[guest post by Dana]

While recent polls show Ted Cruz in a seriously tight race with challenger Rep. Beto O’Rourke for his Senate seat, the Senator is also in the news for having penned a blurb for TIME magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” edition. Surprisingly, the subject was none other than… President Donald Trump:

President Trump is a flash-bang grenade thrown into Washington by the forgotten men and women of America. The fact that his first year as Commander in Chief disoriented and distressed members of the media and political establishment is not a bug but a feature.

The same cultural safe spaces that blinkered coastal elites to candidate Trump’s popularity have rendered them blind to President Trump’s achievements on behalf of ordinary Americans. While pundits obsessed over tweets, he worked with Congress to cut taxes for struggling families. While wealthy celebrities announced that they would flee the country, he fought to bring back jobs and industries to our shores. While talking heads predicted Armageddon, President Trump’s strong stand against North Korea put Kim Jong Un back on his heels.

President Trump is doing what he was elected to do: disrupt the status quo. That scares the heck out of those who have controlled Washington for decades, but for millions of Americans, their confusion is great fun to watch.

In spite of the ugliness that Trump dished out to Cruz and his family during the campaign, Cruz nonetheless ended up endorsing Trump in the election (without Trump having made any public apologies). So at this point in time, nothing Cruz says about Trump should really come as a surprise. Even so, this was for me.

PS: Of course, given that TIME’s “Leaders” list includes the President of the United States, Prince Harry’s fiancee, actress Meghan Markle, a couple of talk show hosts and Sean Hannity sort of speaks volumes…

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

Heckuva job, Republicans! Planned Parenthood is spending some of that sweet sweet omnibus money given to them by Republicans…to defeat Republicans. Roll Call:

A coalition of liberal organizations that includes the political arm of Planned Parenthood rolled out a $30 million program Monday to mobilize “infrequent voters” to cast ballots for progressive candidates in the midterm elections.

Infrequent voters include people of color, women and young people, the coalition says in a joint news release.

The initiative will target voters in Michigan, Florida, and Nevada.

The omnibus bill, written by lobbyists under the supervision of staffers employed by Republican Paul Ryan and Republican Mitch McConnell, and signed by Republican President Donald J. Trump, funded Planned Parenthood to the tune of over $500 million dollars:

The $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill was seen as the prime opportunity to strike at Planned Parenthood, which received $543.7 million from taxpayers last year, about 40 percent of its $1.46 billion revenue stream. Republicans, however, did not include the defunding measure in the final bill, as negotiations over a proposed border wall and federal funding for a New York City tunnel took center stage.

So Republicans pass a bill that gives this abortion mill $500 million, and the abortionists take a chunk of that money and use it to defeat Republicans in the midterms. Then they use another chunk to kill babies.

Congrats Republicans. You've funded your own destruction in November. https://t.co/j0H7FXH1sY

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) April 19, 2018

Oh, sorry. That money is strictly prohibited from being used for such purposes! Why, the political arm of Planned Parenthood is totally separate!!!1!

via GIPHY

What they actually do is use the $500 million to put towards activities x, y, and z — and then take $500 million that they would otherwise spend on x, y, and z, and spend that money on things like defeating Republicans and killing babies. Which is totally different.

I did make one mistake, though. I said in the headline that Republicans had funded all of this. That’s not entirely accurate. Republicans appropriated the money. But they didn’t fund pro-Democrat election efforts and baby-killing.

It’s actually funded by YOU: the taxpayer.

Aren’t you happy Republicans are running the government?

[Cross-posted at RedState and The Jury Talks Back.]