Friday, March 18, 2016

USA Today: Congress had a right to access Hillary Clinton’s emails as part of their investigation regardless of motive


Nevertheless, members of Congress, like reporters and the public, had a right to access Clinton’s emails as part of their investigation regardless of motive. And were it not for the dogged partisanship of Republicans and the actions of a hacker, Clinton’s private email system might never have come to light.

Nine days after the Benghazi attack, Congress asked for any State Department emails related to the subject. It took two years before Congress was given access to a single email from Clinton’s private account. By then, four House committees and two Senate committees had already issued their reports on the issue.

Ted Cruz has at most 423 delegates and NO path to 1237

Ted Cruz needs 814 more, almost 77% of the remaining 1059 delegates, to get to 1237.

Ain't gonna happen.

Update:

Cruz has won not quite 30% of the 1413 delegates already allocated.

To win 77% of the remaining delegates means improving his performance to date by 156%.

Trump needs at most 559 delegates: That's 52.78% of the 1059 remaining

Trump has accumulated at least 678 of 1413 delegates awarded so far, 47.98%.

Trump's current total of 678 will rise (to 690?) after Missouri is adjudicated, so he actually needs fewer than 559 delegates (547?).

Missouri expects to award Trump an additional 12 delegates on top of the current 25, as reported here:

On Wednesday, the Missouri Republican Party announced Trump had won 37 delegates, and Cruz won 15.

About only one third of remaining delegates come from states with proportional contests. The rest are in winner take all states.

The combined popular vote for Trump & Cruz is beating Rubio & Kasich by 2.1 to 1


Bonehead Erick Erickson should stop with the kooky Rick Perry shtick already

Noted here:

[A] meeting among a small group of “GOP operatives” and “conservative leaders" ... included talk of a third-party alternative to take on Trump in the general election. 

One of the meeting’s participants, conservative radio host Erick Erickson, told Fox News on Thursday that the idea of a third-party bid was proposed at the meeting as a “final fallback option” to stop Trump.

... Earlier this year, Erickson publicly and privately pitched a potential third-party bid by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whose presidential campaigns in 2012 and this cycle did not catch fire. The effort became serious enough that a group of donors contacted Perry directly a few weeks ago, asking him to consider it, but he would not entertain the idea.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Hey Mark Levin: There's nothing unconstitutional about a compact between the executive and the people . . .

. . . against a judiciary run amok and a congress which no longer represents the people.

It was done in England between the king and his subjects. It can be done here between the president and the voters.

The founders were wiser than you. 

Let me translate this Ted Cruz statement for you

Cruz: Every Day Kasich Stays In The Race, It Benefits Donald Trump

Translation: Every day Kasich stays in the race hurts me.

Kasich isn't too smart: Neither Trump nor Cruz can win a general election


“Neither of those guys can win a general election,” he told reporters after a town hall-style event outside Philadelphia.

Oh yeah?

Ohio results from Tuesday:

Trump: 727,585
Clinton: 679,266

Missouri results from Tuesday:

Cruz: 380,367
Clinton: 310,602

Marco Rubio drops primary ballot challenge to John Kasich in Pennsylvania: Kasich short of the needed 2,000

So it wasn't a matter of principle at work to Rubio, just self-interest while he was still a candidate. Dropping the challenge now that he's out ensures that Rubio's spoiler strategy continues in the person of John Kasich. Denying Trump delegates is still the mission.

Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity keep misrepresenting Marco Rubio as a conservative. Little Marco's actions even now prove otherwise.

From the story here:

The Kasich campaign's lawyer had agreed that Kasich's paperwork was eight valid signatures short of the 2,000 required, but he maintained that the challenge was invalid because it was filed after the deadline.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Florida's Rick Scott joins three other governors endorsing Trump

Noted here:

Florida Gov. Rick Scott is calling on the Republican Party to come together and support Donald Trump. ... Trump has earned the endorsements of current governors Chris Christie of New Jersey, Paul LePage of Maine, and Jan Brewer, the former governor of Arizona.

Told you so: Trump needs only to maintain his current level of support to win, not increase it

The New York Times, here:

If Mr. Trump maintains his current level of support in the remaining races, he would almost certainly secure the nomination.

With delegate allocation still incomplete at Real Clear Politics after yesterday's primaries, Donald Trump needs to garner less than 53% of the remaining delegates to win, a level consistent with his actual performance at the beginning of March (see here).

Trump has consistently needed between 50% and 54% of outstanding delegates to win throughout the period to date since February contests ended.

With his wins yesterday the percentage needed is moving back toward 50%, indicating his momentum is increasing.


Good news, Trump pulls the trigger: No more Republican debates

Story here.

His first executive order.

John Boehner voted for Kasich yesterday, calls Cruz "lucifer" and wants Paul Ryan if no one wins the primaries


"If we don't have a nominee who can win on the first ballot, I'm for none of the above," Boehner said at the Futures Industry Association conference here. "They all had a chance to win. None of them won. So I'm for none of the above. I'm for Paul Ryan to be our nominee."

Trump crushes previous nominees' performance yesterday and Limbaugh talks John Kasich, Marco Rubio and a shooting story

speech last night by Marco Rubio suspending his campaign proves to Limbaugh that Marco is the real deal while his one accomplishment in an otherwise feckless Senate career proves otherwise, that's what you should be thinking about.

Maybe Rush is waiting for the drugs to kick in. 

Trump 2016 handily beats both McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012 in OH, IL, FL, MO, NC primaries by 39% (but not Romney in NC)

Ohio: McCain 636,256 Romney 460,831 Trump 727,832 (Trump by 14% over McCain)

Illinois: McCain 426,777 Romney 435,859 Trump 548,528 (Trump by 26% over Romney)

Florida: McCain 701,761 Romney 776,159 Trump 1,075,094 (Trump by 39% over Romney)

Missouri: McCain 194,145 Romney 63,882 Trump 382,093 (Trump by 97% over McCain)

North Carolina: McCain 383,085 Romney 638,601 (both were May cleanup primaries by the defacto nominees), Trump 458,151

Overall Trump by 39%: McCain 2.34 million Romney 2.37 million Trump 3.2 million 

Republican primary turnout in 2016 up 52% from 2008 in OH, IL, FL, MO and NC, Democrat enthusiasm in 2008 still beats by 9%

2008: 5.05 million
2016: 7.66 million

In the five states mentioned Republicans are voting in numbers 17.5% higher than Democrats in 2016.

In 2008 Democrats had all the enthusiasm: Democrats turned out in numbers 65% higher than Republicans.

Democrat turnout in these states in 2008 still beats Republican turnout in 2016 by 9%.

Democrat primary turnout down 22% overall from 2008 in OH, IL, FL, MO and NC combined

2008: 8.35 million
2016: 6.52 million

Missouri Primary 2016 turnout up 50% among Republicans, down 25% among Democrats compared to 2008

With Missouri still officially too close to call but with Trump in the lead by 1,726 votes in the Republican primary over Ted Cruz, turnout in 2016 is running 0.9 million v 0.6 million in 2008, up 50%.

Democrat turnout is down 25% at 0.6 million in 2016 v 0.8 million in 2008 with Hillary Clinton leading Bernie Sanders by 1,531 votes.

North Carolina Primary 2016 turnout about equal for both parties, just like in 2012

Republicans turned out 1.1 million in 2016 while Democrats turned out 1.08 million, rising just 13% and 11% over 2012 respectively.

In 2012 each party turned out 0.97 million in North Carolina (Obama of course was the Democrat incumbent president that year; Romney swept with almost 66% of the vote).

In 2008 Republicans turned out only 0.5 million (McCain swept with 74%) while 1.6 million Democrats duked out their contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Clinton lost to Obama by 230,000 votes in 2008, but in 2016 she has beaten Bernie Sanders by 156,000.

Trump's victory over Cruz in 2016 is by less than 40,000 votes.

Florida Republican Primary 2016 turnout up big as homeboys Trump and Rubio duke it out

Democrat turnout fell slightly from 1.75 million in 2008 to 1.66 million in 2016, about 5%.

Florida's closed Republican primary saw 2016 turnout rise to 2.27 million from 1.95 million in 2008 and 1.7 million in 2012, up 16% and 34% respectively.