecting climate change.” It would appear Mr Cruz is not always correct.
There is though, no denying Mr Cruz is one smart, gun-toting, cookie. The ring he flashes attests to being an alum of Harvard University. Then Princeton and lastly, Harvard Law School.
Jason Zengerle (GQ Magazine 2013) described the man as ‘the distinguished whacko bird from Texas’ saying, “It’s hard for Ted Cruz to be humble. Part of the challenge stems from his résumé which the Texas senator wears like a sandwich board.”
And my goodness the man can talk. Twenty-one hours and nineteen minutes to be exact, when he filibustered the Affordable Care Act in September 2013. Neither does Mr Cruz make friends, even in his own party. When questioning Chuck Hagel’s nomination as secretary of defense in 2013, Mr Cruz suggested, without evidence, that an unrevealed source of a $200,000 payment might just have come from North Korea, or maybe Saudi Arabia. The amount did not have to be justified as it was outside the two year period for financial information.
Mr Cruz it seems is not so squeaky clean himself. When challenged in Time magazine over “a potential violation of ethics rules by failing to publicly disclose his financial relationship with Caribbean Equity Partners Investment Holdings during the 2012 campaign”, he merely responded it had been “an inadvertent omission” on his part.
But it’s the guns that really get me. When Britain was confronted with the appalling tragedy of Dunblane in March 1996, 16 children and 1 adult slaughtered, public petitions, debate and the Cullen Report brought about the ban of private ownership of handguns. Who could ever forget the American equivalent? The Sandy Hook shooting spree? 20 children and 6 adults murdered in December 2012. And yet in the aftermath of that, Senator Cruz argued vehemently against any limitations to firearm access.
And now here he is touting his culinary and shooting prowess in the hopes of winning the rural vote in Iowa, where in February 2016 the country’s first presidential caucus will be held. Iowa also happens to be the pork capital of the US. Sure, it’s a gimmick, but really, is this what we want a potential US president to be like?
Now, in case you were wondering, here is the Texan junior senator’s favourite breakfast treat recipe – machine gun bacon!
Ingredients: bacon rashers, tin foil, machine gun (his weapon of choice, a Smith & Wesson M&P15 Sport rifle) Method: wrap bacon around muzzle of gun, cover in tin foil, shoot. Cooking Time: Approximately four magazines of 5.56 ammunition.
One wonders what the other 16 Republican presidential hopefuls will do to top this?
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