Walker Sees Cruz Victory Over Trump in Wisconsin Resetting Republican Race

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Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said voters in his state are about to shift the dynamic of the Republican presidential race.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz is on the verge of a victory in Wisconsin that would propel him to the nomination, Walker told Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in an interview set to air Friday on Bloomberg Television’s With All Due Respect.

“I really believe looking at the momentum in this state—and certainly we’ve tried to help create some of that—Ted Cruz wins on Tuesday,” Walker said. “That’s the momentum shift. I think that starts him down the path toward people seeing, hey, this has really devolved into a two-person race.”

A Marquette University Law School poll released Wednesday showed Cruz with a 10-point lead over Donald Trump in Wisconsin, where 42 delegates are up for grabs in Tuesday’s primary. Trump is leading the Republican race with 736 delegates, compared 463 for Cruz, the Associated Press estimates. A candidate needs 1,237 to win the nomination.

Walker, a Republican who has endorsed Cruz, declined to criticize Trump during the interview. Instead, Walker kept his focus on what he sees as Cruz’s positives. (Read more from “Walker Sees Cruz Victory Over Trump in Wisconsin Resetting Republican Race” HERE)

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U.S. Commandos Trained to Stop Terrorists With `Dirty Bombs,’ Nukes

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U.S. commando units have been trained to seize and disable nuclear or radioactive bombs, providing a crucial last line of defense if terrorists get their hands on such weapons, according to the general in charge of the forces.

The U.S. Special Operations Command “has sufficient ‘render-safe’ capacity to respond to the most likely” scenarios involving weapons of mass destruction under the current analysis of threats, Army General Raymond Thomas has told lawmakers.

The Pentagon rarely discusses publicly its plans to use commandos if terrorists obtain a nuclear weapon or build a “dirty bomb” from radioactive material. While U.S. officials say there’s no sign yet that Islamic State has such a capability, the prospect was on Friday’s agenda for the Nuclear Security Summit of world leaders being hosted by President Barack Obama in Washington.

Thomas described the role U.S. commandos might play in written responses to the Senate Armed Services Committee before his confirmation as head of the Special Operations Command, a post he took this week. He moved up a rung from his previous role heading the Joint Special Operations Command, directly overseeing fabled — and secretive — units such as the Army’s Delta Force and the Navy’s SEAL Team 6. (Read more from “U.S. Commandos Trained to Stop Terrorists With `Dirty Bombs'” HERE)

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Americans Fear the Federal Government More Than Terror

According to a pair of recent polls, for the first time since the 9/11 terrorist hijackings, Americans are more fearful their government will abuse constitutional liberties than fail to keep its citizens safe. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Taxpayers Billed $1.4 Million for Obama’s Argentina Trip

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President Barack Obama’s two-day visit to Argentina, where he tangoed and downplayed the differences between capitalism and communism, cost taxpayers nearly $1.4 million.

The president traveled to Argentina last week after his two-day stop in Cuba. The visit racked up substantial costs for hotels, transportation, and advance bathroom maintenance, according to government contracts signed by the State Department and Department of Homeland Security.

Lodging for the president and White House staff totaled $115,588, while conference rooms cost $35,584. Another contract for hotel rooms cost $31,585.

U.S. Secret Service costs associated with the trip included $120,782 for hotel rooms at the Hyatt Park in Buenos Aires and $707,801 for transportation.

Use of Marine One, the presidential helicopter, during Obama’s trip cost $44,611. Other transportation costs included contracts worth $68,597, $23,304, $4,789, $8,212, and $24,955. (Read more from “Taxpayers Billed $1.4 Million for Obama’s Argentina Trip” HERE)

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Depressing Survey Results Show How Extremely Stupid America Has Become

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Ten years ago, a major Hollywood film entitled “Idiocracy” was released, and it was an excellent metaphor for what would happen to America over the course of the next decade. In the movie, an “average American” wakes up 500 years in the future only to discover that he is the most intelligent person by far in the “dumbed down” society that he suddenly finds himself in. Sadly, I truly believe that if people of average intellect from the 1950s and 1960s were transported to 2016, they would likely be considered mental giants compared to the rest of us. We have a country where criminals are being paid $1000 a month not to shoot people, and the highest paid public employee in more than half the states is a football coach. Hardly anyone takes time to read a book anymore, and yet the average American spends 302 minutes a day watching television. 75 percent of our young adults cannot find Israel on a map of the Middle East, but they sure know how to find smut on the Internet. It may be hard to believe, but there are more than 4 million adult websites on the Internet today, and they get more traffic than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined.

What in the world has happened to us? How is it possible that we have become so stupid? According to a brand new report that was recently released, almost 10 percent of our college graduates believe that Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court…

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni publishes occasional reports on what college students know.

Nearly 10 percent of the college graduates surveyed thought Judith Sheindlin, TV’s “Judge Judy,” is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. Less than 20 percent of the college graduates knew the effect of the Emancipation Proclamation. More than a quarter of the college graduates did not know Franklin D. Roosevelt was president during World War II; one-third did not know he was the president who spearheaded the New Deal.

It can be tempting to laugh at numbers like these until you realize that survey after survey has come up with similar results.

Just consider what Newsweek found a few years ago…

When NEWSWEEK recently asked 1,000 U.S. citizens to take America’s official citizenship test, 29 percent couldn’t name the vice president. Seventy-three percent couldn’t correctly say why we fought the Cold War. Forty-four percent were unable to define the Bill of Rights. And 6 percent couldn’t even circle Independence Day on a calendar.

Even worse were the extremely depressing results of a study conducted a few years ago by Common Core…

*Only 43 percent of all U.S. high school students knew that the Civil War was fought some time between 1850 and 1900.

*More than a quarter of all U.S. high school students thought that Christopher Columbus made his famous voyage across the Atlantic Ocean after the year 1750.

*Approximately a third of all U.S. high school students did not know that the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

*Only 60 percent of all U.S. students knew that World War I was fought some time between 1900 and 1950.

Of course survey results can be skewed, and much hinges on how the questions are asked.

However, even studies that are scientifically conducted confirm how stupid America has become. In fact, a report from the Educational Testing Service found that Americans are falling way behind much of the rest of the industrialized world. The following comes from CBS News…

Americans born after 1980 are lagging their peers in countries ranging from Australia to Estonia, according to a new report from researchers at the Educational Testing Service (ETS). The study looked at scores for literacy and numeracy from a test called the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, which tested the abilities of people in 22 countries.

The results are sobering, with dire implications for America. It hints that students may be falling behind not only in their early educational years but at the college level. Even though more Americans between the ages of 20 to 34 are achieving higher levels of education, they’re still falling behind their cohorts in other countries. In Japan, Finland and the Netherlands, young adults with only a high school degree scored on par with American Millennials holding four-year college degrees, the report said.

Out of 22 countries that were part of the study, the Educational Testing Service found that Americans were dead last in tech proficiency, dead last in numeracy and only two countries performed worse than us when it came to literacy proficiency…

Half of American Millennials score below the minimum standard of literacy proficiency. Only two countries scored worse by that measure: Italy (60 percent) and Spain (59 percent). The results were even worse for numeracy, with almost two-thirds of American Millennials failing to meet the minimum standard for understanding and working with numbers. That placed U.S. Millennials dead last for numeracy among the study’s 22 developed countries.

So why has this happened?

Why have we become such an extremely stupid nation?

Well, at least a portion of the blame must be directed at our system of education. The following is an excerpt from an article written by reporter Mark Morford. In this article, he shared how one of his friends which had served for a very long time as a high school teacher in Oakland, California was considering moving out of the country when he retired due to the relentless “dumb-ification of the American brain”…

It’s gotten so bad that, as my friend nears retirement, he says he is very seriously considering moving out of the country so as to escape what he sees will be the surefire collapse of functioning American society in the next handful of years due to the absolutely irrefutable destruction, the shocking — and nearly hopeless — dumb-ification of the American brain. It is just that bad.

Now, you may think he’s merely a curmudgeon, a tired old teacher who stopped caring long ago. Not true. Teaching is his life. He says he loves his students, loves education and learning and watching young minds awaken. Problem is, he is seeing much less of it.

And of course things don’t get much better when it comes to our college students. In a previous article, I shared some statistics from USA Today about the rapidly declining state of college education in the United States…

-“After two years in college, 45% of students showed no significant gains in learning; after four years, 36% showed little change.”

-“Students also spent 50% less time studying compared with students a few decades ago”

-“35% of students report spending five or fewer hours per week studying alone.”

-“50% said they never took a class in a typical semester where they wrote more than 20 pages”

-“32% never took a course in a typical semester where they read more than 40 pages per week.”

I spent eight years studying at some of the finest public universities in the country, and I can tell you from personal experience that even our most challenging college courses have been pathetically dumbed down.

And at our “less than finest” public universities, the level of education can be something of a bad joke. In another previous article, I shared some examples of actual courses that have been taught at U.S. universities in recent years…

-“What If Harry Potter Is Real?”

-“Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame”

-“Philosophy And Star Trek”

-“Learning From YouTube”

-“How To Watch Television”

Could you imagine getting actual college credit for a course entitled “What If Harry Potter Is Real?”

This is why many of our college graduates can barely put two sentences together. They aren’t being challenged, and the quality of the education most of them are receiving is incredibly poor.

But even though they aren’t being challenged, students are taking longer to get through college than ever. Federal statistics reveal that only 36 percent of all full-time students receive a bachelor’s degree within four years, and only 77 percent of all full-time students have earned a bachelor’s degree by the end of six years.

Of course our system of education is not entirely to blame. The truth is that young Americans spend far more time consuming media than they do hitting the books, and what passes for “entertainment” these days is rapidly turning their brains to mush.

According to a report put out by Nielsen, this is how much time the average American spends consuming media on various devices each day…

Watching live television: 4 hours, 32 minutes

Watching time-shifted television: 30 minutes

Listening to the radio: 2 hours, 44 minutes

Using a smartphone: 1 hour, 33 minutes

Using Internet on a computer: 1 hour, 6 minutes

When you add it all up, the average American spends more than 10 hours a day plugged into some form of media.

And if you allow anyone to pump “programming” into your mind for 10 hours a day, it is going to have a dramatic impact.

In the end, I truly believe that we all greatly underestimate the influence that the mainstream media has on all of us. We willingly plug into “the Matrix” for endless hours, but then somehow we still expect “to think for ourselves”.

There are very few of us that can say that we have not been exposed to thousands upon thousands of hours of conditioning. And all of that garbage can make it very, very difficult to think clearly.

It is not because of a lack of input that we have become so stupid as a society. The big problem is what we are putting into our minds.

If we continue to put garbage in, we are going to continue to get garbage out, and that is the cold, hard reality of the matter. (For more from the author of “Depressing Survey Results Show How Extremely Stupid America Has Become” please click HERE)

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Peace out, Fools! Obama Plays the Clown by Flashing the Peace Sign for Nuclear Security Summit ‘Team Photo’

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Surrounded by world leaders, President Barack Obama gave the peace sign as they gathered for a ‘team photo’ during a two-day nuclear summit.

All eyes were on Obama as 54 other presidents and prime ministers joined him in Washington, DC, for crunch talks on Iran and terrorist threats involving nuclear weapons.

There was one set of eyes, however, that was particularly focused on the President – those of Prime Minister David Cameron.

Relations between Cameron and Obama have been strained since the President criticized the Prime Minister for getting ‘distracted’ during the crisis in Libya and turning it into a ‘s**t show’.

There was more than metaphorical distance between the pair at today’s summit, with Cameron only able to glare at Obama from across the podium as he was elbowed out to the edge of the stage. (Read more from “Peace out, Fools! Obama Plays the Clown by Flashing the Peace Sign for Nuclear Security Summit ‘Team Photo'” HERE)

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Rand Paul Just Revealed He’s Making ‘Major Endorsement’, 1 Thing People Instantly Notice…

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Sen. Rand Paul tweeted on Thursday that he is going to make a “Yuge” endorsement on Friday, April 1.

The former presidential candidate teased out the announcement in series of tweets: . . .

The Kentuckian may be engaging in misdirection in one of two ways. Either he may be backing a candidate other than Trump, or the whole tease is just part of an April Fool’s joke, as one libertarian tweeted.

Lending credence to the notion that Paul is engaging in some sort of April 1 prank, was a report by The Hill that his spokesman had just confirmed on Wednesday that the senator would not be endorsing during the primary.

(Read more from “Rand Paul Just Revealed He’s Making ‘Major Endorsement’, 1 Thing People Instantly Notice…” HERE)

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No Conviction, No Courage: The GOP’s Treacherous Deal

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By Alan Keyes. The GOP governor of Georgia, Nathan Deal has, as Bryan Fischer wrote “has vetoed a religious liberty bill which is about as mild a bill as you can imagine. It would have protected pastors from being forced to perform sodomy-based weddings, and protected churches and other faith-based organizations from being forced to rent out their facilities for wedding ceremonies which celebrate the infamous crime against nature.” Fischer see Deal’s actions as an example of “how we are losing America: one cowardly governor at a time.”

Fischer is understandably outraged by Gov. Deal’s brazen betrayal of the moral conservative voters who supported him trusting that “a Republican and self-identified Southern Baptist” would support the Georgia Legislature’s to thwart ongoing efforts by homosexuals to force Americans to abandon their Biblical faith in God’s benevolent will for human procreation. In this respect, Deal’s action is deeply treacherous. But is it cowardly?

Deal certainly appears to lack the courage of his convictions. But this is only if we assume that, on issues of Christian moral principle like gay marriage, he ever had the convictions ascribed to him. Georgians should be the last people to forget the fact that Jimmy Carter’s apparently sincere self-identification as a Southern Baptist did not prevent him from accepting the Democrat Party’s obdurate stand in support of the so-called “right” of parents to procure the murder of their nascent offspring. It has not prevented self-identified Christians of other denominations (including both Anglican and Roman Catholics) from rejecting God’s plainly stated Biblical prohibition against male homosexuality.

So, given the experience of at least forty years, it makes no sense to trust that an elected official will stand firm on issues of moral principle simply because he or she self-identifies as a Christian. Is the Republican Party label any more trustworthy in this regard? Then Governor Sarah Palin appointed former Planned Parenthood board member Morgan Christen to Alaska’s Supreme Court. Of the unrepentant pro-abortion Christen, Palin wrote, “I have every confidence that Judge Christen has the experience, intellect, wisdom and character to be an outstanding Supreme Court Justice.” (Read more from “No Conviction, No Courage: The GOP’s Treacherous Deal” HERE)

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Ted Cruz: Anti-Gay Marriage Crusader? Not So Fast

By Heidi Przybyla. Senator Ted Cruz, who wants to be the Republican Party’s lead crusader against gay marriage, ducked the opportunity to play a critical role in turning back the movement in its infancy.

In 2003, the year Cruz became Texas’s top government litigator, the state lost a crucial case as the U.S. Supreme Court decided that state laws banning homosexual sex as illegal sodomy were unconstitutional. The decision in Lawrence v. Texas paved the way for the court’s consideration of gay marriage. “The final victory for gay rights was foreshadowed when the court decided Lawrence v Texas,” predicted Walter Dellinger, a former U.S. assistant attorney general and solicitor general who’s argued numerous cases before the Supreme Court. . .

As Texas solicitor general when the Lawrence v. Texas case came before the Supreme Court, Cruz was “very much in the middle of all this drama,” said Mitchell Katine, who was local counsel to the two gay men at the center of the case, John Lawrence and Tyron Garner. . .Yet “Cruz remained absolutely silent,” Katine said. The case remained assigned instead to a Harris County district attorney.

Through a spokesman, Cruz said he didn’t step in because the case was criminal in nature and his office primarily handled civil cases. Yet six of the nine cases Cruz argued before the nation’s highest court were criminal in nature. . .

Interviews with a dozen former fellow law students, professors, lawyers and government officials show that his lack of involvement in the Lawrence case is part of a broader narrative about the Texas senator’s relationship with the gay community: While he has consistently opposed gay rights, he has often stayed away from the front lines of the fight and even courted gay donors. (Read more from this article HERE)

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GRIDLOCK IN NYC SO HILLARY CAN GET A $1,200 HAIRCUT: A Female Reader Responds

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Hillary Clinton’s oversized motorcade gridlocked Manhattan traffic this week so she could, eh, get a coiffe.

Looks like the cut and color cost a mere $1,200. But she’s for the little people!

Hillary Clinton’s entourage — four big black cars plus her top aide Huma Abedin — was spotted outside Bergdorf Goodman on Wednesday morning waiting as the presidential hopeful got her $600 haircut.

According to one witness, “Hillary’s entourage was blocking traffic early this morning, and waiting as Hillary got her hair done before heading up to do an event at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.”

Clinton gets her hair done at the John Barrett Salon by John Barrett personally, who we previously reported charges $600 for a haircut, plus an extra $600 for color.

Reader Silby emailed us this, eh, unique reaction:

Not only is she a liar and a cheat, she’s a f***ing idiot!

Hillary has a $600 haircut yesterday at Bergdorfs in NYC and her limo and entourage blocked traffic for 4 blocks!! Put that f***ing ‘I’m working for the people’ bulls*** on your blog!!

Such a f***ing hypocrite. I despise her.

My haircut alone is $35. Roots and cut, $80. Roots and highlights and cut and blow-dry comes to $110.

My look kills hers.

If I spend $1,200, I better have hair that glows and has its own zip code.

F***ing $1,200 for a haircut and a color.

I guess $$$ is no object when you are in a quest for power!!

Why the hell doesn’t she spend $1,200 on Jenny Craig or Nutrisystems? How about a f***ing Zumba class? She can’t walk up the stairs without assistance, for f***’s sake!!

Or how about spending $1,200 on food for the homeless shelter in Harlem, where she can speak jive to pretend she cares about anyone other than herself?

She better not f***ing be my president. I’m going to have to go into a four-year hyper-sleep or something.

Which reminds me of what the late, great Dr. Bob once told me, presciently predicting the rise of Hillary Clinton, I guess. (For more from the author of “GRIDLOCK IN NYC SO HILLARY CAN GET A $1,200 HAIRCUT: A Female Reader Responds” please click HERE)

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Watch: Hillary Clinton Blows Gasket When Confronted With the Truth About Fossil Fuel Donations

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ANDERSON COOPER: Are you suggesting that she’s in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry?

BERNIE SANDERS: No, what I am suggesting is that we have a corrupt campaign finance system. And instead of standing up to that finance system, Secretary Clinton has a Super PAC which is raising a lot of money from Wall Street and from the fossil fuel industry . . .

See more videos from Western Journalism at https://w-j.co/videos

Posted by Western Journalism Video on Thursday, March 31, 2016

EVA RESNICK-DAY: Will you act on your word and reject fossil fuel money in the future in your campaign?

HILLARY CLINTON: I do not have – I have money from people who work for fossil fuel companies. I’m so sick, I am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me. I’m sick of it. (Read more from “Hillary Clinton Blows Gasket When Confronted With the Truth About Fossil Fuel Donations” HERE)

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Obama Commutes Sentences of 61 Felons, Including Violent Gun Criminals

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When Obama delegitimized our immigration laws and implemented executive amnesty back in November 2014, he harnessed the fallout from the lawlessness as a means of blackmailing Congress to pass legislative amnesty. He is now doing the same thing with executive jailbreak in order to allure Congress into passing legislative jailbreak. And much like with the immigration issue, Republican leaders are more than happy to give his jailbreak agenda tailwinds instead of opposing it with full vigor.

Earlier today, Obama announced the commutation of sentences for 61 drug traffickers who will be released from federal prison in July. According to the Associated Press, “The latest tranche of commutations brings to 248 the total number of inmates whose sentences Obama has commuted — more than the past six presidents combined.” As we’ve noted in a series of articles this past year, the federal prison population is actually relatively small, hovering at roughly 160,000. And most of those in federal prison, as opposed to state penitentiaries, are indeed violent criminals who likely committed other crimes but pleaded down to and were sentenced for drug trafficking. Also, up to 30% are non-citizens and should be deported instead of released into our population.

Republicans should have defunded these commutations during last year’s budget battle, but instead they have signaled to Obama that they will drop every other important issue and focus on enshrining his last remaining domestic policy agenda item for the remainder of his term. Paul Ryan has promised to bring to the floor a bill that will retroactively release thousands more from federal prisons, including MS-13 gang members who were convicted to up to 20 years in federal prison for violent crimes.

What is so appalling and ironic about Obama’s clemency program is that in addition to releasing drug dealers, he is commuting the sentences of those who committed crimes with firearms. At the same time, Obama is calling for tougher regulations on law abiding gun owners and dealers, he is releasing violent gun criminals into our communities. Yet, Republicans cannot hold him accountable and message this point to the media because they agree with his underlying policy.

Jailbreak, along with the Puerto Rico bailout, will likely be the biggest legislative battles of Spring 2016. This is something both conservatives and libertarians need to fight. There is nothing libertarian about this effort. It’s not as if Congress is prospectively reforming the drug laws by devolving them to the states. This is all about retroactively reducing prison population and handing more discretion to liberal judges; the same people who exacerbated the crime wave of last generation with their lenient sentences.

This is not rooted in a libertarian agenda and will not result in a libertarian outcome of getting the federal government out of drug enforcement. There is a reason the ACLU, La Raza, and the AFL-CIO are championing this bill with the same vigor as the Gang of Eight. It will result in chaos, more crime, and the ultimate goal of registering more Democrat voters.

Honest people can debate the utility of federal narcotics statutes going forward, but most of those already serving time in federal prison are heavy duty cocaine, meth or heroin dealers and have often committed other violent crimes and will commit violent crimes upon release. Let’s first deal with border security and stop the flow of both illegal immigrants and destructive narcotics and we will see a huge reduction in the federal prison population and proliferation of drugs.

Conservatives should spend the next few months embarrassing Obama on immigration, Cuba, Iran, religious liberty, and homeland security, not peddle the jailbreak agenda of the far left. (For more from the author of “Obama Commutes Sentences of 61 Felons, Including Violent Gun Criminals” please click HERE)

Watch a recent interview with the author below:

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