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Politics is a fast-paced and unpredictable game, and sometimes, unfortunate things happen. That's the best way I can describe what occurred on caucus night in Iowa when CNN implied that Ben Carson was dropping out of the Republican race, and the Cruz campaign swiftly alerted caucus-goers that they should consider voting for Ted Cruz instead. Let's start from the beginning. Shortly before the Iowa caucus was set to begin, CNN's Jake Tapper reported: ...

Donald Trump, Who Compared Ben Carson to a Child Molester, Feigns Outrage For Carson #Trumpertantrum...

One of the key metrics on the strength of a campaign is how well their fundraising, and allocation of resources are going. In that measure Ted Cruz's campaign is on fire. According to FEC reports, for the most recent filing period, Ted Cruz had more cash on hand than the Republican National Committee. For the period ending on December 31, 2015 Cruz reported having $18,734,794.46 cash on hand. For the same end date the Republican National Committee had $18,723,782 on hand. Cruz had about $11,000 more in his war chest than the RNC. It shows a particular strength for his...

"Morning is coming," said Ted Cruz as he took the stage in Iowa to declare victory in the 2016 Republican caucus.He wasn't referring to how long his victory speech went — even though it was so long that by the end no TV network was covering it. It was a deliberate callback to Republican hero Ronald Reagan, whose slogan in 1984, "Morning in America," has become a slogan of a conservative golden age. Cruz vastly overperformed expectations and outhustled Donald Trump to win 29 percent of Iowa voters. And while the length of his speech kind of distracted from its...

Ted Cruz has scored what is perhaps the most coveted endorsement in South Carolina, that of 3rd District Congressman Jeff Duncan. Duncan, who was elected to Congress in 2010 on a wave of tea party support, has become one of the biggest heroes of conservatives not only in South Carolina, but nationally as well. Duncan is a champion of Second Amendment rights and is a member of the House Liberty Caucus. Duncan became a true rock star among conservatives when he voted against John Boehner for reelection as Speaker of the House in January 2015...

Ted Cruz has a powerful tool as he tries to close the deal with Iowa voters: He has aired the most effective TV ads in the Republican presidential race, according to independent research by a private company. The ratings come from Ace Metrix, a television analytics company that uses large online panels to rate the effectiveness of TV commercials. The company's political unit found that Cruz's campaign produced five of the 11 top-scoring ads among Republican voters this election, including the single most effective ad of the GOP primary so far...

... The first thought that comes to mind is that Trump keeps coming back to this attack against Cruz for a couple of reasons. The first is that he cannot make attacks on Cruz's record of standing up for conservative principles the centerpiece of his strategy because that leaves him open to greater scrutiny of his own liberal record...

Call it Luke Russert's version of "bitter clingers" on steroids . . . In Russert's world, there are apparently two kinds of Republican congressmen. The "smart" ones—to be found on the Ways & Means Committee—and the others, whom he calls the "God, guns and guts people," presumably in reference to this book. Russert made his statement on today's Morning Joe, responding to Joe Scarborough's question as to whether Republicans would overplay their hand over the current scandals. According to Russert, Republicans chose well in holding today's hearing of IRS officials before the Ways & Means Committee because that's where the...

WASHINGTON -- When Woody Harrelson escapes the living dead in "Zombieland", a new movie opening this Friday, should he head for the hills or the mall? A recently published research paper suggests that he's probably better off hiding in the mall to save his delicious brain. The world is full of things that move in zombie-like fashion, such as particles flowing through a turbulent fluid or the unpredictable price changes of the stock market, so physicists seek insight into this behavior by creating so called "random walking" models. Physicist Davide Cassi at the Università di Parma in Italy looked at...

Claims A. God of the Gaps/Unsolved Mystery Assumes that if science cannot PRESENTLY explain something, there is no natural explanation. B. Personal Incredulity  Assumes that their inability to comprehend or understand how something could have occurred naturally is proof that it did not. C. Post-It Note God/Morris Effect Gives a supernatural deity credit for a natural event, or "well, god CUDDA done it that way !""There is no observational fact imaginable that cannot, one way or another, be made to fit the creation model." - Henry Morris D. Scriptural Assault  Use of bible verses as 'evidence'.  Usually either as...

AMSTERDAM (AP) -- It's not green cheese, but it might as well be. The Dutch national museum said Thursday that one of its prized possessions, a rock supposedly brought back from the moon by U.S. astronauts, is just a piece of petrified wood. Rijksmuseum spokeswoman Xandra van Gelder, who oversaw the investigation that proved the piece was a fake, said the museum will keep it anyway as a curiosity. "It's a good story, with some questions that are still unanswered," she said. "We can laugh about it." The museum acquired the rock after the death of former Prime Minister Willem...

I have a wee tiny suggestion for Free Republic. Is it at all possible to have a ZOT category, just as for General chat, or smokey back room? It would be genuinely nice to have a place where the shame of so many trolls could be put on public display! Thanks Mods!