Senator Ted Cruz is fast becoming the new Tea Party brand name as he quickly begins to surpass Marco Rubio as the true arch teabagger. He's repeatedly said that illegal immigrants should not be given a true path to citizenship. That gives him a leg up over Rubio, in my book. In his 2012 Senate debate in Texas---this is what he believes:

When discussing what to do about the 1.65 million illegal immigrants living in Texas, Cruz weaved into the Second Amendment, alleging his opponent didn't support gun rights. "What does this have to do with the question?" Sadler asked before fiercely denying his opponent's allegation. Cruz again said he didn't support a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants living in America, while Sadler said the opposite, as expected.---Source: WFAA-TV Dallas-Fort Worth on 2012 Texas Senate debate , Oct 2, 2012

And as for his beliefs on the immigration compromise that is being hatched in Congress with Rubio at the head of the table:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) says President Barack Obama wants to “scuttle” immigration reform by injecting a path to citizenship into the debate so Democrats can keep the issue alive for political gain.“The president has been focusing on amnesty — a path to citizenship that skips ahead of the line,” the freshman tea party senator said Wednesday at a speech in Dallas, according to The Dallas Morning News. “That, he knows, is a position not supported by a great many Americans and not a position that will achieve bipartisan cooperation. It’s designed to scuttle the bill.”

The Tea Party is firmly against a path to citizenship, so he jumps ahead of Marco Rubio, who appears to be leading the way to immigration reform for the Senate GOP in a more bipartisan fashion than the hardliners want.

Jane Mayer has a new article out that will give another big woody to the Tea Party: IS SENATOR TED CRUZ OUR NEW MCCARTHY?

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Once upon a time, in a land that now seems to have been populated by tooth fairies and unicorns, there was a political party that had a set of core beliefs to which they actually adhered.

Among them was that actually balancing the budget, as opposed to just talking about it, was sacrosanct. Slow change, while necessary, had to be balanced against the traditions of the United States, ones that had mostly served us well over two centuries.

Foreign military adventures should be limited to our national security interests. And one of the single most important components of diplomacy was protecting the economic interests not only of an elite few, but of the great many Americans who toiled in our factories and fields.

This party was known as the Republican Party, and while one might have disagreed with them on their policy prescriptions to cure any particular US ill, one could at least see some logic in their beliefs and understand that they - with some obvious exceptions from time to time (ahem, Joseph McCarthy, ahem) - were doing what they thought was right for the United States of America.

Today, this once respectable organization has turned into nothing so much as a collective id the size of a David-Vitter-Pampers shopping spree. When facing changes to this nation that make them uncomfortable, they choose national hate. When facing ideological worship versus the greatness of the US, the former always wins the day. When facing a choice of what is good for the US or their campaign bank accounts, they inevitably go with the latter.

In simple terms: We, the people of the United States, are the maid. The GOP is Arnold Schwarzenegger. Any questions?

The one caveat is that it's not Republicans, so much as the forces of the anti-American, gun-toting, religious and corporate Right that have taken over the GOP who are responsible for papa's brand new bag. The Right is Darth Sidious to the GOP's Anakin Skywalker, Angelina Jolie to foreign-born children.

And yes, sadly, the Dark Lord has also sunk his hooks into quite a few in the Democratic Party, just somewhat less in number and relevance.

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Those classy guys in the GOP. Will Bunch:

Some of 55 years after the vicious, Red-baiting tactics of Joseph McCarthy were repudiated by America's better angels, the state GOP is picking up the tattered banner of McCarthyism and running with it -- literally, in fact, with this banner ad (top) on a popular political Web site. In this case, it's hard to say what is more appalling -- equating the sitting president of the United States with the Soviet dictators who slaughtered their political enemies and sent others to brutal gulags, or the cause this ad is promoting: The election of a judge to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

The ad was was first noticed on the Pennsylvania blog Gort42 (also h/t downwithtyranny) -- it appears on the top of the website GrassrootsPA, which is the leading state-oriented conservative Web site in Pennsylvania. Last night, the image -- as captured and posted by Gort42 and now here -- and this ad was at top of the site when I first visited there around 10:30; later in the night, the same banner displayed a different message -- about bailouts, healthcare and the stimulus. It's not clear whether the image with the hammer-and-sickle "Obama" was replaced or whether it alternates with the other message.

It's not the first time that the Pennsylvania Republican Party has used extreme rhetoric about Barack Obama. Last fall, when he was the Democratic nominee -- as reported here at Attytood -- the state GOP chairman Robert Gleason issued a press release that called Obama "a terrorist's best friend." This new ad also picks up a theme that gained attention earlier this fall in Kansas City, when an anti-Obama billboard placed on I-70 had the Soviet hammer-and-sickle emblem with the message: ""How do you like your change now? Obama Nation. They are coming for you! The Taxpayer. First and Second Amendments are in jeopardy. Live free or Die."

My god, these are the same party who destroyed CDs and sent death threats when the Dixie Chicks said they were embarrassed to be from the same state as GWB and demanded Congress react to MoveOn's ad "Gen. Betray-Us?". But yet they throw around loaded symbols and allusions to some of the most brutal regimes of the last century, and think nothing of it.

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OK, looks like the pressure is finally getting to Glenn Beck. You can't watch this rant, from his show yesterday, without concluding that the big implosion is on its way.

Beck: Does sacred honor even exist in Washington anymore? Because I ratted out a self-avowed Communist in the administration in Van Jones, the same organizations, the same politicians, the same progressive media that are ignoring or standing for ACORN now, have called me Joseph McCarthy. They have such little regard for your intelligence that they don't think you're going to figure out that Joseph McCarthy was a powerful senator! Surrounded by the trappings of power of the United States government. With the power of subpoena and the power of Congress! The guy who stood against that was alone. While everybody else wet their pants and cowered in fear!

You'd think the members of the media might remember his name. It was Edward R. Murrow. And while I am nowhere near an Edward R. Murrow, never claimed to be, let me use the words of, finally, somebody that stood up to the power, and these senators, and said, Senator, have you no shame? Have you no shame?

Indeed, his critics have been making the all-too-accurate comparison to McCarthy, most notably Media Matters, who put together a handy side-by-side comparison that's devastating. Looks like Beck watched it and it made him cry.

Or maybe he saw the tallies from the latest set of advertisers to flee his sinking rat's nest of a show: over 50 percent of his ad dollars have now gone elsewhere. Bet that makes him cry too.

But really, Beck did make at least one accurate statement here: He's no Edward R. Murrow.

Hell, he's not even a Krusty the Klown.