WASHINGTON, DC — Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) made some headlines this week when he — as the chairman of the Senate committee that controls NASA’s budget — that America’s space and science program that put humans on the moon, unmanned rovers on Mars, and captured some of the most beautiful, brilliant, and detailed photographs of the deepest regions of space our species has ever glimpsed never was meant to study Earth sciences, and that satellite data shows there has been absolutely no warming of the planet’s climate. Cruz also raised eyebrows when he said that NASA has seen a “disproportionate increase” since President Barack Obama took office in its budget to study climate change. Cruz further brought some questions to bare on his qualifications to be the chairman of the committee on space exploration and science when he said that NASA should stick to “hard sciences” when in fact hard sciences like physics and chemistry are the core building blocks of space science exploration.
Independent fact-checking website FactCheck.org eviscerated Cruz’s claims, and in response, Senator Cruz held a press conference after his committee’s most recent hearing, to address the FactCheck article, and his very chairmanship. “Let me first start by saying how unsurprised I am at the liberal, lamestream media attacking me for my honest and sincere commentary on NASA, its mission, and on climate science in general,” Cruz began his press conference. “That being said — Okay, I admit it, I don’t know fuck-all about NASA, space, climate or science! There, okay? Feel better now, media,” Cruz snarled into the cameras, “Because you shouldn’t. The great part about America is that all that being true doesn’t stop me from having enormous control over NASA, space exploration, climate science, or pretty much any other subject that I am woefully, willfully ignorant about.”
Cruz took a breath, wiped the sweat from his brow, and then continued to read from his prepared remarks. “It’s really very simple. I am backed by corporate lobbyists with a vested stake in denying climate change. Therefore, I am bought and paid for by them, and I will stand vehemently opposed to any legislation that seeks to curb or eliminate the impact of climate change, not only because I have intentionally kept myself ignorant and even combative with and suspicious of climate science and scientists in general,” the Texan-Cuban-Canadian Senator said.
“You guys knew this about me, and about my entire party. You were warned by us for the last six years that if we get control of Congress all this hippy-dippy ‘care about the planet’ bullshit was going to get flushed away,” Cruz paused for effect, “and you guys still sat on your asses on election day and let my party get control of all of Congress. No, you were not going to unseat enough of us in red states to turn the tide, but if you had voted in some of the more battleground-y states, you could have held service and kept us in check a little while longer.
Instead, you all gave into your laziest instincts and let my party cakewalk it into control of the Senate! Now you see that evil will always triumph because good doesn’t turn out for mid-terms.”
During his fifteen-minute presser in which he took no questions from the press, Cruz decried Americans who “listen to that black science man on the television, telling them their climate is changing and that we’re all star stuff and other such demonically-inspired hogwash” instead of “nutting up, grabbing your Bible, and getting right with the guy who gave us America in the first place, God.” He also said if “kids were learnin’ about the Ten Commandments instead of the 118 elements on the periodic table, maybe we’d have the country we all know Jesus Christ himself spoke about on the cross.”
“And again, I cannot stress this enough,” Cruz told reporters, “I do not know fuck-all about the subjects I’m in charge of, and to Republicans that’s a good thing. We’re very anti-intellectual because we know our base is threatened and intimidated by people they perceive as lording their intelligence over them. We’ve gotten them programmed to distrust science, and all the while they live in a world that without science they’d still be hunting and gathering, instead of Googling the best masturbatory materials on their less-than-palm-sized computers that also happen to make phone calls.
I’d feel bad for you guys, but why should I? We have been completely out in the open about our total lack of faith in what 97% of people who are actually trained to know about this shit say. We have telegraphed every move we were about to make, and you all still sat on your asses at home on Election Day. So you know what? Don’t come bitching to us when Florida and California are swallowed up by rising coastlines. Don’t blame us when we all asphyxiate on the carbon in our air.
You all had a chance to vote. You all could have just voted. It’s really that simple. Don’t vote, don’t get the government you want. So you can boo-hoo and whine all you want about me and Inhofe being two of the most slack-jawed, unabashed, willfully ignorant and brazenly defiant of common sense guys out there, but you can’t bitch about us being in positions of power.
Because you didn’t do fuck-all to stop it.”
Cruz dropped the mic, a robe was thrown over his shoulders, and he was taken away by aides.
