It was easy to dismiss the first poll that showed Ted Cruz up over Donald Trump in Iowa as an outlier. However, a new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll shows Cruz up a hefty 10 points over Trump.
“Seven weeks from the caucuses, Ted Cruz is crushing it in Iowa.
“The anti-establishment congressional agitator has made a rapid ascent into the lead in the GOP presidential race here, with a 21 percentage-point leap that smashes records for upsurges in recent Iowa caucuses history.”
Snip.
“‘Big shakeup,’ said J. Ann Selzer, pollster for The Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll. ‘This is a sudden move into a commanding position for Cruz.'”
Cruz is in a great spot. I just hope he’s not peaking too early…
There appears to be a new GOP front-runner in Iowa.
Sen. Ted Cruz more than doubled his support among Iowa Republicans since October and now leads the field with 24%, according to a new Monmouth University Poll released today.
It is the first time the Texas senator has been at the top of any early state poll of the 2016 cycle, according to Monmouth.
Polls come and polls go, and others with different screens show different results in Iowa. But Cruz’s presidential campaign is mirroring the shape of his Senate campaign: Launch early, be a disciplined and indefatigable campaigner, and position yourself as the true conservative in the field. Just as in his campaign against David Dewhurst, Cruz has gone from no-chance, to long-shot, to competitive, to a serious force to be reckoned with.
In January, Republicans will occupy 32 of the nation’s governorships, 10 more than they did in 2009. Democratic losses in state legislatures under Mr. Obama rank among the worst in the last 115 years, with 816 Democratic lawmakers losing their jobs and Republican control of legislatures doubling since the president took office — more seats lost than under any president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.
“Republicans have more chambers today than they have ever had in the history of the party,” said Tim Storey, an analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures. “So they are in a dominant and historic position of strength in the states.”
Which of the GOP’s candidates beat Hillary? All of them.
This month’s victims getting specially reamed by ObamaCare are (rolls dice)…graduate students, who by law can no longer be covered by university insurance programs. Oh, the irony…
Spy Jonathan Pollard released. His supporters want Obama to rescind the conditions of his parole so he can move to Israel. It’s a tough case for Obama: He loves letting traitors off easy, but he hates Israel…
Hillary Clinton may be soft on terrorism, but she’s tough on the real threats to our nation: comedians making fun of her:
In what appears to be a first for a serious presidential contender, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is going after five comedians who made fun of the former Secretary of State in standup skits at a popular Hollywood comedy club.
A video of the short performance, which is less than three minutes, is posted on the website of the renowned club, Laugh Factory, and the Clinton campaign has tried to censor it. Besides demanding that the video be taken down, the Clinton campaign has demanded the personal contact information of the performers that appear in the recording. This is no laughing matter for club owner Jamie Masada, a comedy guru who opened Laugh Factory more than three decades ago and has been instrumental in launching the careers of many famous comics. “They threatened me,” Masada told Judicial Watch. “I have received complains before but never a call like this, threatening to put me out of business if I don’t cut the video.”
Eric S. Raymond examines a recent police shooting a lot of people are talking about: “I would have said this was what cops call a ‘good shoot’ if it had stopped at the first two bullets. It didn’t. I don’t think this was murder one, but it was at least criminally negligent homicide and those who covered it up should be prosecuted along with Van Dyke.” Unlike, he points out, the fully justified Michael Brown shooting. Also this: “And that racial spin? Plain bullshit. Those cops were facing an angel-dusted thug brandishing a weapon; that was pretty much bound to end badly whether the thug was black, white, or purple polka-dotted.”
The “red mercury” scam is back. And the Islamic State is the latest patsy to fall for it. Plus some loony local embellishments:
‘‘Red mercury has a red color, and there is mercury that has the color of dark blood,’’ he said. ‘‘And there is green mercury, which is used for sexual enhancement, and silver mercury is used for medical purposes. The most expensive type is called Blood of the Slaves, which is the darkest type. Magicians use it to summon jinni.’’
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has dropped out of the 2016 Presidential race. While Jindal is much more qualified to be President than Donald Trump or Carly Fiorina, he was always a longshot, He exceeded expectations in that he outlasted Scott Walker and Rick Perry, but he never managed to gain any traction.
What’s Obama’s strategy in Iraq and Syria? He doesn’t have one. “Without a clear overarching strategy to resolve the conflict.” Say what you want about Bush, he wanted to win in Iraq. Obama wants to do just enough to not get blamed for losing.
Speaking of Islamic refugees, shotguns (which don’t need a permit) are selling like hotcakes in Austria. Whatever could be the reason?
“The Democratic party is mainly a coalition of interest groups, and the current model of Democratic politics — poor and largely non-white people providing the muscle and rich white liberals calling the shots — is unsustainable…Democrats gleefully predict that demographic changes are going to give their party a permanent majority. The unspoken corollary to that is that white liberals think they’re going to remain in charge of it.”
I’m not a huge fan of Cornyn, whose turned into bit of a squish, but I’m not even remotely buying that a guy who was born in 1952, and who went to school at Trinity University and St. Mary’s Law, got anywhere near the Klan, which was already a joke by the 1970s. Even assuming Cornyn was An Evil Racist (he’s not), unlike West Virginia in the early 1940s, the Klan was not on any ambitious politician or lawyer’s plans by the 1970s, and the only people joining by then were strictly white trash rural losers.
Moreover, we’re given to understand that these names were culled from email membership lists, which suggest that Cornyn joined, when, 1995 or so? When he was already on the Texas Supreme Court? Because joining a bunch of white trash losers was totally more important than avoiding scandals and winning elections.
To begin with, the Ku Klux Klan is pathetically small compared to the overall white male population of the South and Midwest. Membership estimates range from 3,000 to 5,000. The likelihood that four separate members of the Klan could find their way into the ranks of the Senate are astronomically low, even if you assume that your average Klansman is coherent enough to manage it (spoilers: they aren’t).
Or to put another way, you’d have to believe that a Klansman is roughly 10,000 times more likely to become a senator than the average American. Or, put even another way, there are supposedly twice as many Klansmen as Princeton grads in the Senate. Now that’s an alumni network.
But even a cursory look at the lives and voting records of the accused should have clued people in. One, for example, voted for Martin Luther King Jr. Day to become a national holiday, a proposal that a sizeable minority actually opposed back in 1983. Why would a Klansman go out of his way to vote for a holiday that promotes racial harmony, instead of joining the 90 Congressmen who voted against it?
Another of the accused senators is Catholic. While the Klan’s anti-black activities are much more rampant and widespread, they are also virulently anti-Catholic.
Oh, and did I mention one of the accused mayors is openly gay? I don’t think that’s the kind of “flaming crosses” the Klan has in mind.
As Ayn Rand once noted: “The Ku Klux Klan is not a Republican issue or problem; its members, traditionally, are Democrats; for the Republicans to repudiate their vote would be like repudiating the vote of Tammany Hall, which is not theirs to repudiate.” As far as the historical record shows, Sen. Robert Byrd (Democrat, West Virginia) is the only U.S. Senator elected after World War II to have been a member of the Klan.
Even the most base liberal propagandist should be ashamed to spread such pathetically laughable bullshit…
[Orange County] government workers receive an “average full-career pension of $81,372 for miscellaneous [employees], which includes all nonsafety retirees, and $99,366 for safety [mostly police and fire] retirees of all Orange County cities enrolled in CalPERS.”
Stockton update: “After only one full budget year, the city has already broken three fundamental promises and is destined to return to insolvency within four years.”
This story is so strange I suspect it could only happen in California. (Playboy link, so it may be blocked at your place of work.) Despite the large number of guns. ($5 million for 1,200 guns? I call BS. That would mean each gun was slightly more expensive than the list price for a bolt-action Barrett .50 BMG sniper rifle. The photos mostly show pretty common hunting rifles.)
Well, that’s a very interesting development indeed. As Majority leader and Boehner’s heir apparent, McCarthy was considered the race’s favorite. Him withdrawing means there’s a chance things won’t just be Business As Usual.
I wonder if Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling will reconsider his decision to drop out of the race now that McCarthy has withdrawn…