Yesterday I wrote about Ted Cruz snubbing the president by skipping the State of the Union address. Arrogant and disrespectful as that might be, Cruz took it a step further. He delivered his own pre-response to Obama's address. His own State of the Union address. A glimpse into what a President Cruz SOTU in 2018 might look like, if you will.
Cruz, who apparently has fond memories of drama club as well as apparent delusions, stood before a crowd, minutes before the real SOTU and gave an address as is if were two years from now.
"In 2018, let me tell you how the State of the Union goes," he said in his town hall in New Hampshire. "Ladies and gentleman, the state of the union is strong... Boy have things changed in Washington."
ISIS, is of course gone and dealt with in the Cruz's fantasy. "In the past year, we haven't simply weakened, we haven't simply degraded, we have utterly and completely destroyed ISIS," he said.
"Two years ago, the terrorists thought they were winning," he bragged. "Two years ago, militants from across the world were going to fight with ISIS. Two years ago, they were beheading American children. Two years ago, they were crucifying Christians. Today, every American citizen that went and joined ISIS, that waged jihad against America, has found their American citizenship revoked."
There was, of course, no mention of how this was done, how many American lives were lost, or whether sand glows from the carpet bombing Cruz has suggested.
Future President Cruz has also repealed Obamacare. After 62 failed attempts by Congress (one just last week), President Cruz has finally rid this fine country of the scourge that is affordable healthcare. Presumably, he's given us all the freedom to die early or at the very least go into insurmountable debt if we get sick or are injured. "In the year 2017, Congress listened to the American people and we repealed every word of Obamacare," he said. "Our long national nightmare is over."
Yes, the nightmare is over. The nightmare of 18 million people enrolled in the current program who otherwise would be without healthcare. 18 million people suddenly stripped of their benefits and left to fend for themselves. After all, Cruz provided no alternative to the current system. He's just going to get rid of it.
After repealing Obamacare, Cruz continued, Congress "heard the mandate that came out of November 2016, and we passed a simple flat tax." Yes, the infamous and elusive flat tax that raises taxes on the poor and lowers them on the rich. According to former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich:
The details of flat-tax proposals vary, of course. But all of them end up benefitting the rich more than the poor for one simple reason: Today's tax code is still at least moderately progressive. The rich usually pay a higher percent of their incomes in income taxes than do the poor. A flat tax would eliminate that slight progressivity.
There were more predictions, all of which were equally impossible and delusional, such as putting Hillary Clinton in Prison, building a wall and getting Trump to pay for it, and moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem to name a few.
Most, if not all of these would take an act of Congress to accomplish, and that's no exaggeration. That said, based on how the majority of Congress feels about Ted Cruz, he'll get very little done. There's a good chance that his own party hates him more than the Democrats, who probably just think he's a joke.
Here's a list of a few of his one liners and direct insults from last night's mockery, thanks to Politico. Enjoy them while you can, because after taking direct jabs at the Clintons, Obama, and Trump, the tsunami of verbal abuse coming his way is going to require all the Obamacare he can get.
- Predicting that a "William Jefferson Clinton Museum of Youth Outreach" would be built in the old Department of Education building, purchased by George Soros.
- Saying of the 72 virgins that terrorists "would meet" -- "by the way, no one said all of those virgins were women."
- "If Hillary Clinton had been elected president -- we've never had a president serving from Leavenworth," a reference to the Kansas prison.
- Saying he was "particularly pleased that my good friend Donald Trump will be building a hotel" in what was once the IRS building.
- Complimenting Trump with his left hand: "I'm also pleased to tell you that Donald last week finished building the wall," he said. Asked by an audience member who paid for it, he replied, "Donald did."
- Mocking Obama's weeping: "Two years ago, when President Obama teared up at the State of the Union, many of us thought John Boehner was back," he said, going on to argue, on a more serious note, that Obama's executive actions on guns wouldn't stop gun violence.
- Name-checking groups and people popular with conservatives, saying the Little Sisters of the Poor and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be among those in the gallery at a Cruz State of the Union.
See more by Richard Zombeck at Liberals Unite and on his podcast at TandZtalk.com