We've already wasted too much time. We have to get right down to the Senate floor. Texas Republican Ted Cruz has been addressing that august body with great urgency.
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (9/24/2013): I rise today in an effort to speak for 26 million Texans, and for 300 million Americans. ... And as Americans, we value liberty and opportunity above all else. ... What the American people are interested in is what we've always been interested in.
Stuffed crust pizza. No, wait. Tacos made from Doritos. No! Frappucino! Brangelina! Frappalina! Bran-ge....
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (9/24/2013): ... what we've always been interested in. Which is freedom.
Did not see that coming. Does that freedom have cheese stuffed in its crust? Well clearly, Senator Cruz believes our freedom is under assault. Senator Cruz, would you care to offer a historical precedent that you feel is appropriate to the threat that we now face?
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (9/24/2013): You go to the 1940s. Nazi Germany.
Nazi Germany?!? Why, that's my least favorite kind of Germany! You got you regular Germany, your Weimar Germany, your Visigoths, your Hasselhoffs, but oh my God, Ted Cruz says we're at Defcon Nazi!
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (9/24/2013): Look, we saw in Britain, Neville Chamberlain, who told the British people, accept the Nazis. Yes, they'll dominate the continent of Europe. But that's not our problem. Let's appease them. ... And in America, there were voices that listened to that. I suspect those same pundits who say it can't be done, if it had been in the 1940s, we would've been listening to them.
Let's not listen to them! I don't wanna listen to the Nazi appeasers! What is this "it" that these Hitler-lovers believe we can't do, but that you say we should be doing to save our stuffed crust freedom?
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (9/24/2013): I rise today in opposition...
I rise with you! To defeat what I can only assume is the zombie apocalypse, which is clearly the only thing you could be talking about, given the level of rhetoric you have used thus far.
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (9/24/2013): ... in opposition to Obamacare.
(audience groaning laughter)
OK, OK, possibly a very troubled bureaucratic system. Can we focus on the Nazi zombies for a second?
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (9/24/2013): I intend to speak in support of defunding Obamacare until I am no longer able to stand.
What?! Well, that's easy for you to take that kind of physical risk — you've got government health care. (wild audience cheering and applause)
So you'd be unable to stand. "Until the Nazis steal my knees."
Yes, that's Ted Cruz, the Senator who, starting yesterday at 2:41 Eastern Wasting Time, took to the Senate floor for 21 hours, not to filibuster, not to delay, but to cast himself as Churchill to Obama's Chamberlain in the great fight against... Hitler's... health care exchanges. I lost the thread of the metaphor. But my point is this.
(audience laughter)
Yeah, it takes a while to sink in. It takes a while to sink in.
Senator Cruz clearly believes our very freedom is at stake here. And Senator Cruz — as a brilliant Harvard educated lawyer and Princeton debate champion — I imagine that he is prepared to make a stunning and sophisticated argument as to why Obamacare places this very nation in such peril.
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (9/24/2013): Some time ago, I tweeted a speech that Ashton Kutcher gave. That's a terrific speech.
(shocked audience laughter)
You're fucking with us, right?
"I tweeted a speech by Ashton Kutcher. It was so good, I only needed 140 characters of it."
Wow, how would something like that look in the Senator's original analogy?
Ted Cruz, Senator! You are one of the great minds of our times — says you — who says we are facing one of the great perils of our age. And yet you've outsourced your argument and wisdom to a dude who cannot find his car? Perhaps there was even more eloquent and soaring speech-making to come.
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (9/24/2013): I want to point out just a few words of wisdom from Duck Dynasty. ... There was a movie, Jason vs. Freddy, I forget, they fought each other, I forget what even happened in that movie. ... Eight White Castle restaurants a year, I like their little burgers. ... It's a little bit like the World Wrestling Federation. ... In my mind, I heard the music from The Shining, er, not The Shining, from Psycho. ... Just like in Star Wars movies ... (in bad Darth Vader voice) Mike Lee, I am your father.
(wild audience laughter)
(whispers to Cruz) You're losing them.
Come on, Senator Cruz, this isn't even a filibuster! You had 20 hours to make your case. You're double Ivy League! Surely you can do better, maybe cite a study or a book.
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (9/24/2013): Dr. Seuss's "Green Eggs and Ham" ... "I do not like them, Sam I am, I do not like green eggs and ham".
(audience laughter as Jon facepalms)
So to express your opposition to Obamacare, you go with a book about a stubborn jerk who decides he hates something before he's tried it. (wild audience cheering and applause) And when he finally does get a taste, he has to admit after tasting it, "This is pretty fucking good".
Senator Cruz, you're trying to save America! Get to the dire foundational issue at hand.
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (9/24/2013): You like your doctor? Do you want to keep seeing your doctor? Well, I'll tell ya, Americans all over this country are losing their health care because of Obamacare. They're losing their ability to see their doctors. That's what happens if the Senate doesn't act to defund Obamacare.
OK, maybe that's what happens under Obamacare. As opposed to our current health care utopia where doctor and patient mate for life?
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (9/24/2013): One half of small businesses say that they will either cut hours to reduce full-time employees, or full-time employees with part-time workers to avoid the mandate. ... Obamacare is estimated to have increased individual health insurance premiums by anywhere from 64% to 146%.
Look, I'm not saying Obamacare is perfect. It's not, it was designed by Congress, and nothing designed by Congress is perfect. You ask them to design a puppy, you'd get something with no face, two assholes, and a semi-automatic machine gun for a tail. That's fine.
(audience laughter)
Take that down, that's really disturbing. (picture of Cruz reappears) Not much better.
Do you have a more foundational critique?
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (9/24/2013): Obamacare is the biggest job killer in this country. ... Small businesses have been hammered under Obamacare unlike ever before. ... It's shattering the economy, all across the country in all 50 states.
Now as of now, I'm unaware of the specific impact on growth and jobs Obamacare has had given that the sign-up for it doesn't even start until next week. But clearly, economic growth is an important issue. And so important to you, that just the possibility that Obamacare may be hurting the economy is enough to get you on your feet for 21 hours. I congratulate you on that, sir.
But... I can think of another thing that came out of Washington recently that is hurting economic growth right now. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the spending cuts from the sequester are costing the country three-quarters of a million jobs this year alone. How did you feel about those cuts?
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (3/16/2013): We stood our ground and finally got at least the first small step — and I underscore it is a small step — to reigning in our uncontrollable spending and debt.
Ahhhh! So that slowdown for economic growth is good. You know who else thought reigning in uncontrollable spending and debt was a good idea? Hitler. (audience laughter)
So your problem with the sequester is that it didn't cost us enough jobs. For all its flaws, Obamacare appears to at least be attempting to fix some fundamental holes in our health care system, like insurance companies being able to deny based on pre-existing conditions. So if you're going to repeal it, you'd better have some idea of your own on how to do that. Pre-existing conditions, how would you do that?
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (9/24/2013): My view on pre-existing conditions is we ought to reform the market to deal with that problem.
(sad audience laughter)
So you got nothing. You know what, Ted Cruz? The level of threat you say we face from Obamacare isn't met by the quality of solutions and the rhetoric that you offer.
You know, reminds me of a character I once read about, by I believe one of your favorite authors, Dr. Seuss and his beloved children's book, "The Bore-ax". (audience laughter)
Join me now as I read one of my favorite sections. (wild audience cheering as Jon takes out the book)
In the land of D.C., in the Senate of Snooze,
Lived the showboatiest Blab whose name was Ted Cruz.
Ted talked about health care, compared it to Nazis.
As comparisons so, he was off by a lotsy.
Health care, he said, would end this great nation.
A point made after hours of mouth masturbation.
Repeal it, defund it, erase it, deny it,
Murder it, skullfuck it, bread and deep fry it!
That's weird, for a children's book author.
Cruz claimed freedom and liberty, but it was all a big show.
Because he could have spent all that time making sure the law didn't blow.
We'll be right back.
Ted Cruz's non-filibuster.
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