Free Republic

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has one option if he wants to win the Republican nomination. Tomorrow night, during a debate with Donald Trump, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Ohio Governor John Kasich, and Dr. Ben Carson, Cruz must clock Trump as hard as he can with his best rhetorical punch. He can't be lawyerly. He can't be civil. He has to get in the mud with Trump and pulverize him. There are three reasons for that. Rubio Will Never Drop Out... Rubio's going nowhere... Cruz Must Win More Than Texas On March 1, Or he's toast. Again, the fact that Rubio...

So says Bill Kristol, citing "a political operative whom I've known a long time and whose integrity I trust" and who's currently working with an organization, presumably a Super PAC, in SC. Is this data credible? Well, when we're bearing down on a key vote and we're starving for numbers in a state that hasn't been surveyed by a major pollster in three weeks, let's just say it's credible enough for a post: Here's what the pollster found: Trump 32 Cruz 26 Rubio 20 Bush 10 Carson 7 Kasich 2 Rich Lowry is hearing of similar numbers in another private...

...he will reap the benefits on March 1. Almost one-quarter of the available delegates are up for grabs that day, mostly in primaries in the Deep South. That already favors Cruz, not least because his home state of Texas offers the most delegates, but Rubio's slide will help him even more. In all of those Southern states but one, candidates must reach either 15 or 20 percent of the vote to receive any delegates at all, as we noted last week. Rubio was already only pulling about 10 percent several of those states. With his standing weakened and the so-called...

Rarely and perhaps not in modern times has a presidential campaign more resembled the classic 1957 film, "A Face in the Crowd." Written by Budd Schulberg and starring Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal and Walter Matthau, the storyline follows an Arkansas hayseed named Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes (Griffith), whom Marcia Jeffries (Neal) discovers in a county jail. Jeffries has a local radio show on which she interviews interesting characters. She finds Rhodes irresistible and puts him on the air. Rhodes becomes a sensation, eventually climbing the ladder to his own network TV show and then, as politicians approach him for endorsements, a...

I just got today's Hotline from National Journal. It is behind a pay wall, but it is worth noting their top story confirms what I have been seeing and hearing. Josh Kraushaar writes, It's the $64,000 question for establishment-minded Republicans: Would they rather see Ted Cruz or Donald Trump win the Iowa caucuses, assuming none of the more moderate candidates prevail? In an informal survey of senior GOP strategists, the clear winner was Trump. Their arguments were reasoned but underscored: a) how they're still underestimating Trump; and b) how much they personally hate Cruz to the point where emotion is...

Real-estate tycoon Donald Trump blasted the unnamed "bastard" responsible for setting up a faulty sound system at a Wednesday-night campaign rally. "And by the way, I don't like this mic," Trump said after criticizing US trade policy with China during his speech in Pensacola, Florida. The Republican presidential front-runner then crudely instructed his staff to not pay the person responsible. "Whoever the hell brought this mic system, don't pay the son of a b----," he said. Trump added: "This mic is terrible. Stupid mic keeps popping. Do you hear that George? Don't pay him! Don't pay him. You know, I...

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul gave a literal middle finger to the media Thursday during a radio interview. This comes after Paul's low poll numbers led to his exclusion from Thursday night's main debate stage, which he views as an unfair decision by Fox Business. Paul is skipping the undercard debate and instead hosting a national online town hall.

House Speaker Paul Ryan announced Monday that he has invited two representatives of Little Sisters of the Poor to join him at President Obama's last State of the Union address Tuesday night. Little Sisters of the Poor is an order of Catholic nuns who serve the elderly poor. It's also the group that sought protection from Obamacare's mandate to offer birth control and other drugs in violation of their religious beliefs. Ryan was part of a friend-of-the-court brief filed in support of a case filed with the Supreme Court by the Sisters...

Bernie Sanders leads Hillary Clinton by 14 points in New Hampshire less than a month before the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, a new poll finds. According to a Monmouth University survey released on Tuesday, the Vermont senator takes 53 percent support over the former secretary of State at 39 percent. Clinton led the same poll in November with 48 percent support over Sanders, who was at 45 percent.

Iowa GOP top line. Cruz 28, Trump 24, Rubio 13, Carson 11, Bush 4, Paul 5, Christie 3, Huckabee 2, Fiorina 3, Kasich 2, Santorum 0. If we flash back to the FoxNews poll we have Cruz 27, Trump 23, Rubio 15, Carson 9, Bush 7, Huckabee 2, Paul 5, Christie 4, Fiorina 1, Kasich 1, Santorum 1. Back just before Christmas, Gravis also did an Iowa poll, Gravis, as you know, was the gold standard for Iowa polling in 2014. Cruz 31, Trump 31, Rubio 9, Carson 7, Bush 4, Huckabee 4, Paul 1, Christie 2, Fiorina 3, Kasich...

1. You call yourself an "ardent philanthropist," but have not donated a dollar to The Donald J. Trump Foundation since 2006. You're not even the biggest donor to the foundation, having given about $3.7 million in the previous two decades while businesses associated with Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Entertainment gave the Trump Foundation $5 million. All the money since 2006 has come from those doing business with you. 5. The biggest gift you have talked about appears to be an easement at the Palos Verdes, California, golf course bearing your name on land you wanted to build houses on, but...

How miserly is The Donald? From 1990 through 2009, Trump has personally donated a total of just $3.7 million to his foundation, which was incorporated in 1987. In fact, the billionaire is not even the largest contributor to his own charitable organization. Tax returns show that World Wrestling Entertainment has given Trump’s foundation a total of $5 million in return for the developer’s assistance in working a couple of televised angles along with WWE boss Vince McMahon. The WWE gave Trump’s foundation $4 million in 2007 for his help in promoting that year’s WrestleMania festivities, and another $1 million in...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was again confronted on his 2013 immigration position Friday, being grilled for nearly 10 minutes by Fox News Channel host Greta Van Susteren. In his lengthy “On the Record” interview, Cruz referenced an exchange on immigration he had with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) at Tuesday night’s GOP debate. In that exchange, Rubio confronted Cruz on stage and noted the Texas senator previously seemed to support for legalization of those in the U.S. illegally. Van Susteren followed up on this in her interview Friday. “You supported not citizenship, but giving essentially —,” she said. Cruz interjected, anticipating...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is being honest about his position on the Gang of Eight immigration reform bill in 2013. He opposed the bill, and he introduced an amendment to allow illegal aliens to gain legal status as long as they never became citizens with the right to vote. He did so to show that Democrats were more interested in new votes than in helping illegal aliens. He also did so to show there were conditions under which conservatives would accept immigration reform. That is the story Cruz is telling, and that is exactly how it happened. But Bret Baier...

That's the gist of his comments. I don't know if he gave the sources. I can't remember. But apparently the terrorists names were withheld until CAIR could give a press conference. Beck also said that the translator for the Blind Sheikh was at the press conference.

(Via MediaIte) […] Beck said that he had asked his audience to raise $10 million before Christmas to help take in Christian Syrian refugees. “Stop asking for permission!” he said. “Stop thinking we need permission… We will vet them ourselves. I have former CIA people that are going over and they’re vetting everybody right now. We can save more people by Christmas than Oscar Schindler saved, okay?” Beck said if the State Department refused them entry he’d find them a way in the country, even if he was thrown in jail. “I know some bridges over a river in Texas...

From Friday's program: (11/13/15 13:40) I want to say something briefly and then I'll move along. If Donald Trump continues to attack Ben Carson the way he is currently attacking Ben Carson, I have to affirmatively oppose him. I like the man very much, but the absolute reckless, personal assaults on Ben Carson, who's one of the most decent men you could possibly know. And I only know him from the public airwaves --a truly accomplished man, is simply unacceptable to me; unacceptable to me. I've never heard this kind of slurring of a man of great integrity. That's number...

Following up on his epic rant against his GOP opponent Ben Carson on Thursday night, presidential candidate Donald Trump released a video on Friday -- Friday the 13th -- set to creepy music, suggesting that Carson is either a "violent criminal" or "pathological liar." ...The creepy Trump video opens with old footage of Carson recalling, "I had a large camping knife, and I tried to stab him in the abdomen." The video then shows footage of a news interview with an old Carson acquaintance who suggests the story may be untrue. Then, text in the video reads, "Violent criminal? Pathological...

The tax-reform proposal unveiled by Ted Cruz last week is as transformative, intellectually dominating and economically and politically revolutionary for 2016 as Kemp-Roth was in 1980. Indeed, even more so. Cruz's plan would scrap the current income tax code and replace it with a simple, single, flat rate of 10%, to be paid by everybody on everything — wages, profits, capital gains, dividends, rent, interest and all forms of individual income. No one would be able to claim that billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries or that the system is rigged to favor the rich over the middle...

THE video. Enjoy!