Cynical Rush Limbaugh ends show suggesting the assertion that Ted Cruz proved last night that he deserved to be called a liar all along is just a circulating talking point

Because several callers got through making the same point today.

It couldn't be, could it, that Ted Cruz is just a liar and proved it one last time last night and everybody following this just happened to agree because they are smart enough to figure it out for themselves.

Rush Limbaugh. The new face of sneering elitism.

Rush Limbaugh justifies Ted Cruz' failure to endorse Trump by comparing it to Ted Kennedy's failure to endorse Jimmy Carter in 1980!

Rush's theatre of the absurd marches on.

I'm sure Republicans and Cruz-bots are just THRILLED that a so-called conservative plumbs the depths for acceptable in the party of scoundrels.

Rush better be careful. If he goes too deep he might bump in to Mary Jo Kopechne.

Rush Limbaugh compares Ted Cruz to Richard Nixon, says it's still possible for Cruz to come back

Limbaugh's as crazy as Cruz.

I knew Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon was a friend of mine. Ted Cruz is no Richard Nixon.

Heavy sarc.

You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more

Charles Hurt calls Ted Cruz a "rude political has-been"

Here.

Cruz joins John Kasich and Jeb Bush in political oblivion. Laura Ingraham this morning called what we saw last night in Cruz' failure to endorse Trump "political suicide".

By contrast people like Scott Walker and Marco Rubio have swallowed hard and backed Trump, and therefore they will live to fight again another day.

But Ted is dead.

Ted Cruz tonight: One huge disappointment

I felt like I was listening to a Senate filibuster.

That guy will never be president.

Republicans demonstrated increased unity last night as delegates previously pledged to others voted for Donald Trump

Trump, who won 1543 delegates in the primary season, received 1725 votes from the floor as states like Michigan upped their ante from the 25 bound delegates for Trump to 51. Trump increased his support by almost 12%.

Similarly Pennsylvania which had 17 votes bound for Trump and 64 total committed cast 70 for him.

Both states passed on their votes in the roll call in order to allow the New York delegation to put their favored son over the top for the nomination, showing that Michigan and Pennsylvania have New York values, too.

Ted Cruz, who won 559 delegates in the primaries and caucuses, received 475 votes from the floor, 15% fewer than he had won.

Marco Rubio, who had won 165, received 114, 31% fewer.

John Kasich, who had won 161, received 120, 25% fewer.

Ben Carson received 7, Jeb Bush 3 (previously had 4) and Rand Paul 2 (previously had 1).

It appears that 26 votes of the 2472 total delegates were not cast at all (no shows? neverTrumpers? never allocated?). No votes were cast for Fiorina or Huckabee on the floor, each of whom had won one in the primaries.

Trump romps in West Virginia primary even after suppressing the vote and Cruz suspends, turnout 54% higher than 2008, 62% higher than 2012

Ted Cruz earlier today: "But let's be clear, we're not going to win Nebraska today"

See for yourself, here.

As usual everyone's making a mountain out of a molehill, but refreshingly, NOT TED!

Bob Dole endorses Trump after previously supporting Jeb Bush and questioning Ted Cruz' loyalty to the Republican Party

Sen. Dole, US Army 10th Mountain Division veteran, wounded since April 1945

Quoted here:

Former senator and 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole on Friday endorsed Donald Trump, becoming the latest GOP leader to back the real estate mogul even as others have distanced themselves from the candidate.

"The voters of our country have turned out in record numbers to support Mr. Trump," Dole said in a statement released by the Trump campaign. "It is important that their votes be honored and it is time that we support the party's presumptive nominee."

Dole had previously endorsed Jeb Bush and slammed Ted Cruz as an extremist liked by nobody in Congress. Interviewed in December here, Dole took particular exception to Ted Cruz calling Mitch McConnell a liar on the floor of the Senate.  The irony of the campaign is that Donald Trump has made that charge stick to Ted Cruz instead. There are the Ted Cruz principles, and then there are the Bob Dole principles.

Sleeping with the enemy for 23 years, Bush cheerleader Mary Matalin switches to Libertarian Party

Quoted here:

"I'm not a Republican for a party or a person," she explained, adding she pledged party loyalty in more of a "Jeffersonian, Madisonian sense." For her, the Libertarian Party "continues to represent those constitutional principles that I agree with." Matalin, who served as the campaign director for Bush No. 41 and as an assistant to Bush No. 43, swears her latest move isn't because of Donald Trump's ascension in the GOP, noting that so far she likes what she sees. 

Elsewhere she tried to explain:

“I didn’t leave it, it left me,” she added. “When we had a standard-bearer with impeccable credentials in Ted Cruz and he’s loathed by the party leaders and he’s called a ‘wacko bird’ by the party leaders, where does that leave us? They left us!” 

Evidently this is about the complete absence of any Republican commitment to reign in the size and scope of the federal government, but why doesn't she just come out and say so if that's what this is about? You know, like maybe mention Obamacare and Cromnibus?

That said, government got pretty big and intrusive under her pals George Herbert Walker Bush and his son George W. Bush when they were presidents. Hate speech legislation, Americans with Disabilities Act, savings and loan bailouts, drugs for seniors, TARP, et cetera. Where was the libertarian outrage then, huh?

At least we know she can't stand the John McCain, Lindsey Graham wing of the Republican Party.

After siding with Ted Cruz, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence quickly endorses Trump after The Donald sweeps the state

Story here.

Ted Cruz-Mark Levin-Rush Limbaugh conservatism UTTERLY REPUDIATED IN EVERY INDIANA CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

Where the true conservatism of American hearth, home and altar screamed "NO"! Indiana was a referendum on what Ross Douthat calls "True Conservatism", where it lost, in contrast to "ideological" Wisconsin, where it won:

In the days before and after the Wisconsin primary, with delegate accumulation going his way and the polling looking plausible once the Northeastern primaries were over, it seemed like Cruz could reasonably hope for a nomination on the second or third ballot. ... But it turned out that Republican voters didn’t want True Conservatism any more than they wanted Bushism 2.0. Maybe they would have wanted it from a candidate with more charisma and charm and less dogged unlikability. But the entire Trump phenomenon suggests otherwise, and Trump as the presumptive nominee is basically a long proof against the True Conservative theory of the Republican Party.

Small man: Trump congratulated Cruz last night, but Cruz didn't reciprocate

CNN has the Trump video here.

The only cabinet Ted Cruz will be consulting

Rush Limbaugh caller "New Jersey George" explains how Ted Cruz picked a fight with midwest common sense in Indiana and lost

The video of the confrontation with the "do the math" Trump supporter is here. Cruz changed the subject to anything but the fact that he no longer had a path to 1237, and never justified his staying in the race.

From the Rush Limbaugh transcript, here:

CALLER:  Okay, Rush.  Thank you for taking my call.  Been with you for many years.  Love you.  I just have this feeling -- I don't know why -- but I just have a feeling that you're a Cruz supporter.  Not a Trump supporter, I can't find that, but that's how I feel.  But the reason I called, I just wanted to defend the guy that you called brain-dead yesterday.  I watched that interview from the beginning, and, you know, we'll call him "braid-dead" since we don't know his name.  He was a very polite protester.  He was standing on the street with a Trump sign, and he wasn't bothering anybody, and, lo and behold, who comes along to cross the street, Ted Cruz.

Now, Cruz confronted him, and in the very beginning of the conversation, the number 1237 came up, and the guy knew what 1237 was, and he told Cruz in his opinion that Trump was gonna hit the 1237 and in his opinion would probably go over that.  And then he also asked Cruz a question.  He said, "I'd like to ask you a question.  Why don't you step out of the race because you've indicated that Kasich should step out, and, since you've indicated that, you think that Kasich can't make it, and neither do we think that you can, why don't you step out?" 

Now, the reason I mentioned these couple things to you, that doesn't seem to me as a brain-dead person.  That's just my opinion.  And a brain-dead person is just gonna stand there and look brain-dead.  This guy had some some some substance there.  So I didn't think it was fair that you labeled him as brain-dead.  Then Cruz started his stump speech.  And the guy was polite.  He was listening and listening and listening, and Cruz was going over all his stump speech.  And I think the guy had had it and finally didn't want to hear anything more, and he started yelling, you know, Lyin' Ted, Lyin' Ted, and he had had it.  And that's just my opinion.  And I -- I just feel that you labeled him wrong.  And I might even think that sometimes maybe I might be part of the brain-dead crowd. 

Another thing I just wanted to put in there real quick, I have a cleaning lady that was in my house yesterday, and she's from Thailand.  And Trump came on television, and she looked up and she said, I used to work for him.  I live 30 miles from Atlantic City.  So she said, I used to work for him.  And my wife said, what did you think?  Again.  And she said, he was very nice, he was a very nice person, he treated me with respect, and so did he treat all of us.

Now, they were just cleaning people in Trump's casino.  One other quickie.  I was in a restaurant a couple weeks ago, and the owner who I know came up to me, and he knows I'm a Trump guy, and he said I just gotta tell you something, he said I just had a guy was in here, and he got caught up in Trump's problems with the casino and he lost a hundred thousand dollars in the bankruptcy.  He said, but I'm gonna tell you something.  I lost a hundred G's, he says I'm gonna tell you, I'm voting for him.  You know why?  He's a straight shooter.  He said he got caught up in a bad situation, and he did his very best, he says, so he's got my vote.  I just wanted to pass these things on, and I want to tell you, I love you, I'll always be with you.

Indiana rejects Ted Cruz, who suspends a campaign descending into ugliness

A better man who really cared about the party and the country would have gotten out after Pennsylvania. Then again, a better man wouldn't have pulled a dirty trick in Iowa, or in Utah. How anyone can take the guy seriously as a Christian values candidate going forward is beyond me. Better to have bowed out earlier and salvaged a future for himself, but that was not possible for the man in a hurry.

Why does Glenn Beck still look like he could stand to fast like he's never fasted before?

I thought he was fasting every Tuesday for Ted Cruz.

And just how do you do that, fasting like you've never fasted before? If I'm not eating anything, I can't eat any less, can I?

Or is there some secret eatin' goin' on in Mormon fasting that I don't know about, which you can forego and then REALLY fast?

Oh boy, he really must mean it this time!

58% of Hoosiers disapprove of Ted Cruz/John Kasich tag-teaming to defeat Donald Trump

A question in the NBC/WSJ/Marist poll here showing Trump +15 in Indiana.

Ted Cruz' problem: He was for a wall in 2011 and 2012, but it's STILL not the centerpiece of his campaign

Patterico had the evidence of Ted Cruz' support for a wall in 2011 and 2012 in February 2016 here.

But Ted's problem is that he's FOR all kinds of stuff, and AGAINST all kinds of stuff, but nobody seems to believe him, primarily because he's too smart and too slick.

People believe Trump, because he's neither.

Scott Rasmussen didn't sound very happy about it on Mark Levin's show, but Trump and Hillary are tied at 38%

The punditocracy is increasingly unhappy about the popularity of Donald Trump with the Republican electorate. Scott Rasmussen seemed oddly eager to discuss the prospects for Ted Cruz against Trump in Indiana and the west.

Rasmussen Reports reported earlier here:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters finds Trump and Clinton tied at 38% each. But 16% say they would vote for some other candidate if the presidential election comes down to those two, while six percent (6%) would stay home. Only two percent (2%) are undecided given those options.