We Have Priorities
In these days of a deadly virus, the US economy tanking, leadership change in an unstable nuclear power, and threats of international terrorism, it’s so great to know that Senator Ted Cruz knows where our attention needs to be: China totally screwed up the movie Bohemian Rhapsody by making Freddie Mercury totally not gay enough.
And he appeared to be sober. Stoned maybe because that’s hard to tell, but sober.
“One of your bills is called the Script Act,” Fox News host Maria Bartiromo announced. “[Chinese officials] have really bullied Hollywood and Hollywood producers roll over about it. You’ve mentioned a couple of films before Top Gun, Bohemian Rhapsody.
“It really is tragic that Hollywood has been willing to, over and over again, to kowtow to Chinese communists and let the Chinese government censor American movies,” Cruz opined.
Cruz says that Hollywood allows China to edit their movies. Seriously.
The, being as cute as cute can be, I mean even cuter than reading “I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham” on the senate floor, Cruz mocks Maverick, a leading character in Top Gun.
Referring to a character in Top Gun, the senator complained: “We’re saying Maverick is afraid of the damn Chinese communists.”
No, Senator, we’re not saying that. You are saying that and you look like a damn fool.
And then he goes off on Freddie Mercury being not-gay-enough in the Chinese version of the movie.
They did it because the Chinese government didn’t want to acknowledge that Freddy Mercury was homosexual. Look, that’s a huge part of the story!”
“The problem is Hollywood is more interested in making millions of dollars from the Chinese market than they are in free speech, than they are in artistic integrity,” the senator added.
Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit – Ted Cruz defending homosexuality as “artistic integrity” – two words when he doesn’t know the meaning of either.
Hell, Ted, 90% of your supporters don’t want to acknowledge homosexuality at all. Are you afraid of those damn American terrorists?
Cruz shivers up and down my spine almost daily. Sometimes I have serious doubts that he and I are in the same species.
Thanks to SGray for the heads up.
Daily hygiene after Ted wallows in his own muck.
http://static.dramastyle.com/images/3/1/6593/The-Shawshank-Redemption-_6593_17.jpg
1And yet, Ted Cruz caters to oil firms, rednex, and any lobbyist that can donate enough to get in the door.
Corporate capture of legislators is the term you want.
It’s what keeps the one percent with us.
And Joe Biden is Captain Credit Card. He’ll do nothing about inequality and corporate greed.
2Wow. This stuff and other recent events make Alice’s trip thru Wonderland look like a sober stroll.
3Is Ted sticking his nose out of the closet ?
4You are NOT the same species – you are human and he is reptilian.
5@Ormond – Biden was not my first choice. Hell, he wasn’t my 10th. But it’s Biden against tRump and there is no contest. I will vote blue no matter who. If you protest and vote tRump or Amash – then congrats – you are at heart a trumper.
On one level, Ted’s just jealous. He feels only the Republicans can dictate the content of Hollywood movies.
On a lizard-brain level, it’s more “China’s going to get you – and you little dog, too!” stuff.
6Pretty sure moviemakers could release alternative cuts for different markets, although it is cute of Cruz to expect spine from the industry that for about 40 years was so afraid of American Catholic bishops that it wouldn’t show married couples in the same bed.
7Movies? C’mon Ted.
8What about an American President censoring Dr. Fauci this week? Isn’t the health of our citizens a tad bit more worrisome than the the temperature reading Freddie Mercury hits on Chinese government gaydar?
FFS, this idiot has *entirely* too much time on his hands.
@Cheryl – “…it’s Biden against tRump and there is no contest. I will vote blue no matter who. If you protest and vote tRump or Amash – then congrats – you are at heart a trumper.”
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
9THIS. EXACTLY THIS.
told one of my canuk cousins we would gladly give ted back & take the wacky mayor of toronto but the deal fell thru when the mayor up & died….
10Teddie Crooze can’t even concern troll without being an epic failure. Can’t wait for Randy Rainbow to “interview” Teddie and parody with a song. Sorry Mama, but I must predict Randy will say “puh-leeze bitch” more than once interviewing Teddie.
This latest gambit by Teddie was ironic on so many levels. Which is it, Teddie: free speech or free enterprise? If Teddie is so concerned about censorship he should check out the Texas Board of Education, Covidiot* 45, and whatever that odd bit of metrics that are behind TV ratings are for mature content. As for free enterprise, what about all that PPE being hoarded by Jughead Kushner, Teddie? What a hypocrite!
*** Two mildly mature audience content favorite Crooze photo ops: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2d6e5212cd85cfa71e59a7a52f7d1fe922ecea133b33e704a54ca7f807775d88.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ca1c0650eec22deb51b219b2dcf1843a21e9a04423e4a3dc69e2098f5f1f0200.jpg
11Watching the U-haul trucks carry the unemployed families out of our complex for lack of an income check.
As Covid-19 Shoots US Unemployment to Great Depression Levels, Europe’s Worker Safety Net Stems Mass Layoffs.
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Edit: “The European response guarantees that most full-time employees will see only limited drops in their income.”
Is the enormous surge in unemployment in the United States an inevitable consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic—or a deliberate policy choice?
Europe’s success in staving off mass layoffs with ambitious government programs even as it sees economic shocks similar to those ravaging the U.S. appears to suggest the latter.
The Washington Post’s Michael Birnbaum reported Thursday that while European economies been plunged into recession by the novel coronavirus, Europe has “managed to shield workers” far more successfully than the U.S., where more than 30 million people have filed jobless claims over just the past six weeks.
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“If a company makes a notice saying that it has to either lay off 30% of their workers or fire at least 50 people, the state has agreed to take on 75 percent of workers’ salaries, up to $3,288 per month.” —Flemming Larsen, Denmark’s Aalborg University
“The unemployment rate in Europe crept up only modestly in the first weeks of the coronavirus lockdowns—at a time when millions of Americans filed for jobless benefits,” Birnbaum reported. “The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate across the European Union rose by 0.1 percentage point in March, to 6.6 percent.”
“The philosophy in Europe is that the financial blow of the pandemic can be softened if workers are able to keep paying their bills and if businesses do not have to hire and train an entirely new set of employees as the crisis abates,” Birnbaum wrote. “Many European governments have implemented a subsidy program, pioneered by Germany in the last global recession, under which they pay up to 87% of salaries for workers sent home but kept on payroll.”
Denmark, which saw its unemployment rate rise just 0.2 percentage points between February and March, has agreed to pay up to 75% of the wages of private sector employees who would otherwise have likely lost their jobs.
Flemming Larsen, a professor at the Center for Labor Market Research at Denmark’s Aalborg University, explained in an interview with The Atlantic in March that under the temporary policy, “if a company makes a notice saying that it has to either lay off 30% of their workers or fire at least 50 people, the state has agreed to take on 75 percent of workers’ salaries, up to $3,288 per month.”
Maria Hoejer Romme, a Danish business researcher, told the Post that the program is “definitely keeping our jobs alive for the moment.”
France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Italy have implemented similar programs or expanded existing payroll subsidy policies to adjust to the coronavirus crisis.
As Birnbaum explained:
Since many European countries had similar social safety net programs already, albeit in far more limited form, the salary supports were relatively easy to expand, almost literally overnight in many places, amid widespread consensus. When they imposed their economically devastating lockdowns, countries were thus able to signal to workers that their livelihoods would remain intact and to businesses that they wouldn’t immediately implode.
Bernie Sanders
✔
@SenSanders
Increase in unemployment from February to March: EU: 0.1% Denmark: 0.2% Germany: 0.7% United States: 11.5% Newly uninsured people: 12,700,000 Solution: Guarantee paychecks to workers and health care to all.
12full article:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/01/covid-19-shoots-us-unemployment-great-depression-levels-europes-worker-safety-net
@Cheryl and dixiechick: Yes. Yes. Yes.
There is no other way.
13RAFAEL is at it again. As a very wise man once said, “Some people are quiet and are thought slow minded. Others speak and remove all doubt.”
14Ted is simply trying to find a way too be relevant. Epic fail.
15And all those people forced to move out won’t receive a ballot
16Crooze is just keeping up his creds with the constantly growing QAnon herd.
17Only in TX could a Latino immigrant pass himself off as a white racist.
18That’s Rafael for you.
So Ted Cruz is upset that Hollywood would edit movies to appeal to a foreign market.
Why do you hate capitalism, Ted?
19I read – I think WaPo – over the weekend that many Senators and Congressmen of the GOP variety have been really having to work hard to . . . get Donations! They aren’t in the news, so no free advertising, and many are frantically working the phones for money; have you heard from Cornyn recently? I guess Ted is going with the idea that any mention of him is good.
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