Cruz Won’t be Trumped—Watch Him Cook Bacon on a Machine Gun
Sen. Ted Cruz (TX) has shown an affinity for breakfast foods he did, after all, famously read "Green Eggs and Ham" on the Senate floor. Now, the Texas senator is the latest Republican presidential contender to ham it up in a stunt video released Monday—this time, he separates himself from the pack by cooking bacon with a machine gun.
“Few things I enjoy more than on weekends cooking breakfast with the family. Of course in Texas, we cook bacon a little differently than most folks," Cruz says in a video. Cruz walks the viewer through the rather unique cooking process, including wrapping strips of bacon around the gun’s nozzle and encasing it in aluminum foil to keep in the heat.
Cruz himself fires off several rounds at a gun range. After he’s finished, and gotten grease all over the cement floor, he uses a fork to pick a piece of still sizzling meat off the barrel and eats it.
“Mmm. Machine gun bacon,” the senator says with a smile before chuckling.
The 66-second clip comes roughly two weeks after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), another White House hopeful, shot his own video where he used a variety of methods to destroy cellphones after he had his phone number given out by GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.
The video is sure to bounce around the web and get people talking about Cruz’s candidacy just as the Republican field gets ready to take the stage for its inaugural debate.
An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released on Sunday showed the Texas lawmaker taking fifth in the GOP primary race, with 9 percent support. That put him 10 points behind current polling leader Donald Trump. Cruz also trails Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and neurosurgeon Ben Carson, according to the survey, meaning that the bacon stunt can't hurt: His campaign could definitely use more sizzle.
Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
- Joe Biden: The Looming Threat to a Republican Presidency
- Trump’s Net Worth Isn’t His Only Claim That’s Fake
- Why the Six Candidates Left Out of the GOP Debate Might Be Winners After All
Small Business Owners Say They’re Raising Worker Pay
A record percentage of small business owners say they are raising pay for their workers, according to the latest monthly jobs report from the National Federation of Independent Business, based on a survey of 10,000 of the group’s members. A seasonally adjusted net 35 percent of small businesses say they are increasing compensation. “They are increasing compensation at record levels and are continuing to hire,” NFIB President and CEO Juanita Duggan said in a statement accompanying the report. “Post tax reform, concerns about taxes and regulations are taking a backseat to their worries over filling open positions and finding qualified candidates.”
The US Is Running Short on More Than 200 Drugs
The U.S. is officially running short on 202 drugs, including some medical staples like epinephrine, morphine and saline solution. “The medications most vulnerable to running short have a few things in common: They are generic, high-volume, and low-margin for their makers—not the cutting-edge specialty drugs that pad pharmaceutical companies’ bottom lines,” Fortune’s Erika Fry reports. “Companies have little incentive to make the workhorse drugs we use most.” And much of the problem — “The situation is an emergency waiting to be a disaster,” one pharmacist says — can be tied to one company: Pfizer. Read the full story here.
Chart of the Day: Could You Handle a Sudden $400 Expense?
More Americans say they are living comfortably or at least “doing okay” financially, according to the Federal Reserve’s Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2017. At the same time, four in 10 adults say that, if faced with an unexpected expense of $400, they would not be able to cover it or would cover it by selling something or borrowing money. That represents an improvement from 2013, when half of all adults said they would have trouble handling such an expense, but suggests that many Americans are still close to the edge when it comes to their personal finances.
Kevin Brady Introduces Welfare Reform Bill
The Tax Policy Center’s Daily Deduction reports that Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday introduced The Jobs and Opportunity with Benefits and Services (JOBS) for Success Act (H.R. 5861). “The bill would rename the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program and target benefits to the lowest-income households. Although the House GOP leadership promised to include an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit as part of an upcoming welfare reform bill, this measure does not appear to include any EITC provisions.” The committee will mark up the bill on Wednesday.