Posts Tagged ‘Marco Rubio’

Iowa Caucus Update: CNN Projects Cruz Win in Iowa

Monday, February 1st, 2016

“CNN projects Ted Cruz wins…On the Republican side, with 99% of the expected vote in, Ted Cruz leads with 28%, followed by Donald Trump at 24% and Marco Rubio at 23%.”

On the Democratic side, things are much closer:

“With 81% of the expected vote in, Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders only 50.1% to 49.2%.”

Edited to add: Fox News also projects Cruz as the winner.

LinkSwarm for February 1, 2016

Monday, February 1st, 2016

The Iowa Caucuses are today! Why they’re Monday rather than the usual Tuesday, I couldn’t tell you. (And speaking of elections, today is your last day to register to vote in the March 1 Texas primary.)

Here’s a LinkSwarm with more than a dollop of presidential election news:

  • ObamaCare is an exercise in moving goalposts:

    Back in 2015 the CBO estimated 21 million Obamacare enrollees in 2016. They are now estimating 13 million will sign up this year. How many will actually sign up is not going to be known for another year or so, but I wouldn’t particularly bet on it being more than 21 million, and I wouldn’t particularly counsel against thinking that it’ll be less than 13 million.

    Oh, the news gets better. The original claim that 11 million people signed up for Obamacare in 2015 has likewise been revised by this report, which now apparently reports 9.5 million. And here’s something that will really reassure folks worried about our deficits: the original assumption was that there would be 15 million subsidized plans and 6 million unsubsidized ones in 2015, or 71%/29%. The actual totals were 11 million subsidized, 2 million unsubsidized, or 85%/15%. Let me put it a different way: the Obama administration has managed to somehow simultaneously drastically miss their signup goals AND do so in a way where there won’t even a commensurate savings for taxpayers.

  • “The Clintons have made careers of defying our assumptions about how low they can go.”
  • Hillary’s emails disqualify her from the presidency. “There is near certainty that at least the Russians and the Chinese but also the Iranians and North Koreans were reading all incoming and outgoing email to Hillary in real time from almost the moment she hooked up her ‘home brew’ server.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • More on the subject by Guy Benson at Townhall.
  • Bernie Sanders: The bum who wants your money. “Despite a prestigious degree, however, Sanders failed to earn a living, even as an adult. It took him 40 years to collect his first steady paycheck — and it was a government check.”
  • Republicans are more engaged in Iowa than Democrats.
  • Jim Geraghty offers up a forest of links why each of Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio can win or lose tonight.
  • Ace of Spades is shocked, shocked that the Republican establishment is trying to take out Ted Cruz to help Marco Rubio.
  • Financial heavy hitter Sheldon Adelson is backing Cruz. (Hat tip: Conservatives4TedCruz.)
  • Watch Cruz turn around an Iowa farmer hostile over ethanol subsidies.
  • “If there is anyone with a chance of underperforming his 28 percent of the electorate (again, the new Register number), it is Trump. And if Trump does underperform, the question will be whether he falls enough for Cruz to catch him.” (Hat tip: Conservatives4TedCruz.)
  • Trump does poorly among Republicans with college degrees, but well among those with less education. “He is continually the candidate not only with the highest very favorable rating, but the highest very unfavorable rating. He is utterly unacceptable to a very significant portion of the Republican electorate.”
  • “Why there are so many things with titles like ‘Why I still believe Donald Trump will never be president.'”
  • “Jeb Bush kicks off 3 state farewell tour.”
  • Enivironmentalist predictions from 1970: “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • EU goes out of the way to insist that widespread sexual assault by Islamic men in Cologne had nothing to do with Islamic ‘refugees.’
  • Another day, another 100 Nigerians killed by Boko Haram.
  • Finland farked.
  • Tips for non-western immigrants to America. “Perhaps this little rhyme can help: To live here in the West, God willing, just say no to honor killing.”
  • A whole lot of hedge funds are shorting the Yuan.
  • Larry Correia reports from the SHOT show.
  • The last gunsmith. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Remembering Marvin Minsky, and how he cited Hayek in some of his work.
  • “Muslim Uber driver attacks pregnant woman’s service dog.”
  • Ted Cruz vs. Donald Trump Update for January 31, 2016

    Sunday, January 31st, 2016

    Another installment on the battle between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Many of these links come from http://conservatives4tedcruz.blogspot.com/.

  • In Iowa it’s everyone vs. Cruz.
  • Cruz blasts Iowa governor Terry Branstad for his family benefiting from ethanol subsidies.
  • Glenn Beck’s site on Ted Cruz the candidate:

    Ted understands the gravity of our situation, and he understands how to right the wrongs of the past eight years by holding true to the principles of the U.S. Constitution. It’s all there, written long ago by the brilliant men who fought the fierce battle for freedom and liberty. We don’t need a bailout, we don’t need any new government programs. We need to return to the First Principles laid out for us by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.

    Ted Cruz is the George Washington we’ve prayed for. He’s here — the man who understands that government is not the solution but the problem. Ted Cruz understands that the restraints placed on the government by the Constitution are a good thing.

  • Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund endorses Cruz. The piece says that they’re the largest Tea Party group in the country, which makes me wonder what criteria they used and how they determined that.
  • Even Marco Rubio acknowledges that Cruz is the frontrunner in Iowa.
  • Is 135,000 the magic number in Iowa? Turnout below that and Cruz wins, turnout above that and Trump wins? I’m going to need confirmation from the haruspices before accepting that conclusion…
  • Anti-Trump ad running in the Des Moines Register.
  • Both Cruz and Trump have several events in Iowa between now and the caucuses.
  • This Washington Post piece is probably a pretty good distillation of current inside-the-beltway thinking on Cruz’s chances of winning. Just remember the same insiders were talking about Jeb Bush’s inevitable triumph six months ago…
  • “Gallup: Trump Has Highest Unfavorable Rating of Any Candidate Ever.”
  • Byron York interviews Donald Trump. When Trump says “the Republicans are fighting each other,” it rather suggests Trump isn’t a Republican, doesn’t it? His answer as to why he’s religious (“I went through my Sunday school, I’ve done everything that you’re supposed to do”) is deeply unconvincing, as is repeated answers to questions about how conservative he is (“I’ve had tremendous polling numbers with conservatives”). On the other hand, defending his fiscal conservatism, when he says “I mean, we owe $19 trillion, this is going to destroy our country, we’re going to be destroyed,” well, he’s not lying…
  • Thomas Sowell to Donald Trump: Grow up.
  • Democratic analyst John B. Judis: The birth of a Trump-Sanders constituency. Some of his points are wrong and others Democratic Party talking points, but there’s still some interesting analysis here. “Both are critical of how wealthy donors and lobbyists dominate the political process, and both favor some form of campaign finance reform. Both decry corporations moving overseas for cheap wages and to avoid American taxes. Both reject trade treaties that favor multinational corporations over workers. And both want government more, rather than less, involved in the economy.” That last one speaks, yet again, to the point that Trump is not a conservative. See also “How Trump fights against the free market policies Republicans embraced” and “He has had little contact with, and shown little interest in, conservative ideology.”
  • “Dear Trump Voters, Your Darling Is a Two-Timing Cad.” This message is objectively true. However, I do note that the same issue did not seem to harm Bill Clinton’s career…
  • I’m a Cruz supporter, but just look at this “Wah, Trump hurt my feelings, why won’t Twitter kick him off” Social Justice Warrior drivel Slashdot has posted to their front page. Note the central lie that Trump’s Twitter account is “a trolling stream of hate and other abuses that would cause any average Twitter user to be terminated in a heartbeat” without actually offering any examples of same…
  • 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.