Sweepings From The Shop Floor
Sometimes, Juanita Jean puts me to work with the push broom to swamp out the beauty shop after an especially busy week.
Like this one.
But before dumping the dust pan, I picked out a note I found and read it. It was from Alfredo at the Dairy Queen. I went back in and showed it to her: “Oh, yeah,” she said, “that’s a real interesting story about Ted Cruz that hasn’t gotten any real attention. Go ahead and do something with it if you want.”
I took that to mean she wanted me to tell you about it, so here goes.
It seems that Texas Senator Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz has a podcast. A podcast is a digital medium that allows people who otherwise encounter insurmountable barriers to enter the media market a simple way to do so.
But it seems Ted’s podcast, Verdict With Ted Cruz, got a leg up in the form of production services from media giant iHeartMedia.
From Forbes (12/1/22):
“The Texas Republican and his co-host announced in the Oct. 7 episode of ‘Verdict with Ted Cruz’ that their three-year-old, bootstrapped podcast…had recently received an intriguing offer from iHeartMedia: ‘iHeart can fund the whole thing, fund production, dump a whole bunch of money into marketing,’ said co-host Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire. ‘This is incredible. It will make this show sustainable, not just for the next few months going into the midterms but for the next years.’ The deal also calls for iHeartMedia to market and air the show on some of its 860 radio stations, supply Cruz with a new co-host and increase production from once to three times a week.”
Now that’s what I call surmounting the insurmountable.
That’s a podcast on steroids.
But wait…isn’t that sort of like an in-kind donation from a registered lobbyist?
According to the same Forbes article:
“iHeartMedia lobbied on two bills that appeared before one of Cruz’s committees last quarter.”
Conflict of interest, anyone?
According to Ted Cruz’s spokesman, there is nothing wrong with this deal. “Senator Cruz receives no financial benefit from Verdict. There is no difference between Sen. Cruz appearing on a network television show, a cable news show or a podcast airing on iHeartMedia.”
According to Senate Ethics rules, senators cannot accept honoraria for oral presentations transmitted electronically. That being the case, Cruz himself cannot benefit from his podcast, and he doesn’t. According to a most recent (March 20, 2024) Forbes article, Cruz’s independent superpac, Truth and Courage PAC, however, has no such restriction (click to make bigly):
That’s $214,752.98 in American money.
Those were proceeds from radio advertisements aired during his podcasts.
That’s money that the PAC can use to independently ensure “that Ted Cruz is re-elected to the United States Senate in 2024” (from their website).
They tell me that the US Senate has an Ethics Committee, and they say, on their website, that the committee doesn’t comment on matters before them.
I do hope that this is one of those matters, but I am a glass half empty sort of guy.
Alfredo should be cloned…or at least get a similar sweetheart deal from a media company with deep pockets.
1“When he heard the word ‘ethics’, he reached for his dictionary, and when he heard the sound of cash, he reached for the rule book and threw it away.”
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy describing a Vogon, but uncannily descriptive of Republicans.
2“Ethics? We don’t need no stinkin’ ethics!”
3Ted Cruz wouldn’t recognize ethics if they jumped up and bit him on the nose.
4Ted Cruz is, simply put, a pimple on the ass of America. Of course, and sorry friends down there, but from my vantage point
5far to the north (in Oregon) that makes Texas the actual ass.
AGREE AGREE AGREE.
6Something I have never understood. Around 1970 I spent a year of residency in Houston, TX. Everyone in Texas at that point seemed to be a Democrat. From my vantage point these Democrats acted like today’s Republicans in Texas.
What happened to the Democratic Party in Texas? Sam Rayburn and LBJ must be spinning in their graves. They must have opened the doors to the asylum.
7Fled Cruz is a pimple on the ass of America in a large acne outbreak.
8Answering Richard’s comments about Texas Democrats around 1970. Back in the 1960s I lived in Nacogdoches, Texas “Watermelon capital of the world”, home of Bonnie and Clyde. Everybody was a Democrat, but they easily sorted into three different flavors of Democrats, left, center, and right-leaning. The right-leaning ones are today’s MAGA Republicans; the left-leaning ones, what is left of them, became today’s Texas Democrats, in the style of Juanata Jean and Juaquin Castro. The ones in the middle are still in the middle, but some of them are Moderate Republicans and some are conservative Democrats.
9Immediately following every election for state or national offices we would have a Democratic caucus, where these differences became apparent.
Verdict With Ted Cruz?
10I haven’t heard it, but still think I’d prefer The Verdict starring Paul Newman. Newman’s character may have flaws, but at least he’s a good guy, defending the innocent.
“Sweepings From The Shop Floor” That’s the nicest thing anyone has said about Teddy in years. Not how he is usually described.
11The Republicans in Texas today used to be the conservative wing of the Democratic party. When Nixon and his henchmen came up with the Southern Strategy, they managed to turn the Democratic South (very conservative Democrats) into Republicans, partly using race and states’ rights. I lived in Texas until nine years ago and am now in that bastion of compassionate, free-thinking help-thy-neighbor state I DUH HO.
12Idaho and Texas seem to be having a contest to see which legislature can me meaner, while they turn “family values” and
“parental rights” into LET ME TELL YOU HOW TO RUN YOUR LIFE (especially health care and what you can read). They are trying their darndest to get vouchers and destroy public schools while restricting voting any way they can.
That stinks to high heaven! We can only hope that Senator Coons, Chairman of the Ethics Committee, doesn’t come down with a sinus infection.
13Off topic- 91 years ago today, Hitler officially became the dictator of Nazi Germany with the passing of the “enabling act”.
Here’s a good report about trumpf by Robert Reich including two videos. This is scary stuff and points out why it is so important to beat the shit out of Trumpf politically (and in court) this year.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/21/2230665/-Robert-Reich-has-2-videos-about-stuff-the-media-doesn-t-dare-say-about-the-former-guy-or-the-GOP?detail=emaildkre&pm_source=DKRE&pm_medium=email
14Texass slime ball AG Paxton drumpfed his way out of a prosecution for securities fraud.
https://news.yahoo.com/criminal-case-against-texas-ag-160615471.html
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