The daughter of anti-Trump billionaire Marlene Ricketts is a gay activist and bundler for Barack Obama

Seen here:

Laura M. Ricketts is co-owner of the Chicago Cubs. Ricketts is also a board member of Lambda Legal and the Housing Opportunities for Women organization. Ricketts' ownership stake in the Cubs is uniquely noteworthy because it makes her the first openly gay owner of a major-league sports franchise. ... Laura Ricketts is a former corporate lawyer. She lives with her partner on the North Side of Chicago. Ricketts received her Bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1994, and her Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School in 1998. Laura talks of her own struggle to come out; "I came out to my family I would say early to mid 90s. I think for a long time I wasn't really out to myself growing up in Omaha, Neb., to a Catholic conservative family. It took me a while to come out to myself and not long after that I came out to them. I think that it really couldn't have been a better experience. They were all immediately supportive. ... I have been really really fortunate in that regard."

The Washington Post reported in 2012 that Laura Ricketts raised about half a million dollars for Obama, here:

[Joe] Ricketts has an unusual profile for a rising political player, with little in his résumé to suggest that he favors controversial or attention-getting tactics.

A former Democrat who became a Republican, he later renounced all party affiliation to become an independent. His daughter, Laura, is a lesbian activist and prominent bundler for Obama; she raised about half a million dollars for the president.

Joe Ricketts, Pete, Todd, Laura, wife Marlene, and Tom

Marlene Ricketts, whose family bought the always-losing Chicago Cubs in 2009, is bankrolling the anti-Trump effort

The New York Times reports here:

The wife of Joe Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade and a major Republican donor, wrote a $3 million check to a group focused on halting the rise of Donald J. Trump, an adviser to the family confirmed on Saturday evening.

Marlene Ricketts, who had previously donated several million dollars to a “super PAC” supporting Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin before he exited the presidential race, wrote the check to Our Principles PAC, which was founded by Katie Packer, a former adviser to Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.

Separately The Hill reports here that the super PAC has spent more than $4 million trying to stop Trump just in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina:

The super-PAC has spent more than $4 million running attack ads against the GOP front-runner in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. It is the only serious anti-Trump group to date, in a campaign cycle where Republicans have been reluctant to take on their front-runner. ... Ricketts' family had previously given $5 million to a super-PAC supporting the failed presidential bid of Scott Walker. The family is yet to swing its full weight behind another presidential candidate, but clearly likes both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. In June last year, Marlene Ricketts gave $10,000 to super-PACs supporting Rubio and Cruz.

Let's see. Cubs? Losers. Scott Walker? Loser. Mitt Romney? Loser.

Go Trump! Go White Sox!

In the South Carolina GOP primary the polling averaged a miss of 16.1% v 14.2% in New Hampshire

The Real Clear Politics poll average predicted the lineup of the outcome in South Carolina, but the percentage of the vote received was off on average by 16.1%, with the polls getting it most wrong about Jeb Bush who underperformed predictions by 37.2%. The polling was most accurate for Trump, who outperformed the predicted result by only 2.2%.

Trump 31.8% v 32.5% actual = outperformed polling by 2.2%

Rubio 18.8% v 22.5% actual = outperformed polling by 16.4%

Cruz 18.5% v 22.3% actual = outperformed polling by 17%

Bush 10.7% v 7.8% actual = underperformed polling by 37.2%

Kasich 9.0% v 7.6% actual = underperformed polling by 18.4%

Carson 6.8% v 7.2% actual = outperformed polling by 5.6%

Average variance of actual result from polling in South Carolina = 16.1%, 13% worse than in New Hampshire. On the other hand, polling in New Hampshire did not predict the lineup of the result as it did in South Carolina, except for Trump who came in first and Chris Christie who came in sixth as predicted by the polls there.

It looks like the polling in South Carolina for establishment candidates Bush and Kasich has been especially expressive of wishful thinking, since both have fallen far short of expectations.

It was bad enough that Bush has already dropped out, and rather ignominiously. A falloff in donations to Bush has been said to be an important reason why he decided to quit at this still early stage, which just goes to show what a spendthrift the richest guy in the campaign next to Trump has been. He would have been a bad president for government spending too.

Trump wins South Carolina GOP primary with 32.5% of the vote, 10 points ahead of Rubio and Cruz

Jeb! folds like a house of cards

Pretty pathetic way to end it. The New York Times provides not a single statement on the record from the campaign.

Story here.

Larry Kudlow will NOT run in Connecticut for US Senate

Reported here four days ago.

January 2016 was warmest January in satellite record since 1979 but warming pause extends to 18yrs & 8mos

So says Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, here:

The sharp el Niño spike is just about to abolish the long Pause in global temperatures – at least for now. This column has long foretold that the present el Niño would be substantial, and that it might at least shorten if not extinguish the Pause. After all, theory requires that some global warming ought to occur.

This month, though, the Pause clings on. Though January 2016 was the warmest January in the RSS satellite record since 1979, the El Niño spike has not yet lasted long enough to end the Pause. That will happen by next month’s report. The RSS data still show no global warming for 18 years 8 months, notwithstanding record increases in CO2 concentration over the period.

America's metropolitan elite expresses nothing short of naked disdain for the working class

Clive Crook, here:

I'm a British immigrant, and grew up in a northern English working-class town. Taking my regional accent to Oxford University and then the British civil service, I learned a certain amount about my own class consciousness and other people's snobbery. But in London or Oxford from the 1970s onwards I never witnessed the naked disdain for the working class that much of America's metropolitan elite finds permissible in 2016.  

Limited government: One Supreme Court justice down, two to go

The wrong one is down, mind you, but the Founders' Court had only six members, not nine (eight) as now, according to The Weekly Standard in "Eight is Enough (for Now)".

A Donald Trump administration, in addition to closing the Department of Education, could easily save some dough and restore some probity to the court by not appointing a ninth justice, nor an eighth nor a seventh should the opportunity arise, er .... fall:

"An even-numbered Court seems to be more conducive to judicial restraint."

He'd just have to make sure to appoint if another justice with common sense dies.

As polls open in South Carolina, Real Clear Politics poll average projects Trump in first with 31%

The massive SC House GOP poll, incidentally, has an MoE of 2.0, not 2.9: With its 4% undecided, look for Trump to win it with 28-30% at worst

Marco Rubio's treatment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is nothing short of disgraceful

The ugly details are reported here.

Trump reiterates opposition to Obamacare and individual mandate

The term "conservative" has become nearly meaningless in South Carolina

Moderate Republicans tonight perceive Trump and Rubio more like themselves than the other candidates

The division in the Tea Party between religious conservatives and libertarians is starkly evident in South Carolina

Data from the SC House GOP poll of 3,500 likely voters shown tonight at Real Clear Politics indicates the Tea Party in South Carolina is evenly divided between religious supporters of Ted Cruz and nationalist supporters of Donald Trump (establishment candidates Bush and Kasich hardly register):

In South Carolina Trump is capturing the libertarians and independents Rand Paul once hoped to bring together

Data from the latest SC House GOP poll of 3,500 likely voters shown at Real Clear Politics:

Rush Limbaugh tries to undermine Trump emphasizing today that Trump backtracked on the-Bush-lied charge

But examine the transcript at length from last night's townhall when Trump addressed the Iraq war and you'll see Trump is sticking to his guns:

QUESTION: So - so do you think - do you think the president of the United States, George W. Bush, lied to the American people? 

TRUMP: Well, look, I'm not going to get your vote, but that's OK. Let me just (inaudible). QUESTION: I'm just giving you another shot at it. 

TRUMP: Let me - let me tell you something. I'll tell you it very simply. It may have been the worst decision - going into Iraq may have been the worst decision anybody has made, any president has made in the history of this country. That's how bad it is, OK?

Limbaugh's been under a lot of pressure from callers this week accusing him of stilted coverage which has showcased Trump at the expense of Cruz and the others. The last couple of days have suddenly featured more self-conscious attempts to show Rush's independence by including less than flattering coverage of Trump. It's not very convincing.

Limbaugh knows Ted's a losing proposition, but isn't all-in for the popular and undoctrinaire conservative Trump, whom Limbaugh customarily calls a non ideological candidate. The absence of that is what is holding Limbaugh back.

Rush Limbaugh doesn't get it that Trump turned the idea of a healthcare mandate on its head in last night's townhall remarks

When Trump said last night (transcript here) "Well I like the mandate" he didn't mean the individual mandate in Obamacare. Trump may not even have been aware that that's what Anderson Cooper was talking about.

Instead, Trump has his own idea in his head which means that there ought to be a mandate which applies to the government, not to the individual, which states that it is government's responsibility to provide healthcare to people who can't afford it and would die without it:

"I don't want people dying on the streets and I say this all the time."

"The Republican people, they're wonderful people. They don't want people dying on the streets."

"[T]here's going to a group of people at the bottom - people that haven't done well. People that don't have any money that won't be able to be care of [sic]. We're going to take care of them through maybe concepts of Medicare."

"You cannot let people die on the street, OK?" 

"That's called heart. We gotta take care of people that can't take care of themselves."

That's all that's going on there, folks, despite what Ted Cruz partisan Rush Limbaugh is telling you in the show opener today. The mandate's in the "we're going to" and the "cannot" and the "gotta" in those statements.

Capisce?    

Ralph Peters (ahem) rips Tim Cook a new one (ahem) for being such a queen (double ahem)

There's gotta be at least four in-you-endos in there.

Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

Here:

"Tim Cook is acting like Hillary Clinton - above the law, better than the rest of us."

Patrick J. Buchanan: Trump is rising because he's repudiating the Bush clan's anti-conservative policies

Patrick J. Buchanan, here:

“In the GOP nomination race, the chickens of a quarter century of Bush Republicanism have come home to roost,” Buchanan told Breitbart. “Trump’s triumphs to date are due to his recognition of, and identification with, the Middle American revolt against Bush family ideology and policy, and what it has produced.” ... “After the judges and tax cuts, what is there about Bush that is conservative? His foreign policy is Wilsonian. His trade policy is pure FDR. His spending is LBJ all the way. His amnesty for illegals is Teddy Kennedy’s policy… In smearing as nativists, protectionists and isolationists those who wish to stop the invasion, halt the export of factories and jobs to Asia, and stop the unnecessary wars, Bush is attacking the last true conservatives in his party.”

The True Born Sons of Liberty called on Republicans to repudiate the Bushes in July 2011 here:

A Credible Republican Candidate For President in 2012 . . . will be first and foremost the one who forthrightly repudiates the legacy of George W. Bush.