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Fellow senators mock Ted Cruz’s infamous Cancun trip with a biting prank
February 26, 2021
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has been bombarded with criticism for heading to Cancún, Mexico during Texas' recent energy nightmare, which found millions of Texans without electricity, heat or running water during freezing temperatures and snowy, icy weather. And this week, when the far-right Republican went to a Washington, D.C. gym that is used by fellow U.S. senators, his colleagues had some laughs at his expense.
Printouts at the gym read, "Bienvenido de nuevo, Ted!," which in Spanish, means, "Welcome back, Ted!"
<p><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/blog/meet-press-blog-latest-news-analysis-data-driving-political-discussion-n988541/ncrd1258928#blogHeader" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">NBC News</a> reporters Carol E. Lee and Leigh Ann Caldwell explain, "When senators arrived at the Senate gym on Wednesday morning, they found that one of them had taped memes on the lockers welcoming Cruz home and showing him in the short-sleeve polo shirt, jeans and Texas-flag mask that he had at the airport, according to two people familiar with the prank….. The rendering featured a manipulated photo of Cruz from his well-documented trip to Mexico, dragging his luggage across an arctic landscape while holding a tropical cocktail garnished with a slice of fruit in his other hand."</p><p>The reporters add, "He is shown walking toward an image of a masked Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. with his arms crossed and wearing striped, knitted gloves — a pose famously captured during January's inauguration."</p><p>According to Lee and Caldwell, sources told NBC News that the memes were removed from the gym on February 24.</p>
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In between speeches at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this Friday, two hosts were shouted down after they asked the audience to abide by the hotel's rules and wear masks.
"I know this might sound like a little bit of a downer, but we also believe in property rights, and this is a private hotel," American Conservative Union (ACU) executive director Dan Schneider told the crowd. "And we believe in the rule of law and we need to comply with the laws of this county that we're in, and a private hotel just like your own house gets to set its own rules.
<p>That's when he asked CPAC Director Carly Conley to finish making his point. </p><p>"Well, as Dan mentioned, we are in a private facility and we do want to be respectful of the ordinances that they have as their private property, so please everyone, when you're in the ballroom, when you're seated, you should still be wearing a mask," Conley said. </p><p>At that moment, jeers started to emanate from the crowd.</p><p>Watch the video below:</p><div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="55c3154eb2f907c33429784ab8a74466" id="9c52b"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1365320188728606726"><div style="margin:1em 0">CPAC hosts get heckled after announcing they must comply with the private venue's mask rules, calling it “a downer”… https://t.co/ggMtLWc2Gd</div> — The Recount (@The Recount)<a href="https://twitter.com/therecount/statuses/1365320188728606726">1614352674.0</a></blockquote></div>
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If you think Marjorie Taylor Greene is nuts, you should meet her dad
February 26, 2021
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's father might have even wackier beliefs than his notoriously conspiratorial congresswoman daughter.
The newly elected Georgia Republican promoted the right-wing QAnon conspiracy theory and others before entering politics, but her father Robert D. Taylor published a 600-page novel Paradigm to reveal his own "revolutionary" theory -- which he called "The Taylor Effect" -- to unlocking the mysteries of the stock market, reported Politico.
<p>"What is tomorrow's Wall Street Journal worth to you today?" Taylor wrote about his 2006 book in promotional materials. "Where is the line between reality and fiction? Are the financial markets really predictable? Does an ancient artifact hold the key to how some of the world's wealthiest families made their fortunes?"</p><p>The book was published the same year his son-in-law Perry Greene, the congresswoman's husband, acquired full control of the construction company Taylor founded around 1970, and presents Taylor's theory that stock market dynamics can be predicted by "gravitational fluctuations." </p><p>"The back of his book goes into great scientific detail with supportive data," <a href="http://www.mwsadispatches.com/library/2006/paradigm" target="_blank">wrote reviewer Bill McDonald</a>, of the Military Writers Society of America. "What you really have is a great action thriller novel for 80 percent of this book followed by an equally interesting non-fiction appendage at the end of the book with Taylor's economic theories. It is a combination that causes one to lose track of what is fiction and what is real in the story."</p><p>McDonald compared the novel to Dan Brown's <em>Da Vinci Code</em>, but Taylor's own description of the theory's reliance on intricate dials, gauges, crystals and carvings sound like something out of Charles Portis' hilarious <em>Masters of Atlantis</em>.</p><p>"[<em>Paradigm</em>] is a unique and masterful blend of intelligent scientific suspense and bold historical mystery stretching from earliest antiquity to the present day-and beyond," Taylor wrote about the novel himself. "His intriguing plot and cast of memorable characters makes for a suspenseful pager-turn that will keep readers guessing about where the lines of reality and fiction merge."<br/></p><p>Taylor was so impressed with his eponymous theory that he claimed it had been nominated for the 2000 Nobel Prize in Economics, which a Nobel spokesperson was unable to confirm to Politico.</p><p>"Information about nominations is not to be disclosed, publicly or privately, for a period of 50 years," the spokesman said.</p><p>Amazon <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Paradigm-Robert-Taylor/dp/1932714162" target="_blank">reviewers</a> were not quite as effusive in their praise as McDonald or Taylor, who one reader complained went silent when challenged on his theory.</p><p>"I would invite anyone to compare historical tidal data in the locations outlined with the conclusions presented in the book - they do not match," wrote reviewer EMT in a 2011 one-star review. "When I confronted the author with this fact, the reply was that he was too busy to look into my query - but he was pretty available when it came to recommend buying his book in the first place. This to me suggests intellectual fraud, in the sense that the results are clearly not what the book purports them to be, and no willingness by the author in addressing them."</p><p>Other readers complained about the plot and characters, and felt Taylor's theory intruded too heavily.</p><p>"If not for a plot based on 2 dimensional yuppies straight out of the 80's, on whom a page-turner can sometimes sneak by, then definitely it's a plot entirely dependent on the unbelievably persistent wrong choices of the dumbest smart people you could invent," wrote pb in a 2018 one-star review.</p>
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