Holy Shit, It Really Was The Orange Wedding (tm)

When I wrote this three months ago, I figured it would end badly, but not so eerily like the actual Purple Wedding with a sadistic, incompetent child-king who cannot help but use his moment of glory to lord it over his prostrate opponents.

And then he ate the pie.

From the New York Times:

Ted Cruz Stirs Republican Fury in Pointed Snub of Donald Trump

CLEVELAND — The Republican convention erupted into tumult on Wednesday night as the bitter primary battle between Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz reignited unexpectedly, crushing hopes that the party could project unity.

In the most electric moment of the convention, a clamor broke out as it became clear that Mr. Cruz was not going to endorse Mr. Trump, pointedly snubbing the party nominee from center stage on the eve of Mr. Trump’s formal acceptance speech.

As hundreds of delegates chanted “Vote for Trump!” and “Keep Your Pledge,” Mr. Cruz attempted to dismiss the outburst as “enthusiasm of the New York delegation,” only to have Mr. Trump himself, stone-faced and clearly angry, suddenly appear in the back of the convention hall and flash a thumbs-up at the delegates.

Mr. Cruz was all but drowned out as he asked for God’s blessing on the country and left the stage, while security personnel escorted his wife, Heidi, out of the hall. One delegate yelled “Goldman Sachs!” at her — a reference to the company that has employed her, a job that Mr. Trump attacked during the primaries...

Let's dispense with this fiction that Ted Cruz doesn't know what he's doing. Ted Cruz knows exactly what he's doing: https://t.co/GmS5Qtc3YM

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) July 21, 2016

Ted Cruz is the hero the American conservative movement deserves.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) July 21, 2016

Tonight's convention debacle proves that Donald Trump is a terrible dealmaker. https://t.co/9oGAHGjo9e

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) July 21, 2016

You Won't Have Tailgunner Ted To Kick Around Any More

Tailgunner Ted cuts and runs and Carly Fiorina helps drive another enterprise into the ditch.

From the New York Times:

Ted Cruz Ends His Campaign for President

INDIANAPOLIS — Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is ending his presidential campaign, according to his campaign manager, bowing to the reality that his crushing loss in Indiana all but assured the nomination of Donald J. Trump.

Mr. Cruz, who staked his bid in the Republican race on a message of conservative purity and religious faith, had suffered through weeks of setbacks as the primary calendar reached the Northeast, where Mr. Trump significantly expanded his lead.
...

No word from John Kasich, who was last seen wrestling a breakfast skillet to a draw in Nebraska.

Ixnay on the Ohnnyjay Ashcay

It will only make Failgunner Ted very sad.

Ted Cruz: I stopped listening to rock music after 9/11

Ted Cruz is a little bit country and not a bit rock ‘n’ roll. 

In an interview Tuesday on “CBS This Morning,” the Texas senator told his TV hosts that he “grew up listening to classic rock” but that that soon changed.

“My music taste changed on 9/11,” Cruz said.

“I actually intellectually find this very curious, but on 9/11, I didn’t like how rock music responded,” he said. “And country music, collectively, the way they responded, it resonated with me.”

...

Once he exhausts the "Boot In Your Ass" subgenre of country Failgunner Ted is in for some rude surprises.

3...2...1...

...
Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back
Up front there ought to be a Man In Black

I wear it for the sick and lonely old
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold
I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men

Fail-Gunner Ted Announces Plans To Burnish Resume, Raise Speaking Fees

From Wonkette:

Ted Cruz FIRST! To Declare Candidacy For Also-Ran Loser Of 2016

The 2016 race to lose the White House to Hillary Clinton (or a Pet Rock or a pile of dust bunnies or basically any person or thing that is not a Republican) officially begins TODAY:

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz will become the first major candidate for president when he launches his campaign Monday, kicking off what’s expected to be a rush over the next few weeks of more than a dozen White House hopefuls into the 2016 campaign. ...

Life forms like Ted Cruz are the inevitable price the country is paying for the sin of Lee Atwater and the Southern Strategy -- the day the GOP decided to go went all-in the crazies, and all the respectable people in town reacted by looking the other way and/or finding a hippie to punish, Of course, fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of  raving idiots running the Party of Lincoln may speedily pass away.

But I don't see that happening anytime soon.

The amount of time and money plutocrats have sunk into turning America's yokels and snake handlers and dimwits and bigots into a Great Big Fucking Hammer has been mind-blowing, and what they have built with their money and influence is really a political engineering marvel: a self-contained, proudly ignorant, red-white-and-blue fascism, assembled right out in the open while being conspicuously ignored by virtually our entire elite American political media persons.

So that happened.

Fail-Gunner Ted Promises To Keep Benghaaaazing

Only until the GOP needs glasses.

But of course --

-- they already do, don't they?

From The Hill:

Senators push to join Benghazi probe

By Alexander Bolton - 11/25/14 06:00 AM EST

Senate Republican leaders are under pressure from GOP lawmakers with presidential ambitions to join the House in investigating the 2012 Benghazi attack.

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), three young rising conservative stars who are weighing 2016 bids, say the Senate should participate in a joint investigation with the House.

“The House is doing its job and engaged in oversight. For six years under [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid [D-Nev.], the Senate has refused to do its job. I am hopeful and optimistic the Senate will finally begin meaningful oversight. That is its constitutional responsibility,” Cruz told The Hill.

...

For those keeping score at home, this would be the eighth consecutive Benghaaazi witchhunt for the GOP, which I am willing to wager is going to look in retrospect like a wafer thin mint compared to the Great Impeachment Pie Eating Contest they have waiting in the wings.

So thanks again to all the heroes who stayed home on election day.  Your sacrifice was not in vain!