Let the fundraising grifting begin! This is what you get when you elect a P.T. Barnum Elmer Gantry Joe McCarthy Tailgunner Ted Cruz (Teabag-TX) to the Senate:
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) drew audible gasps Thursday when he told gathering of Christian conservatives that Democrats intended to amend the Constitution to limit free speech.
“When you think it can’t get any worse, it does,” Cruz warned at the Watchmen on the Wall gathering of pastors sponsored by the Family Research Council.
“This year, I’m sorry to tell you, the United States Senate is going to be voting on a constitutional amendment to repeal the First Amendment,” Cruz said, to the audible shock of the crowd. (our emphasis)Of course, that's not quite an accurate description of Senate Joint Resolution 19:
The Tea Party-backed senator said Senate Democrats intend to vote this year on Senate Joint Resolution 19, which would effectively undo the unpopular U.S. Supreme Court decisions on campaign financing in the Citizens United and McCutcheon cases. (our emphasis)Tailgunner Ted followed with this line, guaranteed to
“I am telling you, I am not making this up.”No, he's not making it up; as usual, it's something he pulled straight out of his ass.
It's no revelation that Republicans want us to believe "money equals speech" in politics (see aforementioned Citizens United and McCutcheon cases decided by the Republican/ corporate majority on the Supreme Court). Right-wingers are deathly afraid of "one man, one vote" democracy, preferring to limit voting turnout as much as possible through a variety of voter suppression methods or, when speaking candidly, limiting voting to property owners. Given the talibangelist audience he was addressing, they'd probably also prefer to limit voting to evangelical Christians. That's their concept of a "republic," versus a "democracy."
If you think Tailgunner Ted's remarks came out of nowhere (other than his ass), we have this:
The Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission on Friday seeking the ability to raise unlimited donations from individuals, the latest attempt by the GOP to reverse a seminal 2002 campaign finance overhaul.
In its suit, the party committee argues that it has a First Amendment right to raise the kind of massive contributions that now fuel super PACs and other independent groups. Currently, individuals can only give $32,400 a year to party committees. Overturning that limit would knock out a major plank of the McCain-Feingold Act, which banned parties from accepting soft money. (our emphasis)So, the Republican counter to closing the Supreme Court's decisions to let plutocrats further corrupt the political system is to argue for an even bigger hole in the law to allow the party apparatus to rake in more Koch ca$h. If that doesn't make you sick, you may want to check your pulse.
(Image: Tailgunner Ted Cruz with his Doppelganger and political lodestar, the original "Tailgunner," Joe McCarthy.)
