A massive cold snap hit 25 states in the south and central U.S. this week, unleashing chaos. Millions are without power. Hospitals are being evacuated even as people suffer from carbon monoxide poisoning after trying to heat their homes with grills, generators, and other dangerous items. The air is more toxic than usual.
If you’re in Texas, it sure would be nice to get away. And one of the state’s senators appeared to do just that; Ted Cruz was photographed flying to sunny Cancún, Mexico on Wednesday. After the images went viral, Cruz explained that he wasn’t taking a vacation, though—he was just a “good dad” who felt the need to escort his daughters down there as they took a vacation.
“With school cancelled for the week, our girls asked to take a trip with friends,” Cruz said in a statement on Thursday. “Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon.”
This may not appear to hold water. Why would two young girls want to go to a Mexican resort town at the last minute during a disaster? Why couldn’t his wife Heidi Cruz, who accompanied them to Mexico, to take care of their kids? Couldn’t the adult guardians of the mystery family friends have helped with childcare? But I’m sure Sen. Ted Cruz had some good reason to fly abroad, during a crisis in his home state, in the middle of a pandemic rather than working the phones 24/7 to help his constituents.
In fact, now that I’m thinking about it, there are many other normal, legitimate reasons to fly to Mexico’s famed party city with your family, and then rush to return the next day as quickly as possible without them. Some of them even have nothing to do with people noticing the senator either didn’t feel a devastating emergency should interfere with his vacation plans or was actively trying to get the hell out of the state before someone asked him to do something about it.
Those normal, legitimate reasons include, uhhhh, let me think for a second. There’s a lot of them, I swear.
Let’s see here. There’s got to be at least one, I mean many plausible explanations for why a Texas senator would fly to Cancún, which is ideal beach weather today at 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29 degrees Celsius) with just a 2% chance of rain, as his constituents literally freeze to death. There also has to be many ironclad reasons that this trip would just so happen to be a quick overnight jaunt after said senator was repeatedly photographed in the airport and on the plane. Similarly, there are numerous uncompromisingly logical reasons why the senator would seemingly wait until the last minute to book said flight, ending up on the standby list for a business class upgrade.
Like I said, there’s a lot of these potential explanations. In fact, there’s so many that if anyone wants to jump in and offer their own perspective on the issue, they definitely could in a heartbeat.
Haha no I’m not stalling for time are you? It sounds like you’re the one stalling for time. If you weren’t stalling for time then why would you... uhh...
Wow, would you look at the time. I gotta go, but I’ll be back right away, I swear. You won’t even notice I’m gone.