Posts Tagged ‘Marco Rubio’

Ted Cruz vs. Donald Trump Roundup for January 29, 2016

Friday, January 29th, 2016

Another installment on the battle between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Many of these links come from the #CruzCrew daily briefings I get via email, and from http://conservatives4tedcruz.blogspot.com/.

  • American Thinker makes the case for Cruz:

    Unlike so many previously promising GOP leaders who have wilted in the face of media attacks, Ted Cruz has remained unbending while facing a flood of media hostility, as well as hostility from the establishment Republicans and inside-the-Beltway conservative elites. He is firm in his conservative convictions and willingness to speak out against corrupt compromises that defraud the public like the latest Omnibus Spending bill passed by career-minded Republicans in Congress. His positions aren’t swayed by the audience — as noted by his willingness in Iowa to be unwaveringly opposed to unwarranted ethanol subsidies.

    Cruz alone – in a full GOP field of talented candidates — has the brain power and experience to excel as a national and world leader in an increasingly violent, troubled world.

  • National Review scores the Republican debate a draw.
  • Marco Rubio garnered boos for his attacks on Cruz.
  • More on Cruz’s poison pill amendment to the amnesty bill.
  • A majority of young voters convened by Fusion told host Alicia Menendez that after Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate, they will vote for Texas Senator Ted Cruz in next week’s Iowa caucus.”
  • New ad targets Donald Trump over hiring illegal aliens.
  • Trump also uses tons of H-2B foreign works. Because it’s evidently impossible to find Americans willing to work as waiters, cooks and maids…
  • More on the subject from last year.
  • Cruz garners the endorsement of Christian talk radio network founders Dick and Richard Bott.
  • Trump going in to Iowa without a ground game? Not a smart idea.
  • Indeed, there’s precious little evidence that Trump is driving new voter registration in Iowa, or even that his supporters will show up at the polls there. “Trump is winning 40 percent of the vote among those who have less than a 20 percent chance of actually going to the polls.”
  • How Trump appeals to traditionalist America:

    How did Republicans and the political class respond to Trump initially? They made fun of how he talked. Everyone was then surprised when people whose speech patterns are among the only patterns that are still socially appropriate to mock responded by liking Trump more (I actually think Trump’s accent is one of his biggest advantages). Making fun of his hair? Think about this the next time you make fun of someone with a mullet. Expressing outrage at his politically incorrect statements? I think Kevin Drum is part of the way there in this typically thoughtful essay in which he discusses the impact that political correctness has on people who feel silenced because they don’t know how to talk. But even this reflects Drum’s own internalized belief that the politically correct way to speak is the correct way to speak, while non-cosmopolitan Americans’ response is more visceral: “Why the hell can’t we call them illegal immigrants? Says who?” And Trump is the only candidate who unambiguously calls this out.

  • LinkSwarm for March 27, 2015

    Friday, November 27th, 2015

    Here’s a Black Friday LinkSwarm you can while away your time with while waiting 5 hours in line to save 78¢ off a turkey baster:

  • Obama’s greatest legacy: downsizing the Democratic Party:

    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.
  • Cruz is surging,
  • No, Ted Cruz did not support illegal alien amnesty (unlike Marco Rubio).
  • Ted Cruz’s plausible path to the Presidency.
  • More ObamaCare rate hikes coming down the pike. Houston has zero PPO plans through ObamaCare, and Dallas is suffering the largest rate hikes.
  • 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…
  • Crimea power grid knocked offline.
  • Russia to seek economic revenge against Turkey over downed jet. Ukraine says “Cry me a river.”
  • The Antarctic has been cooling the last six years.
  • Black America’s addiction to conspiracy theories.
  • 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.”

  • Crew member on radical feminist “campus rape epidemic” film The Hunting Ground alters Wikipedia to conform to film’s skewed view of events, in violation of Wikipedia policy.
  • 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.’’

  • Andre Glucksmann dies.
  • What War on Christmas?

  • Winners and Losers from Houston’s election (better late than never).
  • Refugio Mayor Joey Heard arrested on drug charges. Refugio is a town between Victoria and Corpus,
  • Texas Democratic State Ron Rep. Reynolds convicted of barratry.
  • Annals of criminal genius: Trying to assault someone while in the courtroom for your third attempted murder trial. “At some point in time, you’ve got to stop shooting people.”
  • The Bring Back Mystery Science Theater 3000 kickstarter not only hit their goal, the just passed $3 million and are bringing on Felicia Day as the next mad scientist.
  • I laughed.
  • LinkSwarm for October 30, 2015

    Friday, October 30th, 2015

    Right now Austin is enjoying our traditional “two weeks of flooding following three months of drought” fall. Enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm:

  • “In Iraq, Obama took a war that we had won at a considerable expense in lives and treasure, and threw it away for the callowest of political reasons. In Syria and Libya, he involved us in wars of choice without Congressional authorization, and proceeded to hand victories to the Islamists. Obama’s policy here has been a debacle of the first order, and the press wants to talk about Bush as a way of protecting him.”
  • Paul Ryan elected Speaker of the House. If Ryan decides to govern as an actual Republican, he could be a very effective Speaker…
  • The IRS has Stingray cell phone surveillance gear. Get ready for a whole new round of Tea Party audits…
  • Speaking of the IRS, the House of Representatives is justified in impeaching IRS chief John Koskinen.
  • At the most recent Republican Presidential debate, Sen. Marco Rubio said the H1-B visa program is badly in need of reform. One tiny problem: Sen. Rubio’s own H1-B bill doesn’t implement any of the reforms demanded by Presidential Candidate Rubio. “It does not require recruitment of American workers. It does not require employers to ‘pay more than you would pay someone else’…Rubio’s bill would provide Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his comrades ‘a huge increase in the supply of lower-cost foreign guest workers so they can undercut and replace American workers.'” Indeed, Rubio’s bill “would triple the number of H1-B foreign workers admitted.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Get ready for steep ObamaCare price hikes for 2016.
  • Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition is starting to come apart thanks to the refugee crisis.
  • Venezuela is selling gold to cover bond payments. (Hat tip: Commonsense and Wonder.)
  • Al-Shabaab Islamic militant group in Somalia pledge loyalty to the Islamic State.
  • The Islamic State schools ban: “math, music, philosophy, history, French and geography as incompatible with Islam.”
  • Not news: Journalist in Sweden gets stoned. News: The wrong kind of stoned.
  • Teacher’s hate Common Core. The only people that seem to love it are Washington bureaucrats and Jeb Bush…
  • Speaking of Jeb, He has not succeeded this year, and there is no particular reason to believe he will…Jeb just isn’t very good at this.”
  • “Even beyond the fact that Bush has spent almost a year and ended up among the statistical noise despite all of his organizational and financial advantages, this all but proved that he’s simply not a good enough candidate to run in the general election.”
  • Jeb Bush’s campaign also hasn’t knocked on any doors in Iowa.
  • Ben Carson’s campaign is working with other Republican Presidential campaigns to extract their debates from the liberal clutches of the MSM.”
  • How to fix the Republican debates: “First, cancel the rest of the debates. Instead, announce that the RNC will host the debates and pick the panel of questioners. Allow any news organization that wishes to broadcast it.”
  • A look at the Russian BMD-2 infantry fighting vehicle.
  • John Wiley Price trail delayed again.
  • Reminder: Most acts at SXSW don’t get paid.
  • Feminism is “a War Against Human Nature aimed at using the coercive power of government to bring about an androgynous ‘equality’ that ignores the actual differences between men and women. Feminism is a totalitarian movement to destroy civilization as we know it — and feminists say so themselves.”
  • Salon’s pro-pedophile agenda:

  • How to stamp out Cultural Marxism in a single generation.
  • Flash is dying. Netcraft confirms it…
  • NBC/WSJ/Telemundo Polls Latinos on POTUS Candidates, Leaves Cruz and Rubio Off

    Wednesday, September 30th, 2015

    So NBC/WSJ/Telemundo Polls Latinos did a POLL on Presidential candidates, and just happened to leave off Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

    Funny how that could happen.

    It’s less a case of the mask slipping than of NBC not even trying to hide the fact it’s an extension of the Democratic Party…

    Marco Rubio’s Home = 3 Months Clinton Summer Rental

    Thursday, June 11th, 2015

    A lot of blogdom has been talking about The New York Times‘s laughable hit pieces on Marco Rubio, in which they reveal that Rubio paid $550,000 for a home in West Miami (“The house, among the more expensive in West Miami, stood out from the aging homes nearby: It includes an in-ground pool, a handsome brick driveway, meticulously manicured shrubs and oversize windows.”)

    The Times also slammed Rubio for spending $80,000 on a “luxury speedboat” that actually turned out to be a run-of-the-mill fishing boat.

    Hot Air notes that his house is 2,700 square feet, which is precisely 12 square feet larger than my own Williamson County home in suburban Austin. I don’t have a pool, and I paid a whole lot less ($171,000) than Rubio, but that’s the difference between buying just off the floor of the Dotcom bust in Austin (2004), and buying near the peak of Miami’s real estate boom in 2005. It also takes a lot of damn gall for The New York Times to cluck over $550,000 for a 2,700 square feet home, when that amount would barely buy you a 800 square foot shoebox in Manhattan (if you’re lucky).

    Of course, it’s instructive to compare Rubio’s home with Hillary Clinton’s:

    Even more stunning: Bill and Hillary Clinton spent $200,000 a month for a summer vacation rental house in the Hamptons. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of spending $200,000 a month on your summer rental. And not in an exotic locale like Bali or Fiji, but the Hamptons. Why? So you can rub your nouveau riche in the faces of the all the old money? That’s pretty much “lighting your cigar with $100 bills” rich.

    But I guess you’re not so picky about money when your entire lifestyle is underwritten by foreign dictators writing checks to your foundation.

    Rick Perry is in the Presidential Race

    Thursday, June 4th, 2015

    Former Texas Governor Rick Perry has joined the 2016 Presidential race and has a website up.

    As longtime governor of the most economically successful state in the union, Perry should be a serious Presidential contender, especially since he has a more impressive (and recent) story to tell than Jeb Bush.

    The problem, of course, is his poor showing in the 2012 Presidential race, which included a nationally televised “brain freeze” due to him being hopped up on goofballs following back surgery. I thought Perry was the most viable conservative candidate in the race in 2012, for all the good that did either of us. That does not appear to be the case this time around, and my choice for President right now would probably be Ted Cruz first and Scott Walker second.

    Cruz, Walker and Marco Rubio all make the case for Perry more difficult. All outflank Perry on the right in ways that Huckabee and Santorum don’t, and Cruz in particular cuts into Perry’s fundraising base.

    So while Perry should be a serious candidate, he has a much tougher row to hoe than he did in 2012…and he lost in 2012. Maybe he’s counting on the GOP’s well-known “next time around is the charm” bias (see Reagan, Bush41, Dole, McCain, and Romney), but I don’t think he did well enough in 2012 to have that sort of cachet.

    Perry is a tough and tenacious campaigner (though probably not as indefatigable as Cruz), so it’s probably unwise to count him out entirely. Still, he looks to be an even longer shot in 2016 than he was in 2012.

    Jeb Bush Losing To, Well, Pretty Much Everyone in Iowa

    Wednesday, May 6th, 2015

    A new Quinnipiac poll of Iowa is out, and it shows Jeb Bush losing to, well, pretty much everyone:

    Only 5% of likely Iowa GOP caucus-goers told Quinnipiac University pollsters that they planned to vote for Bush, placing him No. 7 in the field of declared or potential 2016 candidates.

    Even worse for Bush: He may not have as much room to grow over the next year as other candidates do. One-quarter of Republicans said they definitely could not support Bush, the lowest ceiling of support of any candidate in the Hawkeye State, and 45% said Bush was “not conservative enough.”

    The top Republican in Iowa is Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who garnered support from 21% of those surveyed. Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas, Marco Rubio of Florida, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are tightly packed for second place, each earned between 13% and 11% support. Neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who unveiled his campaign on Monday, tallied 7% of the vote.

    Jeb Bush losing to Scott Walker, Ran Paul, and Ted Cruz isn’t a surprise; Bush losing to Ben Carson, a political neophyte who has no chance to win the nomination, is.

    When you dig further, Bush’s basic unpopularity rating comes to the fore: “Negative 39 – 45 percent favorability rating for Bush, and 36 percent saying he’s about right on issues, while 45 percent say he’s not conservative enough.”

    Polls this early are essentially meaningless (remember when Howard Dean was going to win Iowa?), but the fact Bush is polling so poorly this early suggests both that he’s deeply unpopular with the base, and that he has yet to build an effective political operation in Iowa. Remember, George W. Bush won the Iowa caucuses handily over Steve Forbes in 2000 (McCain didn’t even pull 5%).

    So far, Jeb Bush is running considerably behind expectations.

    LinkSwarm for July 19, 2013

    Friday, July 19th, 2013

    Detroit went bankrupt. One stranger was acquitted for shooting another stranger. Which do you think the media spent more time covering?

  • “Progressive politicians, wonks, and activists can only blame big corporations and other liberal bogeymen for so long. The truth is that corrupt machine politics in a one-party system devoted to the blue social model wrecked an entire city and thousands of lives beyond repair. The sooner blues come to terms with this reality, the greater chance other cities will have of avoiding Detroit’s fate.”
  • The IRS scandal now leads to the chief counsel, one of only two Obama appointees at the agency.
  • The Democratic Party is a machine for inciting grievances in order to consolidate its power.”
  • The Wall Street Journal makes the case for dismantling ObamaCare piece by piece.
  • Republican Insiders are very, very upset that Jim DeMint is exposing them for the RINOs they are.
  • My precious snowflake is extremely gifted. He’s also 29 and unemployed because so many jobs are unworthy of his Promethean talents. Matt Walsh: SMACKDOWN.
  • The Democratic Party is a machine for inciting grievances in order to consolidate its power.”
  • Charles Barkley on the Zimmerman trial: “Just looking at the evidence I agreed with the verdict.”
  • A few facts about Marissa Alexander that may not be apparent from a two panel picture comparison with George Zimmerman.
  • “Reason for termination: Disabled veteran.”
  • “Negative perceptions of young black men are rooted in hard data on who commits crimes.”
  • Near empty New York hospital losing $3 million a week. Naturally, unions are demanding it stay open. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Charles Murray on American exceptionalism.
  • Marco Rubio was riding high. Then he became a shill for amnesty, and now his life is all sad trombones. I haven’t seen a serious national political aspirant fall so far since Gary Hart went boating.
  • Today’s serial Democratic Party groper who felt-up at least six women and who the state party forced their members to cover up for comes to you from California.
  • LinkSwarm for June 28, 2013

    Friday, June 28th, 2013

    It’s supposed to hit a 106° in Austin today. Sadly, not all of these links will help you keep your cool…

  • 12 different IRS offices targeted conservatives.
  • Over 1,100 patients were starved to death at NHS hospitals in the UK. Funny, I don’t remember that being mentioned in the Olympic tribute to how awesome NHS is…
  • Marco Rubio aide: We need illegal alien amnesty because American workers suck.
  • Blue collar Americans having trouble finding jobs. I’m sure that has nothing to do with our ruling political elite’s decision to allow unlimited illegal immigration of unskilled workers…
  • Every Republican voting for amnesty better get ready for a primary challenge.
  • Obama camapign workers convicted of voter fraud in Indiana. This was for the 2008 Democratic primary, so it will likely be many years before see starting seeing convictions for the Obama campaign’s various 2012 voting fraud efforts…
  • Noam Chomsky attending the opening of Hezbollah’s “Death to Israel” theme park.
  • People told me that if I voted for Romney, the U.S. military would start blocking access to liberal news sources. And they were right!
  • The Atlantic says that Obama “succeeded” in Libya but is failing in Syria. If Benghazi was success, I’d hate to see what failure looks like.
  • And speaking of Benghazi, Libya just let one of the suspected attackers walk. Thank God we have Obama’s smart, sophisticated diplomacy in the Middle East…
  • Beer now unaffordable in Greece. And you thought they had riots before…
  • Second Colorado Democrat faces a recall election over gun control.
  • Magpul to give away 1,500 30-round magazines just two days before Colorado outlaws them.
  • By the way, there’s a Facebook page to show support for bringing Magpul to Texas. But most of the rumors I hear have them moving to Wyoming.
  • The Amarillo Globe-News has a message for gun manufacturers thinking of relocating to Texas: Come on down!
  • Texas executes its 500th murderer. Don’t mess with Texas. Or we will end you.
  • Speaking of ending you: Don’t try to commit armed robbery in a concealed carry state.
  • Nurse Bloomberg continues to underwrite anti-gun ads, shoot himself in the foot. (Hat tip: Alphecca.
  • In order to prove vegans aren’t a creepy cult, website seeks to out and harass lapsed vegans.
  • The Onion channels Jay Carney: “Well, Time To Go Out In Front Of A Bunch Of People And Lie To Them.”
  • The mystery of Lori Ruff, AKA Becky Sue Turner. No one know who she actually is…
  • Senate Race Fundraising Numbers: A Historical Comparison

    Thursday, October 13th, 2011

    Here are are some impressive fundraising numbers: Through the end of Q3 on September 30, the odds-on senate favorite has raised $6,444,926.

    The challenger? A comparatively paltry $1,615,165.

    Given those numbers, it should be pretty easy to figure out who the eventual winner is going to be, right?

    Wrong.

    Those numbers are from 2009, the odds-on favorite was sitting Florida Governor Charlie Crist, and the underfunded challenger was then-Speaker of the state House of Representatives Marco Rubio. Of course, that’s Senator Marco Rubio now, since he ended up pantsing Crist so badly the latter dropped out of the Republican primary and ran as an independent …whereupon Rubio kicked his ass.

    What happened? The Tea Party happened and Rubio caught fire as a better (and more conservative) candidate. Also, this happened:

    After that, Rubio’s fortunes (and fundraising) climbed while Crist’s fell. That’s why this:


    Should throw a sense of deep unease into David Dewhurst’s campaign team.

    Of course, that’s not the only similarity between Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio:

  • Both are the sons of Cuban exiles.
  • Both earned law degrees.
  • Both were involved with conservative Republican politics from an early age.
  • Both were Tea Party favorites.
  • Both have been endorsed by Sen. Jim DeMint.
  • Both have been endorsed by George P. Bush.
  • I’m hardly the first one to make comparisons between Cruz and Rubio. (The Cruz campaign has not been shy about it either.)

    However, there are some differences that will make Cruz’s campaign against Dewhurst more difficult than Rubio’s was against Crist:

  • Dewhurst is more of a squish while Crist had gotten to be a full-blown RINO (no matter how hard others might make the comparison). None of Dewhurst’s disappointments compare to Crist embracing Obama-Pelosi-Reid’s budget-busting, pork-laden Stimulus.
  • Dewhurst is considerably wealthier than Crist ever was.
  • The Florida primary was much later, on August 24, whereas the Texas primary falls on March 6 in 2012.
  • Crist had been in politics since about 1986, whereas Dewhurst wasn’t elected Land Commissioner until 1998.
  • Rubio-Crist was pretty much a two man race, whereas Cruz must also contend with Tom Leppert (and, to a lesser degree, Elizabeth Ames Jones) as high-profile, well-funded candidates.
  • The Cuban-American community is not nearly as influential in Texas as Florida.
  • The chances of Dewhurst dropping out and running as an independent are, I think, pretty close to zero.
  • Still, at this point Dewhurst is running behind where Crist was during the same period, and Cruz is likewise running ahead of where Rubio was. Also, Texas is considerably more conservative than Florida.

    All this is a prelude to saying that Dewhurst’s and Cruz’s Q3 fundraising numbers are interesting, but hardly dispositive. There’s still a lot of race to be run.