This certainly isn’t the first time I’ve written about Lyin’ Ted getting owned on Twitter:
The NRA-funded politician immediately offered standard moral support (but, of course, not solutions) via Twitter after a gunman attacked a Texas high school, killing 10 people.
Cruz may have thought he was doing his duty, but a lot of people let him know his response was sorely lacking (in occasionally foul-mouthed fashion).
The Huffington Post article I cited showed a plethora of Tweets of folks calling out Cruz’s bull shit. Here’s a few:
That’s just a taste. By the way, that image I used for my diary, remember this?
An asshole through and through. By the way, “ prayers” isn’ t the response you give to something like the Santa Fe shooting. It’ s solutions:
Democrats already in office were hardly the only ones weighing in on policy in the wake of the tragedy Friday. As soon as reports of the shooting began to surface, politicians and hopefuls running in next week’s May 22 runoff election began to speak out about policy solutions and the failures they attribute to current state leaders.
Democrat Beto O'Rourke, an El Paso congressman running against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz this fall, emailed supporters Friday afternoon a long list of specific policy ideas — everything from funding federal research on gun violence to improving campus safety to implementing "red flag" laws, which allow local officials to seize an individual's weapons when they appear to present an imminent threat of violence.
"We can meet silence with action," O'Rourke wrote. "Tragedy with common purpose. The disagreements with compromise and consensus that allow us to do better — not perfect, not your ideal, not my ideal, but better than what we have today. Shouldn't be too much to ask for the kids who died today, for the kids too scared to go to school on Monday, should it?"
We’ ll see how big of an issue gun control becomes. What I can tell you, though, is this is being an issue in this race:
In Texas, for instance, Congressman Beto O’Rourke has made support for net neutrality central to his challenge to Republican Senator Ted Cruz.
O’Rourke has highlighted the difference between himself and Cruz on this issue, going so far as to cut a video targeted at small-business owners, who will be particularly harmed by any narrowing of access to the Internet. “Standing together,” O’Rourke says in the video, “we are more than a match for the corporations and the special interests, and we will be able to restore net neutrality to the Internet, and make sure that we will have an open and free Internet for everyone in this country to use.”
If enough candidates make net neutrality an issue, and if enough of them win, Democrats could use strong congressional votes, and aggressive negotiations with the administration, to tilt the balance back toward digital democracy.
Such a result might have seemed unimaginable just a few months ago. But with the Senate vote, there is a renewed sense of optimism among net neutrality advocates.
“Despite the influence from big cable and telecommunications companies who have poured oceans of money in their attempt to kill net neutrality rules, the Senate stood on the side of the American people in voting to pass this resolution. The Senate stood on the side of free speech, civic engagement, equal opportunity, and innovation. Ultimately, the Senate stood on the right side of American history,” says former FCC commissioner Michael Copps, who on Wednesday declared, “This is an important first step to overturn the FCC’s historic blunder.”
By the way, Cruz claims he hates a free internet but he loves stealing your information and privacy:
In a Senate hearing Wednesday on data privacy and the now-defunct Cambridge Analytica, Sen. Ted Cruz downplayed its work for the Trump campaign and made no mention of his own campaign's use of the voter targeting firm, which is now reported to be under federal investigation.
Sidestepping whether the firm improperly used data from millions of Facebook users to help boost GOP candidates, the Texan repeated a contention that a biased Facebook had helped Democrat Barack Obama's chances long before Cambridge Analytica’s role in the 2016 election.
Americans are “rightly concerned about privacy and security of our data,” Cruz said, adding that while “much of the media attention in recent weeks and months has focused on the data operation of the Trump campaign,” it’s hardly the first to use data to reach voters.
Cruz pointed to Obama’s highly touted use of social media in his presidential campaigns, a strategy that was developed using Facebook data. And he quoted a former Obama campaign official who tweeted in March that, with respect to data use, Facebook allowed the campaign “to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side.”
Campaigns across the political spectrum have long acquired and used data to motivate potential voters. Facebook has denied giving the Obama campaign special treatment and has said that he and former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney "had access to the same tools."
This was the second hearing on data privacy in the last five weeks at which Cruz railed against bias in Silicon Valley and avoided mention of his own connection to Cambridge, a firm bankrolled by the billionaire GOP donor Robert Mercer. Cruz hired the firm for his 2016 presidential bid, which Mercer supported. After the Texan exited the race, Mercer and the firm switched allegiance to Trump.
By the way, Cruz likes to be associated with people who are just as shitty as him:
The leaders of a South African group that has referred to apartheid as a “so-called” historical injustice recently toured Washington and met with top members of the U.S. government, including officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development and staffers for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). They even bumped into national security adviser John Bolton.
During their meetings in Washington, AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel and deputy CEO Ernst Roets handed out copies of Roets’ book Kill the Boer, which pushes the controversial claim that white farmers are being singled out for systematic violence in South Africa.
On Wednesday, Kriel and Roets met with USAID officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters. It’s unclear whether the officials were aware of AfriForum’s views prior to the meeting.
“USAID meets with a wide variety of organizations to gather perspectives on political, economic, social, and development trends in countries where we operate,” a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, wrote HuffPost. “USAID programmed approximately $258 million in FY 2017 resources in South Africa for programs that strengthen small businesses, create employment, improve job skills, promote basic education, combat gender-based violence, and promote HIV/AIDS care, prevention, and treatment.”
It’s time to give this NRA Puppet the boot and fellow Texas Democrats are helping O’Rourke get ready to take on Cruz. Received this e-mail this week from Rep. Joaquin Castro (D. TX-20) in support of Beto’s campaign:
I’m proud to be writing you today in support of my friend, and the next U.S. Senator from Texas, Beto O’Rourke.
We’re less than 6 months away from the election, and the latest polling has Beto within THREE POINTS of Ted Cruz - and folks are saying the race is too close to call!As I said on The Daily Show last week, I believe Beto IS going to win this fall and bring fresh, Texas energy to Washington.
Click here to donate to Beto’s campaign.