Speech Kid

“can i use that tournament as an excuse to not go to a sweet sixteen even if i’m not going?”

“in my first round i accidentally said presidential erection”

“my partner thought john boehner was pronounced john boner”

“can i borrow a pad to blow my nose? i’m desperate”

“that is the most policy impact i’ve ever heard.”

“you’re really sassy during cross and it’s borderline bitchy” “thank you”

“i was trying to channel how petty you are in cross. do you think it worked?”

“what if someone said Okinawa instead of okie doke?” (my partner looked really dead when i said that rip)

“you make tournaments suck less bro.” “bro :’)”

“i strongly urge an affegative ballot thank you”

“they become bitter” “shut up we’re not talking about your coffee”

“i would just like to point out that my opponents are lying hypocrites”

“you two are getting along a lot better now” “i’m only nice bc i wanna be captain next year”

“get away from me you filthy memers”

“there’s gonna be a lot of anti-american sentiment if we don’t life the embargo” “buddy there’s already a lot of anti-american sentiment tell me something i don’t know”

“these heels make me feel like i’m stabbing my feet with my most hq g2s”

“what if you died to death?”

“i would stab you with my pen but it’s brand new”

“coffee is like the unicorn blood of the muggle world”

“you look like you’re really dead inside” “thanks it’s from debate”

me @ my partner “i don’t understand why debate partners wear identical outfits” (we wore basically the same outfit that day)

@satangela666: “venezuela is cuba’s sugar daddy”

“tribal sovereignty is that in which one is sovereign and exercises sovereign rights”

“we must plant the seeds of democracy around the world and watch it blossom into beautiful flowers” “shut your face”

“i’ve had enough of your depressing nihilist meme culture”

“just ask america why they want cuban doctors”

“i would take a bullet for you in a nonlethal area of the body” “bro :’)”

“i’ve learned so much about our team that i never wanted to”

“is the plural of sheep shoop or sheep?”

“i understand your argument do you have an actual question?” (vibha looked so dead when i said that but we won so it’s ok)

“just debate your date partner”

“if the source is from december 29, can i round it to the next year?”

Hmm. Interesting question. Why are a bunch of guys who talk on weekends instead of playing sports kinda desperate…

Sorry if my reply’s a little sarcastic. Being in speech and debate, and being successful at it, gives people a little bit of an ego. There’s a theory in psychology that dictates that “highs” in one area lead people to seek them in another; I think that applies here. Some debate guys want to seem “cool,” they want girls to like them, and so they change their personalities to fit a perception of what that ideal guy might be.

It’s not limited to debate - this is a broader issue in society - but in an activity that’s still male-dominated to a degree, in a team activity, period, it’s bound to happen.

Let’s face it: the debate community greatly over-samples awkward nerdy guys, or guys from incredibly strenuous schools where life’s either a) studying or b) partying, or guys with a greater ego than the norm. That’s bound to happen in an activity that relies on mental agility; I’ve observed similar groupings in some coding communities, teen scientific research groups, and teen publishing before.

Preliminary Wikipedia-level research tells us that the Zodiac Killer’s period of activity is confirmed to have extended from 1968-1969, but speculation places the first murders as early as 1963. Excluding that 1963 murder (which occurred while Sanders was still enrolled in college in Chicago) every Zodiac murder fits on a timeline that does not preclude Sanders as a suspect. 

However, we can still account for that unconfirmed 1963 murder when we consider that Sanders was actively traveling at the time - he participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, but his whereabouts were unaccounted for on June 4, 1963 when Robert Domingos and Laura Edwards were murdered (presumably by the Zodiac Killer) in Gaviota, California. The University of Chicago does not have record of Sanders participating in any summer enrollment at that time, and summer break was well underway - Sanders had ample opportunity to travel to Gaviota and commit the crime.

Following his graduation from the University of Chicago in 1964, there is a period of time in which it is difficult to track Sanders’ movements throughout the country. Vermont news source ‘The VT Digger’ even notes specifically that 

“One period of his life, the years from 1964 to 1971, however, has been left unexplained.”

It wasn’t until the mid-to-late 70s that Sanders became recognizable as the politician we know now. In the intervening years, verbal record puts him at some point on a kibbutz ‘somewhere in Israel’, though a reporter with Forward has been unable to uncover exactly which kibbutz - and when questioned, his campaign did not provide clarification.

Property records place him back in the United States at some point in 1964, but those are far from definitive proof of location. He was in the United States between 1966 and 1971, the Zodiac Killer’s speculated period of activity after the initial (suspected) activity in 1963.

What years are unaccounted for in Sanders’ publicly available history? Of course, 1964-1971 - after which he aligned himself with the Liberty Union Party and made a number of attempts at public office. Why the sudden foray into the public sphere?

It seems simple enough: Sanders is the Zodiac Killer, and he knew he was close to being caught. Where better to retreat to than Vermont? How better to establish his alibi than as an anti-war public figure? Even so, he continued to taunt the police well into the early 1970s, finally going silent in 1974 as he made his first bid for a Senate seat and succumbed to the pressure of greater public scrutiny.

Why is it more likely that Sanders was the zodiac killer? The timeline makes sense. The opportunity was there. The motive? Who can say.

Is it really so impossible?

Oh, and as to why it’s more likely that Bernie Sanders was the Zodiac Killer as opposed to Ted Cruz, keeping in mind our 1963-1974 timeline during which the perpetrator would have had to possess significant physical strength (Sanders was a basketball star in high school) and reasonable mental acuity…

First, it’s necessary to prove that Ted Cruz had the physical and mental capabilities to perform these heinous murders. This is, admittedly, an obstacle, as his official birth certificate lists Cruz’s birth as being after all murders generally attributed to the Zodiac Killer, and it would be rather challenging for Cruz to conduct murders if he was not yet born.

However, there is a simple explanation: his birth certificate is inaccurate. There has already been significant controversy regarding Canadian documents related to Cruz and his family. Though Cruz’s campaign has consistently claimed that his mother was only a citizen of the United States, recent documents have revealed that both his parents were on a list of eligible voters in Calgary at the time of his birth. The Cruz backstory is fascinating and, at some points, defies belief. It is not much of a stretch to say that the year listed on his birth certificate is also a forgery. Modern software tools can provide the level of forensic analysis that was absent in 1970, to reveal Cruz’s age. Some suggest that Cruz is actually much older than documents state.

Assuming that Cruz is actually 64, he would have been 18 at the time of the murders, giving him the physical and mental ability to have carried them out. Notably, this alternative timeline would also place him as being a freshman in college at the time. Cruz was well-known for his college debate career — yet could murder have been one of his other extracurriculars?

Let’s review the facts of Ted Cruz’s college life. With the demanding schedule of Princeton’s parliamentary debate league, he would have had plenty of weekends and other days with legitimate alibis, as well as breaks and other time off from school, and with his father a noted oilman, he would have had plenty of money to finance trips to California. Cruz likely selected the San Francisco Bay area for its size and distance, a place where a young college student could easily blend in but one far enough away from Princeton that he would never be suspected. This freedom of anonymity allowed Ted to hint at his own name in his taunting letters to local press and police, repeatedly misspelling “cruise” as “cruse”, using a symbol combining a stylized TED (pictured below)

and even inserting his own name into his cryptograms.

Diving deeper into his college days, one adjective that stands out is “creepy.” Four independent witnesses volunteered that adjective for Cruz, describing his habit of lurking outside the women’s bathroom in a paisley bathrobe. Others described him as “intense,” “abrasive,” and a “crank.” His former college roommate has been one of his most strident critics:

Now, just because someone’s creepy doesn’t mean they’re the infamous Zodiac Killer. But 99 percent is a level that’s not just a normal level of creepy - that’s murdered-several-people-in-northern-California-in-the-late-1960s creepy. Ted Cruz’s lust for power has been long-running and well-documented, and the idea that there is something wrong with Ted Cruz’s soul is one that continues to pop up on the campaign trail today.

Now, none of this is definitive proof that Ted Cruz committed a string of murders in Northern California and sent taunting letters to the local press bragging about his exploits. But it does establish that he had the means and opportunity to commit these crimes, and while his motive may be lost to history, the testimony of those close to him at the time suggest that he was morally capable of carrying out such heinous acts. Though this case remains unsolved, it is clear that Ted Cruz should remain the primary suspect.

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