There’s been some big changes in the political world this week. But in denier land, nothing ever really changes.
With his carefully-laid plans dating back to his work for Big Tobacco in the ‘90s immediately dumped in a shredder by the Biden administration, Steve Milloy is now back to work, tweeting furiously, deliberately misunderstanding metaphors, and being totally not at all jealous of Amanda Gorman’s show-stealing inaugural poem.
Marc Morano’s still retweeting basically everyone that engages with him on Twitter, including one with all the violent rightwing red flags: Punisher logo, “back the blue” hashtag in the bio and cop-killing insurrectionist slogan “1776 Again” in the header. And why wouldn’t Morano retweet an account like that? That’s his audience. Just like when he went on white nationalist pseudo-media website Breitbart to further spread COVID and climate denial.
As for established denial institutions, The Wall Street Journal is straight back to form, complaining in their editorial on President Joseph Biden Jr.’s Inauguration that President Biden’s calls to unity will fall flat “if he insists that those who disagree on climate change are ‘deniers’ who care nothing for the planet” in case you thought conservatives would do any compromising with liberals for the sake of unity and, you know, the continued existence of human civilization.
The Journal editorial board's tedium continued (we read it so you don't have to!), going after Biden’s Keystone XL decision with the old lost-jobs myth, which Emily Atkin capably debunks. Having staunchly defended the pointless petro-project for years now, perhaps the editorial board could be forgiven for suggesting Keystone builder TransCanada “can avail itself of Nafta’s [sic] investor-dispute settlement provision,” because apparently the increasingly senile WSJ editorial board forgot one of the few things Trump did besides stoke the flames of racism was replace NAFTA with the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement...
Just when we thought everything was going to be tedious and boring, we remembered something magical, a source of seemingly infinite amusement: making fun of Ted Cruz.
His latest blunder? Reusing a line that didn’t even make sense when Trump said it the first time. Cruz responded to President Biden’s rejoining of the Paris Agreement with a statement claiming Biden is “more interested in the views of the citizens of Paris than in the jobs of the citizens of Pittsburgh.”
The people of Pittsburgh, from the Mayor on down, were more than happy to let the seditious senator — who had recently voted to disenfranchise the city’s voters and overturn the election in service of a man who called his wife ugly and said his dad killed JFK — know exactly how they felt about him: Speaking as a citizen of Pittsburgh, Ted Cruz can get bent.
Truly, if there’s anything that can bring together this weary and frayed country, nay, world, it’s dunking on Ted Cruz. From Greta herself to an apocryphal 10-year-old-son, to celebrities, to his college roommate, to fellow congressionals with scathing or one-word responses, to even Cruz’s fellow conservatives like Bill Kristol, who pointed out that Pittsburgh actually voted for Biden, not Trump.
Seemingly immune to shame, dignity or self-respect, Senator Cruz continues to fundraise off of the Pittsburgh/Paris angle. What a blessing.
Despite the efforts of political sycophants like Ted and a violent mob of traitors, Donald Trump is, thankfully, out of power, out of sight on our timelines. But there are always going to be people who say dumb things about climate change, and agreements like the one struck in Paris.
We’ll always have Ted Cruz.
