We Have Our Final Six GOP Candidates

By Jonathan V. Last. Yesterday’s debate showed that the GOP field is smaller than it looks. Technically, there are still fourteen people running, but the winnowing is far along. We probably have a final six and possibly a final four . . .

Rubio ended Jeb Bush’s campaign with the kind of body shot that buckles your knees. That’s on Bush, who never should have come after Rubio in that spot for a host of strategic and tactical reasons. But what should scare Hillary Clinton is how effortless Rubio is even with throwaway lines, like “I’m against anything that’s bad for my mother.” Most people have no idea how fearsome raw political talent can be. Clinton does know because she’s seen it up close. She sleeps next to it for a contractually-obligated 18 nights per year.

Cruz was tough and canny—no surprise there. He went the full-Gingrich in his assault on CNBC’s ridiculous moderators. He did a better job explaining Social Security reform than Chris Christie, even (which is no mean feat). And managed to look downright personable compared with John Harwood, whose incompetence was matched only by his unpleasantness. If you’re a conservative voter looking for someone who is going to fight for your values, Cruz must have looked awfully attractive.

Then there was Trump. Over the last few weeks, Trump has gotten better on the stump. Well, don’t look now, but he’s getting better at debates, too. Trump was reasonably disciplined. He kept his agro to a medium-high level. And his situational awareness is getting keener, too. Note how he backed John Kasich into such a bad corner on Lehmann Brothers that he protested, “I was a banker, and I was proud of it!” When that’s your answer, you’ve lost the exchange. Even at a Republican debate . . .

So there’s your final six: Trump, Carson, Rubio, Cruz, and maybe—just maybe—Fiorina and Christie. (Read more from “We Have Our Final Six GOP Candidates” HERE)

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Republican Debate: Here’s Who Won…and Who Lost

By Jeff Cox. RUBIO: The senator from Florida faced some fundamental character questions, namely about the votes he’s missing while campaigning, and some personal finance missteps. Each time, Rubio deflected the challenges and focused on issues. “I’m not worried about my finances,” he said in one exchange. “This debate needs to be about the men and women across this country who are struggling on a daily basis to provide for their families a better future that we always said this country is about” . . .

Score Rubio a winner . . .

Score Carson a loser . . .

Score [Ted] Cruz a winner . . .

Score [Donald] Trump neutral. (Read more from “Republican Debate: Here’s Who Won…and Who Lost” HERE)

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Trump Boasts About Limiting the Debate

By Nick Gass. Several campaigns had threatened to bail on the debate during negotiations unless CNBC limited the event to 2 hours including commercial breaks, a chief concern of Donald Trump and Ben Carson, who sent a joint letter to the network complaining about the format.

“I could stand up here all night. Nobody wants to watch three and a half or three hours. And I have to hand it to Ben,” Trump said during his closing statement, motioning to Carson.

“They lost a lot of money. Everybody said it couldn’t be done,” Trump continued. “And in about two minutes, I renegotiated it to two hours, so we can get the hell out of here,” he said, to cheers. (Read more from “Trump Boasts About Limiting the Debate” HERE)

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Bozell: CNBC Debate Was an ‘Encyclopedic Example of Liberal Media Bias’

By News Busters Staff. MRC president Brent Bozell issued a statement Wednesday night criticizing the overall tilt and tone of the CNBC Republican debate in Boulder:

“The CNBC moderators acted less like journalists and more like Clinton campaign operatives. What was supposed to be a serious debate about the many issues plaguing our economy was given up for one Democratic talking point after another served up by the so-call ‘moderators.’ They clearly war-gamed this thinking that a relentless series of personal attacks on the candidates would somehow drive their ratings and help Hillary Clinton.

(Read more from “Bozell: CNBC Debate Was an ‘Encyclopedic Example of Liberal Media Bias'” HERE)

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Budget Deal Passes House, Republican Party Is Dead

Yesterday, the GOP-led House passed a budget bill and debt ceiling increase that countermands every principle they campaigned on when pursuing majority control of that chamber in 2010. The policy and political outcomes of this vote will be far reaching and gravely consequential.

How ironic that on the final day of Boehner’s tenure, he passes a wretched bill that represents everything his leadership embodied, which engendered the coup against him in the first place. How ironic that this bill only garnered support of 79 Republicans, yet 200 of 247 Republicans voted to replace its sponsor with Paul Ryan – the man who supported this very budget deal.

1. INCREASES DEBT CEILING UNCONDITIONALLY

This bill suspends the debt ceiling through March 2017, granting this president another $1.5 trillion in debt authority after already amassing $7.5 trillion in debt. This, at a time when revenue is at record highs. There are now no external constraints on the amount of debt this president can accumulate in his final year.

2. BUDGET CONTROL ACT PERMANENTLY TERMINATED

The bill increases spending by $112 billion, thereby permanently overturning the only meaningful spending victory secured by conservatives over the past five years. There will be little leverage to preserve these cuts in the future. Spending was already slated to increase by $250 billion for the new year (from $3.677 trillion to $3.928 trillion); this bill will bump that increase to over $310 billion for 2016 alone. This is why Republicans have never cut spending. Despite record projected revenue of $3.5 trillion for 2016, they can’t balance the budget and will spend $4 trillion annually for the first time ever. In the era of “austerity,” the federal government is now growing by 8.4% despite the fact that the private economy is averaging 2.5% growth.

3. RUBBER STAMPS OBAMA’S BACKWARDS FOREIGN POLICY

Included in the increased spending is an extra $32 billion in war spending on top of existing appropriations. This comes on the heels of reports that Obama is commencing ground operations involving our military in the Islamic civil war in both Iraq and Syria. It is cowardly of Congress to not issue a declaration of war with specific policy demands from Obama dictating our strategic goals. Nobody can identify the mission – who we are fighting and with whom we are allying? Yet, this is Congress’ backdoor means of greenlighting this tepid and aimless effort without taking responsibility for supporting it or blocking it. As we’ve noted before, much of the money we send to the Middle East has wound up in the hands of Al-Nusra in Syria and Iranian-backed Shiite forces in Iraq. This budget allows Obama to invest more in failure, and worse – our enemies – because much of the OCO funds go to the State Department.

4. PAVES THE WAY FOR MORE SPENDING WITH ENRON STYLE ACCOUNTING

It would have been better had Congress not deceived the public with Enron-style accounting gimmicks to “offset” the cost of the bill. As Congressional Quarterly noted today, “Budget Deal Pay-Fors May Provide Template for Future Accords.” The political class thinks that a hodgepodge of notional and intangible offsets spread out 10 years from now are so clever. They will be emboldened to use the same gimmicks to bust even more spending caps, even in areas of the budget they’ve been cautious to do so until now.

5. WE ARE AT THE MERCY OF OBAMA WITH NO LEVERAGE

The most under-reported aspect of this deal is that it completely “clears the decks” of any budget bill for the remainder of Obama’s presidency, thereby taking the power of the purse off the table. As bad as the increased spending is for our fiscal solvency, the Obama policies are worse. There will be no budget to leverage against Obama’s growing amnesty, EPA overreach, foreign policy disasters, prison break, and dangerous clemencies. For example, Obama released 66,000 criminal aliens in 2013-2014, who had accrued a total of 166,000 convictions: 30k DUIs, 414 kidnappings, 11,000 sex assaults, and 395 homicides. They went on to commit at least 121 murders after being released. Who knows how high those numbers will go now that Obama has completely suspended deportations. Yet, conservatives will not have an opportunity to leverage DHS and Justice Department funding against his amnesty, which will likely grow more dangerous and lawless in his final year.

6. PAUL RYAN OWNS THIS BUDGET

Even if one buys into Ryan’s defense that he had nothing to do with the budget, a dubious assertion in itself, he clearly owns this deal for two reasons.

First, the notion that the Speaker-elect cannot speak out against this travesty and demand it be halted is like saying that a newly elected fire chief is powerless against ordering his men to put out the flames of an arson that began the day before. Even if we accept that the debt ceiling deadline was sprung on him and cannot be stopped, there is no reason for him to agree to the budget deal, which does not come due for another six weeks. He certainly doesn’t have to agree to take the debt ceiling AND budget off the table for the rest of Obama’s presidency; he could have opted for a shorter-term bill so that he can show us the magic of his budget work and his amazing messaging skills. Now he will have no leverage to enact all of the fiscal reforms he will so eruditely articulate in the coming months.

Second, Paul Ryan forged the original Ryan-Murray bill in 2013, which established the precedent that breaking the budget caps is a “must-pass” initiative. Until that point, Republicans had held firm. In that sense, this deal is merely the grandchild of Ryan’s original betrayal.

The fact that Ryan supported this excrement sandwich shows that he has no desire to actually force important conservative changes. He relishes the opportunity to “clear the barn” of any meaningful leverage so that he can discuss policy reforms in the abstract without having to fight for them in any significant way.

7. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS DEAD

Republicans have checked out from the fight against the consequential societal transformational issues for years: marriage, religious liberty, immigration, law and order, etc. They have made it clear now they will never fight for fiscal conservatism. Unless a true conservative is elected as president, the party is done. (For more from the author of “Budget Deal Passes, Republican Party Is Dead” please click HERE)

Watch a recent interview with the author below:

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Pumpkins Cause Climate Change?

How scary are your jack-o’-lanterns? Scarier than you think, according to the Energy Department, which claims the holiday squash is responsible for unleashing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Most of the 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins produced in the U.S. end up in the trash, says the Energy Department’s website, becoming part of the “more than 254 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) produced in the United States every year.”

Municipal solid waste decomposes into methane, “a harmful greenhouse gas that plays a part in climate change, with more than 20 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide,” Energy says . . .

Municipal solid waste can be used to harness bioenergy, the Energy Department says, which can help the U.S. become less dependent on carbon-based fuels while limiting stress on landfills by reducing waste. The agency has partnered with industry to develop and test two integrated biorefineries — “facilities capable of efficiently converting plant and waste material into affordable biofuels, biopower and other products.” (Read more from “Pumpkins Cause Climate Change?” HERE)

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Look: The Bizarre Image of ‘Donald Trump’ That’s Taking the Internet by Storm

The “Trumpkin” has become a novelty hit for front porch decorating this Halloween season, with the largest known one sitting outside the home of an Ohio woman.

Jeanette Paras, of Dublin, Ohio, is a pumpkin artist who tries to come up with a clever pop culture idea to use every Halloween. She has “pumpkinized” singer Miley Cyrus, Phil Robertson of “Duck Dynasty” fame, Lady Gaga and Monica Lewinsky. Last year, she painted the face of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on a pumpkin.

She’s also painted the faces of politicians, including Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, on pumpkins for her display at various times in the past. This year, Paras opted to paint the face of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Paras went huge for the project and used a 374-pound pumpkin, according to WJW in Cleveland. It was a tedious job, with Paras describing how she first sketched the design on paper and then transferred it to the pumpkin. The famous Trump hairstyle wasn’t easy to achieve either, she said.

“He required six, 38-inch blond wings,” Paras said. (Read more from “Look: The Bizarre Image of ‘Donald Trump’ That’s Taking the Internet by Storm” HERE)

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Major Shakeup at Very Top of GOP Field That’ll Send Shock Waves Through the Race

By Randy DeSoto. For the first time in many months, the GOP has a new front-runner in the presidential primary race: Dr. Ben Carson.

The latest New York Times/CBS poll has Carson taking the lead from Donald Trump garnering 26 percent to 22 percent of registered Republican voters. The lead falls within the margin of error of 6 percent.

The results are a reversal from last month in the Times/CBS poll, which had Trump at 27 percent and Carson at 23.

No other candidate registers in double digits in the new poll. The next three after the two leaders are Sen. Marco Rubio at 8 percent, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina each at 7 percent.

The poll also finds that a majority of Republican primary voters have not made up their minds regarding who they will support. Seven in 10 indicated it was too early to say for certain who they would vote for, with just 28 percent reporting their minds were made up.

“Carson has made gains across many key Republican groups. In a reversal from earlier this month, he is now ahead of Trump among women and is running neck and neck with him among men. Carson’s support among evangelicals has risen and he now leads Trump by more than 20 points with this group,” according to CBS News. (Read more from “Major Shakeup at Very Top of GOP Field That’ll Send Shock Waves Through the Race” HERE)

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Ben Carson Edges Trump in National GOP Race

By Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Anthony Salvanto, and Fred Backus. Ben Carson has surpassed Donald Trump and now narrowly leads the Republican field in the race for the nomination in the latest national CBS News/New York Times Poll.

Twenty-six percent of Republican primary voters back Carson, giving him a four-point edge over Trump (22 percent). Support for Carson has quadrupled since August.

The rest of the Republican presidential candidates lag far behind in single digits. Marco Rubio is now in third place (eight percent), followed by Jeb Bush (seven percent) and Carly Fiorina (seven percent). All other candidates are at four percent or lower.

Carson has made gains across many key Republican groups. In a reversal from earlier this month, he is now ahead of Trump among women and is running neck and neck with him among men. Carson’s support among evangelicals has risen and he now leads Trump by more than 20 points with this group.

Carson performs well among conservative Republicans and those who identify as Tea partiers. Trump does well with moderates and leads Carson among those without a college degree – although Trump had a larger advantage with non-college graduates earlier this month. (Read more from “Ben Carson Edges Trump in National GOP Race” HERE)

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House Republicans Begin Impeachment Against IRS Chief

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz began the impeachment process against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen on Tuesday, accusing him of misleading the public and destroying documents that were sought under a congressional subpoena.

It was the latest move in the battle over the targeting of tea party groups at the tax agency.

Less than a week earlier, the Justice Department issued a report finding no criminal behavior in the decision by top IRS officials to subject conservative groups to intrusive scrutiny.

Among the specific charges leveled by Mr. Chaffetz and 18 of his fellow Republicans on the committee were that Mr. Koskinen, appointed by President Obama in December 2013 after the targeting scandal broke, misled Congress when he said he had turned over all of former IRS senior executive Lois G. Lerner’s emails and that he oversaw destruction of evidence when his agency got rid of backup tapes that contained the emails.

It was unclear how far the resolution would go in a Congress preoccupied with so many other fights and with little more than a year to go in President Obama’s tenure. (Read more from “House Republicans Begin Impeachment Against IRS Chief” HERE)

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Judge Napolitano: Hillary Clinton Committed Perjury Last Week, FBI Will Pursue Indictment

[According to Judge Napolitano], the Department of Justice and FBI audience was looking for “perjury, for misleading statements and for what federal law calls ‘bad acts’” [from Hillary Clinton’s Thursday testimony before Congress on Benghazi].

“Perjury is lying under oath. Mrs. Clinton committed perjury when she denied that she knew anything about supplying arms to rebels,” Napolitano said. “Not only did she know about it, she authorized it,” he asserted.

Napolitano noted a New York Times columnist called her the “midwife of chaos” for her “introduction of U.S. military hardware into the hands of gangs in Libya, some of whom were run by known al-Qaida operatives, several of whom murdered Ambassador Stevens.”

[He went on to assert that the] “crime of misleading Congress carries the same penalty as lying to Congress – five years per misleading statement,” Napolitano pointed out. “Her frequent use of double negatives and her professed lack of memory may save her from perjury but not from the charge of misleading – being deceptive. What she plainly revealed is a willingness and natural proclivity to deceive,” he concluded.

“We know she knew the true source of the Benghazi attacks the day they happened, even as she was lying and blaming a cheap video,” he noted. ”The FBI knows how to build a case on ‘bad acts’ – here, persistent deception – and how to use that to trap and indict the perpetrator.” (Read more from “Judge Napolitano: Hillary Clinton Committed Perjury Last Week, FBI Will Pursue Indictment” HERE)

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Feds Go to Bat for Muslim Truckers Fired for Refusing to Do Their Jobs

Last month, it was a Muslim flight attendant who sued her airline after it suspended her for refusing to serve booze. This month it’s two Muslim truck drivers, except in this case, handling booze — which is forbidden under Islamic law — was pretty much their entire job description.

The pair, Mahad Abass Mohamed and Abdkiarim Hassan Bulshale, had the backing of the federal government in their religious discrimination lawsuit against their former employer, who rightfully terminated them for refusing to make beer deliveries.

The Washington Examiner notes that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission won $240,000 in damages to the former drivers, both of Somali heritage, who were fired in 2009.

The EEOC said that Star Transport Inc., a trucking company based in Morton, Ill., violated their religious rights by refusing to accommodate their objections to delivering alcoholic beverages.

“EEOC is proud to support the rights of workers to equal treatment in the workplace without having to sacrifice their religious beliefs or practices,” EEOC General Counsel David Lopez announced Thursday. “This is fundamental to the American principles of religious freedom and tolerance.”

(Read more from “Feds Go to Bat for Muslim Truckers Fired for Refusing to Do Their Jobs” HERE)

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Almost One-Third of College Students Misidentify First Amendment

A national survey measuring the opinions of U.S. college students on the issue of free speech on college campuses was released today by The William F. Buckley, Jr. Program at Yale, which sponsored the poll.

The 2015 Buckley Free Speech Survey, which was conducted by nationally respected pollster, McLaughlin & Associates, revealed a wealth of information about how college students view rights and topics such as: The First Amendment; speech codes; academic freedom; trigger warnings; “political correctness;” and intellectual diversity, among other things. The national survey of 800 undergraduate students was conducted online and respondents were carefully selected and screened from a nationwide representative platform of individuals who elect to participate in online surveys.

The survey can be viewed here.

“The William F. Buckley, Jr. Program at Yale was founded to increase intellectual diversity on the Yale University campus and beyond, and this survey shows that we have a great deal of work to do,” said Buckley Program founder and executive director Lauren Noble. “The survey results confirmed some of what we expected, but they also revealed troubling surprises. It is the opinion of the Buckley Program that university campuses are best served by free and open speech, but, lamentably, that opinion is anything but unanimous, the survey shows.”

Highlights from the 2015 Buckley Free Speech Survey include:

Forty-nine percent (49%) of survey participants said they have often felt intimidated to share beliefs that differ from their professors, including 14% who said “frequently” and 35% who said “sometimes”;

Exactly half (50%) said they have often felt intimidated to share beliefs that differ from their classmates, including 16% who said “frequently” and 34% who said “sometimes”;

The majority of students (53%) say their professors have often used class time to express their own views about matters outside of coursework, including 14% who say “frequently” and 38% who say “sometimes”;

Greater than six in ten (63%) say political correctness on college campuses is either a “big problem” (19%) or “somewhat of a problem” (44%);

Fifty-five percent (55%) of students say they are aware of “trigger warnings” and 63% would favor their professors using them, while 23% would oppose;

By a 52-42% margin, students say their college or university should forbid people from speaking on campus who have a history of engaging in hate speech;

Seventy-two percent (72%) of students surveyed said they support disciplinary action for “any student or faculty member on campus who uses language that is considered racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise offensive”;

When students were asked to identify the amendment that deals with free speech, 68% correctly cited the First Amendment. One in three (32%) incorrectly listed another amendment;

The majority (52%) said that the First Amendment does not make an exemption for hate speech and that all speech is protected under the First Amendment. One in three (35%) say that hate speech is not protected under the First Amendment;

By a 73% to 21% margin, students say the First Amendment is an important amendment that needs to be followed and respected rather than an outdated amendment that can no longer be applied in today’s society and should be changed.

Liberal students are more likely than conservative students to say the First Amendment is outdated, 30% to 10%, respectively;

By a nearly two to one margin, students said their school is generally more tolerant of liberal ideas and beliefs than conservative ideas and beliefs, 37% to 20%. Thirty-six percent (36%) said their school was equally tolerant of both.

Private school students are more likely than public school students to say their school is more tolerant of liberal ideas, 43% to 35%, respectively;

Ninety-five percent (95%) of all college students say the issue of free speech is important to them, including 70% who say it is “very important”;

By a 51% to 36% margin, students favor their school having speech codes to regulate speech for students and faculty.

Eight in ten believe that freedom of speech should either be less limited (38%) on college campuses or there should be no difference (43%) compared to society at large. Just 16% say freedom of speech should be more limited;

When given a choice, just one in ten (10%) say colleges, universities and government should regulate free speech more. A slight plurality (46%) says free speech is important, but there should be exceptions to every rule and 42% support freedom of speech in all cases;

Seven in ten (72%) say their college or university should be doing more to promote policies that increase diversity of opinions in the classroom and on campus;

Almost nine in ten (87%) agree that there is education value in listening to and understanding views and opinions that they may disagree with and are different than their own;

Those surveyed were:

Political party: 42% Democratic, 26% Republican, 29% independent;

Ideology: 44% liberal, 32% moderate, 20% conservative, and

Race/Ethnicity: 54% white, 15% African American, 14% Hispanic/Latino, 8% Asian, 7% one or more.

POLL METHODOLOGY

McLaughlin & Associates conducted a national survey of 800 undergraduate students from September 19th to 28th, 2015. All interviews were conducted online and respondents were carefully selected and screened from a nationwide representative platform of individuals who elect to participate in online surveys.

Data for this survey have been stratified by age, race, sex and geography using the National Center for Education Statistics 2014 Report to reflect the actual demographic composition of undergraduate students in the United States.

Because the sample is based on those who initially self-selected for participation rather than a probability sample, no estimates of sampling error can be calculated. All surveys may be subject to multiple sources of error, including, but not limited to sampling error, coverage error and measurement error.

However, a confidence interval of 95% was calculated in order to produce an error estimate of +/- 3.4% for the 800 respondents. This error estimate should be taken into consideration in much the same way that analysis of probability polls takes into account the margin of sampling error. The error estimate increases for cross-tabulations. Totals may not add up to exactly 100% due to rounding.

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Press release from The William F. Buckley, Jr. Program at Yale.

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