News bits: Ted Cruz supported 1/6 coup attempt; Etc.

Keeping eyes 👀on rationality: The Daily Beast reports:

New Audio Shows Ted Cruz Scheming to Steal 2020 Election

The audio was from obtained by MSNBC from a cache of recordings taken by Fox whistleblower Abby Grossberg

According to the files, Cruz reportedly tried to sell his plan to Fox host and Trump ally Maria Bartiromo on Jan. 2—four days before the Capitol riot—pitching a scheme to overthrow the 2020 election by blocking the certification of Joe Biden’s win on Jan. 6, then establishing a commission to investigate the nonexistent claims of fraud which would ultimately “decide” who to inaugurate.

“As we were looking at this Jan. 6 certification, all of the options that were being discussed were problematic,” Cruz explains.

“And so I wanted to find a path that was consistent with the Constitution and the law, and that address these very real serious claims.”

Among the possibilities here, two stand out. First, Cruz was stupid and jaw droppingly naïve because he actually believed the 2020 election was stolen. Second, Cruz was a cynical, liar who pretended to care about the rule of law to maintain plausible deniability that he intended anything tyrannical, treasonous or illegal. Based on his education and experiences in schools and universities**, it is reasonable to believe that Cruz was and still is neither stupid nor naïve.

By those facts and analysis, it is most likely he was just being a cynical, treasonous liar who was looking to build and maintain plausible deniability for his treasonous, fascist intentions.

Q: Is the assertion that Cruz is a cynical, treasonous liar mostly unreasonable or mostly reasonable?

** Wikipedia: 

Ted Cruz education: Princeton, undergraduate BA, Harvard Law School JD.

For junior high school, Cruz went to Awty International School in Houston. Cruz attended two private high schools: Faith West Academy, near Katy, Texas; and Second Baptist High School in Houston, from which he graduated as valedictorian in 1988. During high school, Cruz participated in a Houston-based group known at the time as the Free Market Education Foundation, a program that taught high school students the philosophies of economists such as Milton Friedman and Frédéric Bastiat.

After high school, Cruz studied public policy at Princeton University. While at Princeton, he competed for the American Whig-Cliosophic Society's Debate Panel and won the top speaker award at both the 1992 U.S. National Debating Championship and the 1992 North American Debating Championship. In 1992, he was named U.S. National Speaker of the Year and, with his debate partner David Panton, Team of the Year by the American Parliamentary Debate Association.

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Regarding Republican deceit tactics: By now, it is undeniable that GOP elites, donors and major propagandists are disciplined, practiced and without any shred of moral qualm about routinely slathering thick gobs of dark free speech on the public. Lies, slanders, deflections, projections, unwarranted opacity and crackpot reasoning are the norm for radical right (fascist) Republican elites. Knowing that much or maybe most of the public opposes the kinds of gigantic cuts the fascist GOP wants to impose, it needs to deal with how to sell the public on things it does not want. Few or none of the cuts are in the public’s interest, so public opposition is rational. The NYT writes about GOP deceit tactics to deal with this public relations (propaganda) problem: 

Don’t Call It a ‘Cut’: G.O.P. Tries to Rebrand Its Plan to Reduce Spending

House Republicans pitched their 2011 debt limit bill aggressively, trumpeting a zeal for deep spending cuts. Their latest fiscal plan tiptoes around them, with a milder slogan to match

In 2011, as a wave of populist fervor swept through Congress, delivering a restive class of anti-spending Republicans who had no appetite for raising the debt limit, House G.O.P. leaders rallied their members around a bill with a blunt, snappy slogan: “Cut, Cap and Balance.”

But this time, in a bow to political reality and economic necessity, it is a substantial retreat from what hard-right Republicans once sought, and it carries a kinder, gentler catchphrase to match: the Limit, Save, Grow Act.

These days, Republicans have all but excised the phrase “spending cuts” from their lexicon. When Mr. McCarthy took to the House floor last week to announce the bill, he did not utter the term. Asked last week on CNBC where House Republicans planned to cut spending, Mr. McCarthy replied: “I don’t call them cuts because I call them savings.”

So, domestic spending cuts are savings, not cuts. See how fun and easy dark free speech is? As always, how effective will this softer, gentler brand of fascist deceit and manipulation be? We’ll probably find out after the 2024 elections, maybe some time sooner.

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Lawsuit watch: Devin Nunes loses his defamation lawsuit because the allegations he objected to were true. In defamation law, truth of the allegedly defamatory allegations is a valid legal defense against liability. Politico writes: 

A federal judge has thrown out libel suits former Rep. Devin Nunes and his relatives filed over a 2018 Esquire article alleging that a dairy farm owned by Nunes’ family members hired undocumented workers.

U.S. District Court Judge C.J. Williams ruled Tuesday that the claims at issue in writer Ryan Lizza’s story — “Devin Nunes’s Family Farm is Hiding a Politically Explosive Secret” — were essentially accurate. The judge said that conclusion was fatal to the suits brought by Nunes, his relatives and the company used to operate the dairy, NuStar Farms.

“The assertion that NuStar knowingly used undocumented labor is substantially, objectively true,” wrote Williams, an appointee of former President Donald Trump.

It is good to know that this particular Trump judge as not gone fascist rogue in this lawsuit. Some of his other judges are enemies of the state, including his three Supreme Court fascists.

Devin and his cow

Even crackpots fear The Devin

Respecting The Devin