Former Trump lawyer and hair dye crash test dummy Rudy Giuliani appeared on Steve Bannon’s radio program Thursday, where he told a cringe-worthy story about a golf outing with the late radio host Rush Limbaugh, whom he referred to as “Roger.”

https://youtu.be/7eqZRS53bMU

Wow.

We officially raised $1 million for Texas relief at 9:17pm.

Thank you all so much. 🙏🏽 I’m at a loss for words. Always in awe of movement work.

💯% of this relief is going straight to Texan food assistance, homelessness relief, elder care, and more. https://t.co/DSkTSqfbkZ

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 19, 2021

This might be the end of any recovery Ted Cruz could expect.

New York Magazine reports that not only did Cruz (R-Quintana Roo) abandon his constituents freezing and without heat and water in Texas, he also abandoned his family dog.  And no, I don’t mean his wife, Heidi, per Donald Trump’s description.

The Cruz family dog, a small poodle named Snowflake, was left in the house Heidi Cruz described as so “freezing” cold the family had to abandon the manse in the affluent Houston neighborhood of River Oaks and take shelter in the Ritz Carlton resort in Cancun.

A NYMag reporter asked a man stationed in an SUV parked in the Cruz’s driveway who was taking care of the dog locked in the house.  The man, who identified himself as a security guard, said he was.  Apparently, the care, comfort and safety of Snowflake–and the security guard–didn’t really matter.

During his interview with Fox News Lego-American Sean Hannity, Cruz said, “And it got cold.  I mean, it was in the 30s in the house as it got cold.”  So Cruz abandoned a dog in a house that was 30 degrees and he had no idea when the power and heat would come back on.

[UPDATE (9:48 p.m. ET):  Cruz appeared on Hannity’s show Thursday night.  Hannity, repeating the outdated lie:  “You went and you took your daughters to Cancun and you came back.  I think you can be a father and the Senator of Texas all at the same time and make a roundtrip quick, drop off, trip, and come home.”

“Well, well, Sean, that’s right,” Cruz said.  Cruz did not correct Hannity on the lies he told earlier, nor did Cruz admit that he lied before.  Five minutes into the interview, Cruz slipped in, “I had initially planned to stay through the weekend and work remotely there, but as I was headed down there I started to have second thoughts almost immediately because with the crisis in Texas, you need to be here on the ground.”  Apparently, that didn’t occur to him while he was planning, paying for, and boarding the flight.]

From his broadcast Thursday, Sean Hannity defended Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-Quintana Roo) romp down to Cancun repeating an excuse Cruz himself has disavowed after reporting exposed his lie.

“Now of course, many on the left are currently vilifying Ted Cruz today for flying his family down to Cancun and back,” Hannity whined. “Senator Cruz dropping off his daughters for a trip with their friends.  He’s right back in Texas.”

ABC13: “In a one-on-one interview with ABC13 from inside his home, Ted Cruz said he regrets taking a trip to Mexico as thousands of Texans remain without power and running water after a historic winter storm ravaged the state. So, what was he thinking? Tom Abrahams asked Cruz that question to kick off the sit-down interview and the senator said he was simply trying to be a dad. The high-profile Republican lawmaker told Eyewitness News he and his family were among the many Texans who lost power. So his daughters mustered up an idea. ‘They said, ‘Look, lets take a trip. Lets go with some of our friends and lets get out of here and lets go somewhere warm,’ he recalled. ‘And [Cruz’s wife Heidi] and I said … lets go.'”

“After his return to Houston, he quickly admitted that he regrets the decision to plan the getaway with his family. He told Eyewitness News he began feeling second thoughts the minute he sat down on the plane. The senator said he too has had a power outage, but that revelation was after he was spotted heading to Cancun. ‘You question what I was thinking, and … I was trying to take care of my family,’ said Cruz. ‘I was trying to take care of my kids. It’s unfortunate, the fire storm that came from it. It was not my intention. In saying yes to my daughters to somehow diminish all the Texans that were going through real hardship.'”

A man described as a “mercenary” political fundraiser who pleaded guilty to multiple felony counts including tax evasion, campaign finance violations and failing to register as a foreign agent has been sentenced to 12 years in prison by a federal judge, the Associated Press reports.

A contractor for Rudy Giuliani associate Dmitry Firtash, Imaad Zuberi raised millions of dollars for the campaigns of Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, leveraging the standing he obtained to access to high levels of foreign government officials including those from Turkey, Sri Lanka and Ukraine.

The Los Angeles-based Zuberi is reportedly cooperating with federal officials in a probe of the Trump Inaugural Committee, for which he raised more than $900,000.  He reportedly used the access to the Trump administration he gained through his contributions to lobby for a unspecified small gas-rich monarchy, according to court documents.

The State Department announced Thursday night that the United States would accept the opportunity to re-enter negotiations with Iran and the six other nations that signed the nuclear accord with Iran during the Obama administration, CNN reports.

“The United States would accept an invitation from the European Union High Representative to attend a meeting of the P5+1 and Iran to discuss a diplomatic way forward on Iran’s nuclear program,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement Thursday.  The P5+1 refers to the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — and Germany.

The Trump administration violated the agreement, claiming that Iran was breaking the deal although that the administration itself certified Iran was in compliance with the agreement just a month before pulling out of it.  Donald Trump re-initiated sanctions against Iran, which prompted Iran to announce that it would start to enrich uranium at previous levels.

The Capitol Police are investigating 35 of its officers for their conduct during the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol in a probe led by the law enforcement agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility, Newsweek reports.

Six officers have been suspended with pay during the investigations.  According to acting chief Yogananda Pittman, the investigation is looking into those officers “whose behavior is not in keeping with the Department’s Rules of Conduct,” vowing they “will face appropriate discipline.”

The scope of the investigation is unclear, although some Capitol Police officers were reported to have posed for selfies with the insurrectionists or otherwise seemed to back off from stopping the mob.  The probe could also look into violations of other procedures, like removing barricades that allowed the crowd to swarm the complex.

Thanks to FranklinSezChillax and This is nothing for the tip.

Heidi Cruz texted friends and neighbors in the days before her family flew down to a Cancun resort, saying her family was heading to the Ritz Carlton property because their house was “FREEZING,” messages obtained by the New York Times reports.

Her husband, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Quintana Roo), told and media other travelers that he took the trip to Mexico to escort his family on their travels and that he intended only to stay for one night.  He claimed that his daughters insisted on going on the trip with some friends, and that he was just being a “good dad.”

Heidi Cruz, however, was the originator of the text string on Wednesday, telling the people on the thread that the Cruz’s had stayed at the Ritz Carlton resort “many times” and that the cost per room night was “just $309.” 

The hypocrisy of those trying to cancel Ted Cruz who have been totally silent on their Democrat Governor’s incompetence is telling. My thoughts on the Cancún Cruz fauxoutrage! #Cruz #CancunGate is fake. https://t.co/WnYe1onpIK

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) February 18, 2021

Reuters: “A surge of Republicans quitting the party to renounce Donald Trump after the deadly Capitol riot could hurt moderates in next year’s primaries, adding a capstone to Trump’s legacy as president: A potentially lasting rightward push on the party. More than 68,000 Republicans have left the party in recent weeks in Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, crucial states for Democrats’ hopes of keeping control of Congress in the mid-term elections in 2022, state voter data shows. That’s about three times the roughly 23,000 Democrats who left their party in the same states over the same time period.”

“Compared to the Republicans who stayed put, those who fled were more concentrated in the left-leaning counties around big cities, which political analysts said suggested moderate Republicans could be leading the defections. If the exodus is sustained, it will be to the advantage of candidates in the Republican Party’s nomination contests who espouse views that play well with its Trump-supporting base but not with a broader electorate. That could make it harder for Republican candidates to beat Democrats in November, said Morris Fiorina, a political scientist at Stanford University. ‘If these voters are leaving the party permanently, it’s really bad news for Republicans.'”

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Quintana Roo) slithered back to the Houston airport with a police escort Thursday so he didn’t get accosted by the little people, millions of whom has been without power for the last four days. Cruz cut his Cancun vacay short after public uproar about him lounging on a beach in Mexico while a winter storm disaster struck the state.

Dolly Parton has requested a state representative withdraw his proposal to honor the country music legend and modern-day folk hero with a statue in the state capitol, the Associated Press reports.

Parton’s philanthropy has been spotted in recent months for her quiet donation of $1 million to Vanderbilt University to fund the development of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine.  Parton has also funded and/or founded other charitable endeavors, including sending books to children around the world to improve literacy.

Democratic legislator John Mark Windle introduced the bill last month to honor Parton, but she declined the honor.  “Given all that is going on in the world, I don’t think putting me on a pedestal is appropriate at this time,” Parton said in a statement issued Thursday.

It was unclear if the planned statue would be just her bust or a full representation.

Image from the Perseverance rover: NASA.

CNN:  “Two officers were shot in Texas after responding to a call Thursday about a shooting in a Dallas suburb, Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia tweeted Thursday.

“The shooting occurred about 12:30 p.m. ET, police said.”At this time we know that at least one officer was injured in the incident and has been transported to a local hospital and being treated for his injuries,” Dallas police spokesperson Officer Carlos Almeida told CNN.  Police tweeted that the officers are in stable condition.”

The Perseverance Mars Rover is scheduled to begin its entry into the planet’s atmosphere at around 3:45 p.m. ET (local Mars time unknown).  Following “seven minutes of terror,” the rover will be lowered by a “sky crane” into the Jezero Crater, landing around 3:55 p.m. ET, with video of the event taken by the lander’s cameras coming back to Earth minutes later.

Daily Beast: “South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg will, in fact, be criminally prosecuted for killing a man with his car last fall. But the top law-enforcement official in the state ducked more serious felony charges in connection with the fatal crash. On Thursday, a Hyde County prosecutor broke more than five months of silence after the Sept. 12 death of Joe Boever, a Highmore man who was walking along U.S. Highway 14 when Ravnsborg struck him. Ravnsborg is charged with using a mobile electronic device while driving, failing to drive in a traffic lane and moving from a lane unsafely, and careless driving – all misdemeanors.”

Politico: “Nikki Haley reached out to former President Donald Trump on Wednesday to request a sit-down at Mar-a-Lago, but a source familiar tells Playbook that he turned her down. The two haven’t spoken since the insurrection on Jan. 6, when Haley blasted Trump for inciting his supporters to storm the Capitol. The snub comes on the heels of Tim Alberta’s deep dive in Politico Magazine last week on Haley’s presidential ambitions and how she’s trying to have it both ways with Trump.”

“Channeling George Costanza in mid-December, Haley refused to confront Trump over his election lies because he believed they were true. ‘I understand the president. I understand that genuinely, to his core, he believes he was wronged,’ Haley told Alberta. “This is not him making it up.’ After Jan. 6, Haley changed her tune. ‘I think he’s going to find himself further and further isolated,’ Haley said of the defeated president. ‘I think his business is suffering at this point. I think he’s lost any sort of political viability he was going to have. I think he’s lost his social media, which meant the world to him. I mean, I think he’s lost the things that really could have kept him moving.’ Haley tried to recover Thursday with a damage-control op-ed in the WSJ wrapped in blame-the-media rhetoric. But Trump, apparently, isn’t having it.”

“This has been an infuriating week for Texans. The greatest state in the greatest country in the world has been without power. We have food lines, gas lines, and people sleeping at the neighbors’ houses. Our homes are freezing and our lights are out. Like millions of Texans, our family lost heat and power too. With school cancelled for the week, our girls asked to take a trip with friends. Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon.”

“My staff and I are in constant communication with state and local leaders to get to the bottom of what happened in Texas. We want our power back, our water on, and our homes warm. My team and I will continue using all our resources to keep Texans informed and safe” – Statement from Senator Ted Cruz via NBC reporter Vaughn Hillyard.