Ted Cruz Said Jan. 6 Wasn’t a ‘Violent Insurrection.’ Now He Labels Peaceful Pro-Choice Protesters ‘Mob Violence’

Authored by rollingstone.com and submitted by Sweep145
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Republican Sen. Ted Cruz seems very confused about the definition of violence. In a Sunday interview, he characterized peaceful pro-choice protesters standing outside the homes of Supreme Court justices as “violent.” But when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 a “violent insurrection,” Cruz said he strongly disagreed.

Crowds of activists opposed to the Supreme Court’s voting to overturn Roe v. Wade — news that broke when someone leaked a draft opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito — have gathered outside the homes of Justice Bret Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts to voice their opposition. But reports from the scene have shown around 100 protesters marching peacefully from Kavanaugh’s home to Roberts’ home and have not reported incidents of violence.

Protesters have arrived to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home chanting “No uterus, no opinion” @wusa9 pic.twitter.com/yyeShldmC0 — Rafael Sánchez-Cruz (@rafasanchezcruz) May 7, 2022

In a Sunday interview with Maria Bartiromo, Cruz tried to paint those activists as violent. “Now they’re embracing mob violence to get their partisan outcome,” Cruz said, not of the Jan. 6 mob, but of the pro-choice protesters.

Cruz: Now they’re embracing mob violence to get their partisan outcome pic.twitter.com/78jKsA2Lpb — Acyn (@Acyn) May 8, 2022

The senator went on to say that Americans are “sharply divided” on the issue of abortion. But according to a CNN poll from just a few months ago, seven in ten Americans do not want Roe v. Wade overturned.

Later in the interview, Cruz claimed without a shred of evidence that the leak came from “almost certainly one of the 12 law clerks that are clerking for the three liberal justices.” So while Cruz is opposed to people gathering outside the homes of justices, he has no problem with singling out the clerks working for justices appointed by Democratic presidents.

But it’s clear that all Cruz’s bluster is play-acting. He’s aware that these are peaceful pro-choice protests, just as he at one point knew and admitted that Jan. 6 was indeed violent, calling the events of Jan. 6 a “violent terrorist attack.” But when that truth became politically damaging, Lyin’ Ted backtracked, and insisted that there was no violence in people who fought past police lines to storm the U.S. Capitol, promising to take lawmakers lives.

Jeffsylvania on May 8th, 2022 at 19:46 UTC »

There's an entire Wikipedia article on "pro life" terrorism in case anyone is looking for a long list of counterpoints.

DernderMerfflin on May 8th, 2022 at 19:30 UTC »

From the draft SCOTUS decision

See, e.g., Centers for Disease Control, Adoption Experiences of Women and Men and Demand for Children to Adopt by Women 18-44 Years of Age in the United States 16 (Aug. 2008) (“[N]early 1 million women were seeking to adopt children in 2002 (i.e., they were in demand for a child), whereas the domestic supply of infants relinquished at birth or within the first month of life and available to be adopted had become virtually nonexistent.”); Centers for Disease Control, National Center for Health Statistics, Adoption and nonbiological parenting, [link] (showing that approximately 3.1 million women between the ages of 18- 49 had ever “[t]aken steps to adopt a child” based on data collected from 2015-2019).

"domestic supply of infants..."

This has never been about human rights or the sanctity of life. This is about using women as factories to increase the domestic supply of infants. Your body, your wife's body, your daughters; their bodies belong to the state.

Chi-Guy86 on May 8th, 2022 at 18:26 UTC »

I just ignore these articles. The right wing long ago moved beyond caring about hypocrisy. Democrats and the left continuing to think that pointing out Republican hypocrisy is an effective strategy, but this is born out of their own personal biases. The right wing brain is unaffected by even the most stunning displays of hypocrisy