I was a little nervous at first, after Ted Cruz made his big announcement.  He knows for a fact Democrats commit more crimes of violence, like way way more, than Republicans. http://www.politicususa.com/2015/11/30/ted-cruz-completely-insane-claims-democrats-commit-violent-crimes.html.  I’m a Democrat, I think.  Or at least I have voted for the Democratic presidential candidate lately.  And after thinking about what Ted Cruz said, I started to worry a little bit.  Just the other day when the Packers lost another game I was really, really pissed.  I mean really.  I was seriously thinking about sending a hate letter to Aaron Rodgers and giving him a piece of my mind.  But then I had second thoughts and realized I really should be sending my hate letter to the entire offensive line. Their protection was leaking like a sieve and he was getting clobbered.   I was going to tell them how much they sucked, but again I stopped myself.  I was suddenly struck by how out of control all my hatred had become.  It had escalated from hating one guy to hating six guys.  I counted the tight end too.  I know he’s not really an offensive lineman, but I thought he was doing a pretty shitty job as well, so I threw him in the mix.  So there you go.  You can see how I would be concerned.  This is so unlike me.  At least when I’m sober.  I didn’t reach the point where I wanted to go out a buy a gun or anything, but still.  Maybe Ted is onto something.

     CRUZing OUR AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTIES  

REPUBLICAN                                                                                                           DEMOCRAT

That all happened last week.  Today I just remembered something.  I’m a Republican!  At least I should qualify as a Republican in Ted Cruz’s eyes because I am officially registered as a member of that party.  I rarely admit that, but that’s how it all went down back when I first voted.  Why I did that is a long story.  For now let’s just say I made a mistake.  But the fact remains every time I go to vote, there I am, listed as a Republican.  It’s kind of amazing to me how that keeps following me around.  Should I be worried about that?  I know I should go somewhere or get online or something and change things around.  But the simple fact is it just doesn’t matter, I don’t think.  I’m really not a Democrat either.  I have problems with both parties.  I guess I could register as an Independent, but it seems like the end doesn’t justify the means since everything is working out fine for me at the voting booth anyway.  I suppose there is that tiny, remote possibility I could fuck over some poor Democrat that ends up loosing in a primary by one vote because I didn’t get the correct party ballot.  Let’s not go there.  The point here is I am sort of a Democrat disguised as a Republican, safe from Ted Cruz’s scrutiny but thanks to Ted Cruz wondering if I am safe from myself.  Who knows when I might pull out a screw-driver and attack someone. Or I might use my rubber mallet.  It’s pretty big.  Here’s a picture of some things laying around my house I might be able to hurt you with.  I know because I have hurt myself with all this stuff.  And this is just a short list.  Some close calls I’ve had with lawn and garden equipment come to mind as well.  

I was kind of bothered about all of this so I started making a few phone calls. I figured anyone who has been in jail at some point in their lives would be able to help me out.   The best I could come up with were acquaintances of mine who got hauled in for DUI when they were in college.  I know that’s actually not a violent crime, unless you happen to be really plastered and cause some horrific accident.  Thankfully that was not the case with my two buddies.  But still they shouldn’t have been driving around.  Anyway I asked them if they remembered filling out a form or something when they were in jail that would document the fact that they were a Republican or a Democrat.  That’s all I really wanted to know.  I figured if you end up in jail all those forms have to be the same, right?  Doesn’t matter if you are in there for shoplifting or assault, the form would be the same.

My friend Bob (below) said he didn’t recall any such question at all, just address and phone number and stuff.  But he did remember right after the sex question he wrote “Last night, if a date with Rosey Palm counts.”  He was always like that, especially when he was tooted.  Unfortunately for him all that scribbling on the form got him cited for defacing county property and he had to spend an extra night in jail.

The other friend I called was Johnny (at right).  I am pretty sure when he got hauled in to jail for DUI when he was in college there was something other than alcohol influencing his driving.  Back in the 60’s he experimented with anything he could get his hands on, uppers, downers, LSD, PCP, peyote, you name it.  As he recalled, there actually was a question about being a Republican or Democrat, and it came right after the question about being a citizen of Neptune or Saturn.  Then he said he really had to go because he wasn’t feeling too hot and thought that might be related to his snacking on a bad batch of brownies he had recently brought back from Colorado.

Realizing I really wasn’t getting anywhere with my research, I called up Henry (below) an attorney friend of mine,  He emphatically stated there was nothing on any form you would fill out for any crime you committed, violent or non-violent, that would ask you a question about your political affiliation.  He then went on to emphatically state what a piece of shit Ted Cruz  was, and that progressed to a savagely hateful tirade about the presidential hopeful that went on so long I had to hang up.  I took that as verification of what I suspected all along, that there is not a politically oriented question on any prison intake form.  From that conversation I also suspected that first, Henry was a Democrat and second, there thus might be something to Ted Cruz’s basic premise that Democrats are more inclined to violence than Republicans.

So it was back to square one.  And actually I am still stuck in that square.  After all my research I figured out one thing though.  The conclusion I arrived at was that this was one more example of the political genius of Ted Cruz.  I’d seen it before (see my July 2015 blog “Trouble in Texas”).  Ted is after all a presidential candidate, and except for Donald Trump those people aspiring to the highest public office in the land don’t go around just making shit up, at least without a motive.  And Ted recognizes opportunity when he sees it.  Fact or fiction what Ted has going for him here is a chance to close the gap he has with Trump in the polls by utilizing one of Trumps own tactics.  To protect our citizenry, Donald Trump  has the Muslim community in his sights to federally surveil, and now I can only conclude Ted Cruz is about ready to unveil his program of surveilling Democrats if he is elected.  And the best part of his plan is he already has a database of registered troublemakers, something Donald Trump has yet to work out.  And the numbers!  No comparison.  You’ve got maybe ten million Muslims in the U.S., but over one hundred million Democrats to select from.  I guess that will require a lot of policing manpower, but just like his tax plan, numbers are of little importance.  What counts is what sounds good at the moment.  Anyway, if you’re a Democrat and in January of 2017 we have Ted Cruz as our president, that funny clicking sound you hear on your cell phone is just Ted listening in.  And as far as my political party registration goes, well I am going to leave well enough alone till the dust settles.  I might as well play it safe.  I have a feeling there will be an irritating cloud of some sort enveloping our political landscape for a very long time.