Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Trump unfurls frugal $24 million slingshot, fells $157 million giant named Bush
WaPo reports here:
[Y]ou have to give Trump a lot of credit for grasping early on that he didn't need to blanket the Iowa or New Hampshire airwaves with costly ads. Instead, he just sent tweets. Or called into "Morning Joe." Like it or not, Trump has redefined what money -- or, more specifically, fundraising -- means in the context of political campaigns.
ICE officer Chris Crane challenges Marco Rubio to meeting after Rubio lies about his status on FOX
Reported here:
“You recently lied to the American public on FOX news regarding my current status and career as both an ICE Agent and Officer,” Crane writes in his email to Rubio. “I challenge you to make yourself available, as a United States Senator and Presidential Candidate, so that I may present my badge and credentials to you as proof that your comments on FOX news are false.”
Monday, February 22, 2016
Ex-Bush Establishment Republicans swarm to Marco Rubio like flies to a rotting corpse
Lavishly reported here about the candidate who so far is nothing but a loser:
Throughout Monday, a string of ex-Bush backers from across the country gravitated to the Florida senator, including former Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). In South Florida, Republican Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Curbelo and former congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart — all of whom had backed Bush — also announced their support.
Rubio also picked up supporters who previously stood in the sidelines of the race, like former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty and Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).
On the donor side, in addition to Kilberg, former ambassador Francis Rooney, who gave more than $2 million to a pro-Bush super PAC through his holding company, is now with Rubio. So is financial industry executive Muneer Satter, who also made a big investment on behalf of Bush.
New York attorney Phil Rosen, a major Republican fundraiser, said he has spent the last two days on the phone with former Bush donors now eager to join the Rubio effort.
“They have a lot of disappointment about Jeb, but they are ready to put full steam ahead for Marco,” said Rosen, who said he has gotten commitments from 15 top Bush bundlers. ...
Rubio’s backers concede that a loss in his home state to Trump would likely be a fatal blow.
Local sheriffs rise in support of ICE officer Chris Crane who was dismissed and discredited by Marco Rubio
From the story here:
Sheriff Tom Hodgson of Bristol County, Massachusetts similarly defended Crane against Rubio’s attacks.
“I’m not sure what Sen. Rubio is talking about,” the Massachusetts Sheriff said. “I don’t understand why Sen. Rubio would say that about Chris Crane. Anyone who has worked on the immigration issue knows that Crane is a federal ICE agent who is fighting for law enforcement to be able to do its job and protect our borders, so that the people we’re sworn to protect are not victimized financially or criminally.
“I’m really surprised by Rubio’s comment,” Sheriff Hodgson continued. “He knows very well who Chris Crane is. He met with law enforcement at some point [during the Gang of Eight push] when we were telling him that he had the wrong position on this issue.”
Laugh of the Day: 80% of Republicans reject Marco Rubio!
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Larry Kudlow made the right call NOT to run for the US Senate
Noted here:
A day earlier, Kudlow had announced that he would not run for the Senate from Connecticut. He had been toying with the notion for some time, and while there are many reasons not to go to Washington — he says he loves what he is doing now — he realized as he was touring the state that he had missed some AA meetings. “It’s not a good thing for me,” he told the New York Post.
Steady as she goes, Larry.
South Carolina primary turnout up 21.1% over 2012
Reported here.
730,000 in 2016 v 603,000 in 2012.
Trump received 44.6% more votes than second place finisher Rubio, or 1.45 votes to every vote for Rubio despite Gov. Nikki Haley's endorsement.
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.
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.
Saturday, February 20, 2016
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.
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.
Friday, February 19, 2016
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.
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Governor Nikki Haley, not a natural born citizen who took down the Confederate flag, endorses not a natural born citizen Marco Rubio for president
Or: anchor baby endorses anchor baby, which won't fly.
From another story here:
Haley’s parents moved to South Carolina in 1969; she was born in January 1972. In those days, it took at least five years to be naturalized. So it’s evident Haley’s parents weren’t U.S. citizens at her birth. Thus she is ineligible to the offices of president and vice-president. For both, the Constitution says one must be a “natural born Citizen” of the United States, a deliberately higher standard than simple citizenship. ... Haley doesn’t make the cut. Neither do Cruz, Rubio, Jindal, and nor did—yes—Barack Obama. My question for the future: was Columba Bush a U.S. citizen when George P. was born?
Marco Rubio was frequently absent for high profile Florida 9/11 committee meetings just like he's absent in the US Senate
It's not a bug. It's a feature. Expect that also if elected president.
WaPo reports here:
Rubio did not give the job the attention that legislative leaders expected. He skipped nearly half of the meetings over the first five months of the panel’s existence, more than any of his colleagues, according to Florida legislature records. He missed hours of expert testimony and was absent for more than 20 votes — prompting the state House speaker who had given him the assignment to express concern, the committee’s chairman said.
Laugh of the Day: It used to be just a rhetorical question to ask "Is the pope catholic?"
Now it's a legitimate one.
Rush Limbaugh, just now.
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
When Marco Rubio was city commissioner of West Miami in 1998 he voted for Honduran amnesty
Reported here:
While serving as a city commissioner in West Miami, Marco Rubio voted in favor of a city resolution urging the federal government to give Honduran illegal immigrants permanent resident status and free them from risk of deportation, according to documents obtained by The Daily Caller.
So that pushes back the timeline of his pro-amnesty sympathies to before 2006 when he was Speaker of the Florida House all the way to 1998.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Rush Limbaugh oversleeps and asks "Where's the conservatism?" when it's wherever Trump holds a rally
Here, today:
But there are a lot of people who have been donating to Republicans, and a lot of people who think they've been giving money to conservatives and conservative causes, and they've started asking themselves, what are they getting for it? Where is all this conservatism? People solicit money in Washington to keep conservatism alive, in Washington, in the Republican Party. "We're the guys that can do it. We have the contacts. We help 'em write policy. We help 'em understand policy." Great, great, that's fabulous, but where is it, a lot of people are asking.
Where is all the conservatism? Is it on Fox News? Is it National Review? Is it over at the American Spectator? Where is it? It isn't in the Republican Party. That is for darn sure, and so many people are livid about that. I'm talking about the party establishment. Yes, Ted Cruz. Look, what more do you want me to say? Ted Cruz is the closest living thing to Ronald Reagan we're ever gonna have in our lifetimes. I don't know what more I can say about Ted Cruz.
Trump's BASE is 40% of the country
After that he doesn't need very much more to win it.
From Mark Cunningham, here:
From the start, Trump targeted the (mostly) white working class, which happens to be 40 percent of the country. And he’s done it not just with issues, but with how he talks — the ball-busting, the “bragging,” the over-the-top promises.
Monday, February 15, 2016
Frank Luntz finally admits he worked for Marco Rubio in Florida: FOX would fire him if they had any integrity
Quoted here:
Pollster Frank Luntz acknowledges that he took money to help shape Sen. Marco Rubio's (R-FL) political career, a fact that he did not disclose while praising Rubio on Fox News and on social media. ... Luntz admitted to Breitbart News that he once accepted payment to work for Rubio. “Yeah, nine years ago,” Luntz admitted. “Nine years ago.” Luntz defended the supposed impartiality of his post-debate focus groups.
Ten Senate Republicans got Loretta Lynch confirmed as Attorney General, maybe to SCOTUS too?
Without these ten Republican traitors, Loretta Lynch never would have been confirmed to the post of Attorney General (Roll Call Vote: 56-43 here, April 23, 2015):
Ayotte, New Hampshire !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cochran, Mississippi
Collins, Maine
Flake, Arizona
Graham, South Carolina
Hatch, Utah
Johnson, Wisconsin !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kirk, Illinois !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
McConnell, Kentucky
Portman, Ohio !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!: vulnerable to defeat in election 2016)
Ted Cruz was too busy to vote, but Marco Rubio did.
From a story about Lynch here:
Lynch would be the first black woman ever nominated to the nation's highest court — and the GOP would have a political problem during an election year if the Republicans refused to even consider her nomination, Goldstein wrote.
"I think the administration would relish the prospect of Republicans either refusing to give Lynch a vote or seeming to treat her unfairly in the confirmation process," Goldstein wrote. "Either eventuality would motivate both black and women voters."
Mock Trump and Code Pink all you want, Pat Buchanan still asserts we found no WMD in Iraq, no connection to 9/11, and Bush lied about it
Of the three goals of the war, none was achieved. No weapon of mass destruction was found. While Saddam and his sons paid for their sins, they had had nothing at all to do with 9/11. Nothing. That had all been mendacious propaganda.
Where there had been no al-Qaida in Iraq while Saddam ruled, al-Qaida is crawling all over Iraq now. Where Iraq had been an Arab Sunni bulwark confronting Iran in 2003, a decade later, Iraq is tilting away from the Sunni camp toward the Shia crescent of Iran and Hezbollah.
What was the cost in blood and treasure of our Mesopotamian misadventure? Four thousand five hundred U.S. dead, 35,000 wounded and this summary of war costs from Friday’s Wall Street Journal:
“The decade-long (Iraq) effort cost $1.7 trillion, according to a study … by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. Fighting over the past 10 years has killed 134,000 Iraqi civilians … . Meanwhile, the nearly $500 billion in unpaid benefits to U.S. veterans of the Iraq war could balloon to $6 trillion” over the next 40 years. ...
We are not known as a reflective people. But a question has to weigh upon us. If Saddam had no WMD, had no role in 9/11, did not attack us, did not threaten us, and did not want war with us, was our unprovoked attack on that country a truly just and moral war?
Laugh of the Day: Unnamed Politico SC Republican "insider" robot repeats "Rubio is back. Rubio is back. Rubio is back."
Reported here, where the "insiders" agree Donald Trump lost the debate badly:
“Rubio is back. Rubio is back. Rubio is back,” said a South Carolina Republican of Rubio, who last week was criticized for repeating the same lines. “He dismantled Cruz without getting too entangled with Trump. If South Carolina voters were paying attention tonight, this could be a huge boost for him.”
Ted Cruz was all in for John Roberts in 2005, but Ann Coulter, who now supports Trump, wasn't. Any questions?
Ann Coulter, July 20, 2005, here:
But why on earth would Bush waste a nomination on a person who is a complete blank slate when we have a majority in the Senate!
We also have a majority in the House, state legislatures, state governorships, and have won five of the last seven presidential elections -- seven of the last 10!
We're the Harlem Globetrotters now. Why do we have to play like we're the Washington Generals every week?
Conservatism is sweeping the nation, we have a fully functioning alternative media, we're ticked off and ready to avenge Robert Bork ... and Bush nominates a Rorschach blot. ...
Maybe Roberts will contravene the sordid history of "stealth nominees" and be the Scalia or Thomas that Bush promised us when he was asking for our votes. Or maybe he won't. The Supreme Court shouldn't be a game of Russian roulette.
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Trump was right: While solicitor general of Texas Ted Cruz wrote on behalf of John Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court
You know, on behalf of the guy who TWICE had the chance to deep six Obamacare, but didn't.
Here, in National Review, July 20, 2005.
Timeline of the 7-month Lewis Powell vacancy
Justice Lewis Powell retired June 26, 1987.
President Reagan nominated Robert Bork on July 1, but he was not confirmed by the Senate on October 23.
Douglas Ginsburg was nominated in turn on October 29, but subsequently withdrew.
Anthony Kennedy was nominated on November 30, and confirmed on February 3, 1988, with just under a year left in Reagan's presidency.
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