Now that narcissistic Senator Ted Cruz, (R) God’s Country, has thrown his halo into the presidential ring, the knives on all sides have come out.

There’s a lot of hate for Cuban-Canadian Cruz on the Left. It’s hard not to overlook how this crazy MoFo shut down the government when he didn’t get his way to abolish Obamacare. Of course, he was standing on the Constitution because that’s exactly how the Founding Fathers would have wanted it. The Founders weren’t into compromise either and started an entire revolution so as to not bend their knee to the King. Same thing here, ‘cept no shots were fired.

Before he shut down the government, this crackpot stamped his foot through an actually 21-hour filibuster as a political stunt and to beat Rand Paul’s earlier 15 hour filibuster. [For a short period standing on your feet and looking foolish for hours on end was all the rage.]

It’s not just the Left that has it out for Cruz. Representative Peter King, someone in his own party, had a few choice things to say to CNN about Cruz:

“To me, he’s a guy with a big mouth and no results,” the New York Republican told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in an interview on “The Situation Room.”

“We have very, very complex issues facing the country today, and he goes out of his way to oversimplify,” King said of Cruz. “Ted Cruz may be an intelligent person, but he doesn’t carry out an intelligent debate. He oversimplifies, he exaggerates … he doesn’t provide leadership and he has no real experience.”

Whether you’re on the Right, or the Left, there’s no denying that the shutdown left a bad taste in everybody’s mouth when all the costs were added up. According to The Full Cost of the Government Shutdown:

Financial ratings agency Standard & Poor’s reported this week the 16-day U.S. government shutdown costs delivered a massive $24 billion hit to the U.S. economy.



Standard & Poor’s said the shutdown equaled some $1.5 billion a
day and “shaved at least 0.6% off annualized fourth quarter 2013 GDP
growth.” Moody’s Analytics reported similar numbers, saying the
shutdown cost $1.4375 billion per day, for a $23 billion wallop to U.S.
gross domestic product.



“The bottom line is the government shutdown has hurt the U.S.
economy,” Standard & Poor’s said in a statement. “In September, we
expected 3% annualized growth in the fourth quarter because we thought
politicians would have learned from 2011 and taken steps to avoid
things like a government shutdown and the possibility of a sovereign
default. Since our forecast didn’t hold, we now have to lower our
fourth-quarter growth estimate to closer to 2%.”

While taxpayers shudder, comedians from the Maine to Hawaii rejoice. They know their paycheques won’t be ending any time soon. Fresh out of the gate was Jon Stewart, whose paycheque, ironically, will be ending soon.

The truth of the matter is Ted Cruz is a so scared of what
people think of him, he renounced his Canadian citizenship. This means that once he’s charged with a crime, which “some people say” is just a matter of time, he has cut off his escape route. He’ll have to apply for asylum in Cuba instead.

Despite his vehement and never-ending objections against Obamacare — and renouncing his commitment to Queen Elizabeth — he has never
reimbursed the Canadian Health Care System for his birth.

[FULL DISCLOSURE: NNS Head Writer Headly Westerfield has sworn an oath to
Queen Elizabeth, including her heirs and assigns, that he would not vote in the
elections of another country. But that doesn’t mean he can’t make fun of
them.]

But, it’s not the country of his birth that disqualifies Cruz from the nation’s highest office. My PoliticusUSA colleague Becky Sarwate asks the musical question, Ted Cruz In Unelectable, So Why Is He Running For President? And, she answers with:

In a piece entitled Ted Cruz Hopes Early Campaign Entry Will Focus Voters’ Attention, writers Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman of The New York Times
quote longtime Republican strategist Dave Carney as saying, “It’s the
shiny object principle. He wants to be first, get in the conversation,
not show any doubt or hesitation.” If there are two things at which Cruz
excels, it is the use of shiny objects to distract constituents from
real issues and a refusal to second guess himself. Thus the announcement
bore a fitting similarity to the man making it.

After capturing the
zeitgeist and the ire of lawmakers from both parties during October
2013’s partial government shutdown, GOP rainmakers no less authoritative
than longtime Arizona Senator John McCain labeled Cruz’s pointless
stoking of the House, “a fool’s errand.” New York Republican Congressman Peter King
minced a few less words in observing, “My sound bite is to say he’s a
fraud…I start with that, and then I go on. It takes me two or three
minutes to explain it.”

The Ted Cruz Coloring Book is not satire, it just feels that way.

Yesterday, while this Dominionist was giving his announcement speech at Liberty University, a school with its own sordid history of Racism and Homophobia, some of those potential Cruz cultists were clearly not with the program. How Rand Paul Supporters Provided Awkward Backdrop for Ted Cruz’s 2016 Announcement is worth a laugh, too:

Several students wearing “Stand With Rand” shirts made their way into seats directly behind Cruz on stage this morning. The students’ shirts were blurry yet visible in many of the shots during Cruz’s speech.


 The “Stand With Rand” campaign was launched by Sen. Rand Paul’s team during his filibuster of U.S. drone policy in the spring of 2013. Paul’s filibuster lasted 13 hours and was the longest in recent memory. That is, until Cruz stood on the Senate floor for more than 21 hours to discuss defunding Obamacare in September of the same year.

You can see there’s already bad blood between Cruz and Paul supporters. Pass the popcorn! However, What college students are saying behind Ted Cruz’s back, is even funnier:

Making such a major announcement on a college campus might seem like a
risky move for a conservative like Cruz, but Liberty University is no
ordinary college. Founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell in the early 1970s, the
school was recently listed as one of the top ten most conservative colleges in
the country. The odds of Cruz’s announcement speech being interrupted
by liberal protesters were about as low at Liberty as they would have
been at CPAC, the annual conservative conference. Cruz’s choice of venue
also allowed him to send social conservatives a message while visibly
appealing to young people.


Nevertheless,
college kids are still college kids, and mandatory Monday morning
assemblies are still mandatory Monday morning assemblies. Yes, that’s
right: Attendance at Cruz’s speech was mandatory for all Liberty
students.


As you might expect, anonymous local messaging app Yik Yak soon filled up with comments from Liberty students mercilessly mocking Cruz.

The truth of the matter is that Ted Cruz is the first one in the Clown Car. He’s not a serious candidate and the Not Now Silly Newsroom refuses to take him seriously. He’s a sideshow to the main event, which will culminate in the next president elected in 2016. While the results are far too important for circus sideshows, let’s all agree to find our laughs where we can get them. Ted Cruz is a joke from top to bottom.

This is the first Presidential Politics Post as the Not Now Silly Newsroom cranks up its 2016 election coverage.