Tag: todd starnes
Cruz Blames Outrage Over Cancun Trip On ‘Trump Withdrawal’

Cruz Blames Outrage Over Cancun Trip On ‘Trump Withdrawal’

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), claimed in a radio interview on Tuesday that criticism of his decision to leave Texas during a winter storm and travel to Cancun, Mexico, came about because some people "are suffering from Trump withdrawal."

Cruz stole away to the tropical resort city as millions of Texans suffered through a winter storm that blanketed the state in snow, lowered temperatures to unbearable levels of cold, and triggered widespread power outages.

Cruz gave an interview to conservative radio host Todd Starnes on his eponymously named program and was asked to comment on the days of controversy that erupted.

"We're at a crazy time right now and we've seen a whole lot of folks in the media, a whole lot of Democrats try to use this and blow it up," Cruz complained.

He added, "Frankly, I think a lot of them are suffering from Trump withdrawal, where for four years they've been obsessed with Donald Trump and they don't know what to do with themselves anymore."

Cruz admitted that the trip was a "mistake," but said it was one "because it gave an awful lot of folks an excuse to try to just demagogue."

While Cruz was traveling back and forth between Texas and Mexico, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) raised money that was used to provide more than a million meals for people affected by the storms.


From the Feb. 23 edition of The Todd Starnes Show:

TODD STARNES, host: So, the whole point is, why are people aggrieved by this? Quite frankly, I know exactly where you guys were staying, it's a great hotel, and I suspect every other person in Texas would have loved to have gone as well because of the situation there.
So, look, I get it, bad optics, but Senator, I mean, come on.
TED CRUZ: Yeah, look, we're at a crazy time right now and we've seen a whole lot of folks in the media, a whole lot of Democrats try to use this and blow it up. Frankly, I think a lot of them are suffering from Trump withdrawal, where for four years they've been obsessed with Donald Trump and they don't know what to do with themselves anymore.
Look, last week was a really tough week for Texas. We had two serious winter storms that hit back to back, and as a consequence, the power grid went down and four million Texans lost power. Heidi and I were among them, we lost power at our home for two days, and after a couple of days, our daughters said to us, "Hey, why don't we go somewhere? Let's get somewhere where we're not shivering cold."
And so, we booked a flight to take them to the beach and we were doing it to try to be good parents but at the same time, in hindsight it was obviously a mistake because it gave an awful lot of folks an excuse to try to just demagogue and to try to really distract from the issue that mattered, which was getting power back on, which thankfully most Texans now have had power restored and also more broadly, making sure this never happens again, addressing the structural issues that led to four million Texans losing power.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

Fox Nation Hosts Campaign For Republicans, In Violation of Network ‘Standards’

Fox Nation Hosts Campaign For Republicans, In Violation of Network ‘Standards’

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

In recent months, Fox Nation hosts have participated in multiple campaign activities for Republican groups, including starring in campaign videos and headlining party fundraisers. Fox News has previously claimed that Fox “talent” is prohibited from participating in campaign events.

Last November, after Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro appeared at a campaign rally with Trump, the network told the media that it “does not condone any talent participating in campaign events.” That statement was a lie then, and the Fox Nation personalities’ work for Republicans is only further confirmation of the network’s duplicity to reporters.

Diamond and Silk, Gregg Jarrett, Todd Starnes, and David Webb have all recently done Republican campaign activities while hosting shows for Fox Nation, Fox’s online streaming network. Rachel Campos-Duffy, a Fox News contributor and host of the Fox Nation show Moms, is also scheduled to keynote a June 27 fundraising event for the DeSoto County Republican Party in Mississippi.

In May, Media Matters released a report documenting that Fox figures have taken more than $500,000 from Republican Party groups to speak at events; have interviewed Republicans officials shortly after co-headlining events with them; and have financially helped President Donald Trump by keynoting speeches on Trump properties. That report included Webb’s then-scheduled speech to a New Hampshire Republican group but not other recent campaigning by Fox Nation hosts.

The following is a summary of Republican campaign activities by Fox Nation hosts in recent months.

Diamond and Silk are the hosts of their own eponymous program. The two have repeatedly appeared in videos for Trump’s reelection campaign, most recently on June 2. Fox News did not respond to a Hollywood Reporter request for comment about that video. In March, following a separate Trump campaign video by Diamond and Silk, Fox News distanced itself from the two, telling the publication that “they are not Fox News contributors or employees” — despite the network previously identifying them as “Fox News Channel contributors,” “Fox Nation contributors,” and “Fox Nation hosts.”

The two were also the special guests at a March 30 fundraising dinner for the Bush Legacy Republican Women of Weatherford in Texas. They are scheduled to appear at an August 10 event for the Watauga and Ashe County Republican Parties in North Carolina; and a September 23 event for Republican Women Federation clubs in San Diego County, CA.

Gregg Jarrett is the host of Gregg Jarrett’s The Russia Hoax. He also works as a Fox News legal analyst and frequently appears on Hannity’s program to defend the president and attack special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. He headlined an April 18 fundraising dinner for the Columbiana County Republican Party in Ohio. During the event, Jarrett reportedly criticized Mueller and his investigation.

Todd Starnes is the host of Starnes Country. He also hosts a Fox News Radio program and has frequently misinformed viewers about LGBTQ issues. He keynoted a Reagan-Trump Dinner fundraiser for the Wilson County Republican Party in Tennessee on May 14. During that speech, Starnes reportedly said: “I don’t make any apologizes anymore for my support of President Trump, because he’s done something that hasn’t been done since Ronald Reagan was in office – he’s delivered on his campaign promises.” He also falsely claimed that “Democrats literally want to kill newborn babies.”

David Webbis the host of Reality Check and a Fox News contributor. He emceed a May 31 fundraising event for the Belknap County Republican Committee that was themed “Make New Hampshire Red Again.”

IMAGE: Fox News host Gregg Jarrett.

This Week In Crazy: ‘May God Have Mercy On Our Nation’

This Week In Crazy: ‘May God Have Mercy On Our Nation’

We are gathered here today not to mourn the death but to puzzle over the life of the Grand Old Party, laid to rest this week when a tangerine-toupeed interloper from the Big City stole the nomination from a host of social conservatives. Welcome to “This Week In Crazy,” The National Memo’s weekly update on the loony, bigoted, and hateful behavior of the increasingly unhinged right wing. Starting with number five:

5. Tila Hubrecht

A conservative Missouri state lawmaker would like to remind women who have been raped to always look on the bright side of life.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, while arguing in favor of a bill that would grant personhood rights to unborn fetuses — in effect, making any abortion illegal — Tila Hubrecht, a Republican in the Missouri House of Representatives said: “It is not up to us to say, ‘No, just because there was a rape, they [unborn fetuses] cannot exist.”

She continued:  “Sometimes bad things happen. Horrible things. But sometimes God can give us a silver lining through the birth of a child.”

The remarks echo those of Indiana Republican Richard Mourdock, who during his (failed) 2012 run for U.S. Senate, said that if pregnancy occurs following a rape, it should be viewed as a “gift from God.”

Ultimately, the House voted 112-36 to advance the measure. According to the Dispatch, its text states it would “protect pregnant women and unborn children by recognizing that an unborn child is a person with a right to life which cannot be deprived by state or private action without due process and equal protection of law.”

Hat tip LawNewz

Next: Bobby Knight

4. Bobby Knight

Retired basketball coach Bobby Knight bumbled back in the public eye with a series of appearances touting his support of Donald Trump in the days leading up to the decisive primary in his native Indiana.

For instance, the addled septuagenarian with a history of explosive and violent temper tantrums bragged that Trump was the “most prepared man in history” to be President of the United States. He also boasted that Trump was the only candidate who had “the guts” to drop an A-bomb on another country. (That’s what a man does, dammit.)

Speaking to CNN’s John Berman Wednesday morning, Knight was asked to address some of his candidate’s more controversial remarks — to wit, his insistence that we need to ban 1.6 billion Muslims from entering the country.

“I don’t even know what controversial means!” Knight protested. When Berman had to explain that pesky banning-all-practioners-of-a-religion thing to Knight, the coach responded, “Well that’s okay. That doesn’t really mean anything to me right now.”

He added, “We’re talking about a guy that I think can handle things far better than anything that we’ve had recently.”

And clearly Knight knows best — because he’s done his homework.

Next: Jehovah’s Witness 

3. Jehovah’s Witness

The Church of Jehovah’s Witness has upped the creep factor this week with the release of a nasty bit of propaganda: an animated short film that explains, with a silken, Disneyfied touch, just why it is all those nice gays and lesbians need to rot in hell, and what your children can do to save them.

The plot is fairly straightforward: When a little girl explains that her schoolmate Carrie drew a picture of her two happily married mothers, her mother decides to have a Teaching Moment.

“People have their own ideas about what is right and wrong,” the mom helpfully explains, “but what matters is how Jehovah feels. He wants us to be happy. And he knows what makes us happiest. That’s why he invented marriage the way he did.”

“You mean one man and one woman?” asks the credulous little cretin.

“Exactly!” says mom, who proceeds to explain that Jehovah “wants us to be his friend — and live in Paradise forever, but we have to follow his standards to get there,” explicitly likening the path to Paradise to a pre-flight security screening. You can’t bring contraband on an jetliner — and you can’t bring your dreaded, affliction of homosexuality into the Promised Land. Jehovah is nothing less than the Big Blue-Shirted TSA Man in the Sky, apparently.

This is when the little vid delivers its truly insidious punchline: Mommy leans in close to her daughter and explains that she had better go tell Carrie that “people can change,” and that she should tell her friend about “Paradise,” “the animals,” and the “Resurrection.”

And which point the #blessed heterosexual family unit proceeds to practice their talking points to save little Carrie’s soul.

Hat tip Daily Kos

Next: Pat McCrory

2. Pat McCrory

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory is not having a good week.

The anti-LGBT bill he signed into law has cost his state considerable business opportunities and at least one Bruce Springsteen concert. Even one porn site got in on the fun by blocking Tar Heel viewers from their site. Challenged to justify the law (HB2) on Megyn Kelly’s show last week, the governor blustered and was treated to a lesson from the Fox News anchor in how ladies bathrooms actually work.

And then on Wednesday the Justice Department served the state with a letter informing them that their little piece of legislation is in violation of civil rights statutes. Oh, do the indignities never end?

In a radio interview Tuesday, McCrory blew his top, raging against the gay rights agenda that has wrought such a headache for him and brought such shame upon his state.

The Human Rights Campaign, he said, was “machiavellian, man.” The incredulous governor could not understand why his anti-LGBT law was offending LGBT people. “This had nothing to do with gay and lesbian,” he said. “This had to do with privacy.”

Nonetheless, he insists that a bigot is “the farthest thing” from what he is.

Check out the audio above courtesy of The Greensboro News & Record.

Next: The Tears of the Religious Right 

1. The Tears of the Religious Right

Glenn Beck repeatedly claimed to have seen the will of God manifest itself in the candidacy of Ted Cruz. He even said that Antonin Scalia died at God’s hand, simply to show America how important it was to elect Ted Cruz. Beck was just one of a cabal of social conservatives on the #NeverTrump train which derailed in spectacular fashion this week when the Texas Senator and that guy from Ohio suspended their campaigns, clearing the field for Donald Trump to clinch the GOP nomination.

What an ignominious end to God’s chosen campaign. Social conservatives and Religious Right luminaries took to Twitter in the hours following Cruz’s implosion and the ascendance of Trump to express their frustration and bafflement and to beg for God’s aid and forgiveness in this, their moment of darkness.

A tip of the hat to Right Wing Watch’s Brian Tashman for unearthing many of these.

From TWIC favorite and American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer:

From Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol:

From Steve Deace, the Cruz supporter who once vowed to eunuch himself if Cruz showed weakness on the campaign trail:

Deace also posted photo evidence of himself switching party affiliation.

Todd Starnes, writing on Facebook:

But for brevity nobody can match Robert P. George, a luminary of the “religious freedom” movement:

On that, at least, George and I are whistling the same tune.

Illustration: DonkeyHotey via Flickr

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