The Portrait Of Raffi Cruz

All one need know about the junior Republican Senator from Texas, repellent & repugnant Cuban-Canadian Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz, is this from AlterNet,

There is no shortage of power-mad narcissists floating around Washington, the kind of people who line their office walls with photos of themselves shaking hands with Very Important People. But Cruz gives them all a lesson in self-aggrandizement by decorating his Senate office with a giant oil painting of himself. In fact, it's not just an oil painting of himself. It's an oil painting of other people making paintings of him as he argues a case before the Supreme Court.

which was drawn from this paragraph in the recent GQ piece:

But all along, what kept drawing my eye was a giant oil painting above the couch depicting Cruz as he delivered the first of his nine oral arguments before the Supreme Court. "I was 32 years old," he recalled. "It was abundantly clear we didn't have a prayer.... And I've always enjoyed the fact that as I'm sitting at my desk, I'm looking at a giant painting of me getting my rear end whipped* 9-0." He gazed at the wall. It is an unusual painting: From the artist's vantage point, we see three other courtroom artists, each also drawing Cruz—so the painting actually features not one but four images of young Cruz before the bench. "It is helpful," he explained to me, "for keeping one grounded."

No question that he sees only that he's "getting his rear end whipped"* & that it humbles him. He couldn't possibly be seeing the Cuban-Canadian no one liked because he was such an irritating dick arguing for the federal government in the Supreme Court of the bigger & badder country next door, as three courtroom artists paint him, win lose or draw. No way. (See also: Stalin, Joseph & Hitler, Adolf. Just saying. Saying that, like those two, he's a totalitarian narcissist from a minor neighboring hellholenation, most of which speaks more or less the same language these United Snakes do.) "Grounded." Fuck. You.

We looked for a picture of the painting, & found moving pictures.

[Oh, nice. Defending an attempt to back out of a legal settlement in which Texas agreed to provide meals to poor children. Christ, what an asshole. —M.B.]
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If a picture is worth X words, what is video of a painting worth?

Finally, a couple of thoughts we couldn't work in anywhere above w/o more damn thinking & typing, but well enough reasoned & articulated that we'll leave them here to be admired.

A) We are going to harden our immigration position; if it will spare the world more of these success stories

Cruz never tires of telling the story of his father, an immigrant from Cuba, coming to America with $100 sewn into his underwear, a narrative he has been repeating since his college days. Myth-making is one of Cruz's core competencies.

we are for stopping immigration entirely.

B) The urge to kill: Cruz's smugly sagging face alone awakens atavistic urges to finish the work gravity has started & smush his mug into the ground; when he opens his mouth & reveals what's inside, removing him from the species becomes a genetic imperative. Contrarily, stupid right-wing jerks don't need any martyrs.

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*What is w/ these people? The bend over, the shove down the throat, now "whip my ass". Close to 50 yrs. ago, & still sadly relevant today:
"A world of secret hungers
Perverting the men who make your laws
Every desire is hidden away
In a drawer . . . in a desk
By a Naugahyde® chair
On a rug where they walk and drool
Past the girls in the office"
— F. Zappa, "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" from Freak Out (1966).