Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has rebuked multiple claims this week that his presidential candidacy is in its death throes. At least two notable media reports, citing separate unnamed sources, have indicated the struggling Republican would drop out of the race even before his home-state primary next Tuesday.
When CNN ran a report to that effect, Rubio communications director Alex Conant paid the network a visit, telling anchor Wolf Blitzer that the allegation was “fiction” and “100 percent false.”
Following a poor showing during Tuesday’s primary elections, a Fox Business Network report cited the candidate’s donors as among those suggesting he would exit the race — barring any favorable polling shifts — prior to the Florida primary.
Rubio himself addressed these assertions with Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly Wednesday, insisting that he plans to win Florida and continue what he has previously referred to as a national campaign.
“I’m fighting all the way through,” he said.
Blaming an unorthodox primary season, Rubio noted his was not the first candidacy to have been prematurely eulogized. (Read more from “Marco Rubio Just Said Something About His Campaign That’ll Tell You Exactly Where It’s Heading” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-11 00:34:552016-04-11 10:51:40Marco Rubio Just Said Something About His Campaign That’ll Tell You Exactly Where It’s Heading
Imagine a prominent Democrat committee chairman promoting private Social Security accounts or right to work legislation. Try to picture a long-serving Democrat senator filing a brief in a pending Supreme Court case in favor of the right to concealed carry. You will have a tough time conjuring up such images because there are no prominent Democrats who promote major policy initiatives of the other side. Therein lies the imbalance between our nation’s two major political parties.
On Tuesday, the Orwellian-named Constitutional Accountability Center filed an amicus brief in support of Obama’s executive amnesty in U.S. v. Texas. The brief was filed on behalf of a number of former Republican members of Congress in addition to Democrat members. Not only do they support the underlying policy of open borders, this brief demonstrates that these Republicans, who were influential in crafting party policy in their respective times, do not believe in the Constitution nor in the concept of separation of powers. They defiantly assert that Obama’s executive amnesty “is legally no different than countless other exercises of executive discretion engaged in by presidents of both parties and blessed by both parties in Congress.”
Sure, a president unilaterally granting illegal aliens work permits, Social Security cards and a backdoor path to citizenship is just another day at work in the Oval Office.
Here is a list of the Republicans who signed onto the brief and a description of their respective careers in the House or Senate:
LaHood, Raymond H. (“Ray”) Former Representative of Illinois (1995- 2009); Member of the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee, and the Republican Mainstream Partnership; Former United States Secretary of Transportation (2009-2013)
Leach, James A. Former Representative of Iowa (1977- 2007); Chair of the House Committee on Financial Services; Member of the Committee on International Relations; Chair of the Subcommittee on Asian-Pacific Affairs; Chair of the National Endowment of the Humanities (2009-2013)
Lugar, Richard Former Senator of Indiana (1977-2013); Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; Chair of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
Porter, John E. Former Representative of Illinois (1980- 2001); Member of the House Committee on Appropriations; Chair of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health & Human Services, and Education
We have here a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a man who crafted foreign policy for Republicans for years, who has no regard for our sovereignty and the rule of law. We have Republicans who shaped our domestic policy for years and were viewed as titans of the legislature, yet they believe in the predominance of rule by executive fiat over congressional statutes. All of these individuals held prominent positions in the party for years and nobody ever questioned their commitment to the Constitution, much less the platform of the Republican Party. Now we all know it was built on a lie. For so many Republicans over the past few decades, this has all been a fake fight.
This is why voters in the GOP feel so angry and betrayed. This is why voters have permanently severed all ties and interest with anything that smacks of the party establishment. They now understand that while Democrats were intrepidly promoting their agenda for years, so many Republicans who were supposed to be combating their fundamental transformation were really wolves in sheep’s clothing.
When choosing your candidate for president, make that decision wisely, making sure you are not selecting someone who will turn around in a few years and champion the very causes he promised to fight against today. (For more from the author of “Betrayed Again: Prominent Republicans File Brief Supporting Obama’s Illegal Executive Amnesty” please click HERE)
Nearly 46,000 Pennsylvania Democrats have gone Republican since the start of 2016, twice as many as have shifted the other way, as a wild primary fight continues to upend the business of politics as usual and challenge the status quo.
Needless to say, much of this movement is being attributed to the rise of Donald Trump and the so-called “Ditch and Switch” movement, which leans on lifelong Democrats to abandon the party, register Republican and help ensure Trump’s place in the November general election.
A website launched by two North Carolina sisters calling on Democrats to switch political parties and embrace Trump says, “For many years the Democratic Party has promoted agendas that most Americans did not agree with. Our country is deeply divided, and the silent majority has been bullied into silence by political posturing and underhanded agendas that favor the few while excluding the majority.”
The statement supports Dr. G. Terry Madonna’s theory that at least some of the 46,000 Democrats-turned-Republican in Pennsylvania belong to a disaffected class that felt overlooked by elected leaders, or at odds with Democratic party ethos.
“With the increase in support in exit polls for Trump among working class, blue-collar Democrats, it is my belief that these are people who fall into that genre,” said Madonna, who is director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster. (Read more from “‘Ditch and Switch’: Trump May Be Behind Mass Democratic Party Exodus in Pennsylvania” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-11 00:33:362016-04-11 10:51:40‘Ditch and Switch’: Trump May Be Behind Mass Democratic Party Exodus in Pennsylvania
Donald Trump’s campaign is denying charges that top campaign official Corey Lewandowski got rough with a reporter during an event in Jupiter, Florida late Tuesday . . .
After the GOP front-runner spoke at a televised press conference, [Michelle] Fields, according to her Breitbart report, attempted to ask Trump a question on affirmative action as he was exiting the room.
Trump “acknowledged the question,” Fields said, “but before he could answer I was jolted backwards.”
“Someone had grabbed me tightly by the arm and yanked me down,” she added. “I almost fell to the ground, but was able to maintain my balance. Nonetheless, I was shaken.”
Fields, who typically covers Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2016 race and was filling in for a colleague at the Trump event, said she did not recognize who had grabbed her, but cited Washington Post reporter Ben Terris, a witness to the events. (Read more from “Trump Campaign Under Fire for ‘Assault’ on Reporter” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-11 00:31:572016-04-11 10:51:43Trump Campaign Under Fire for ‘Assault’ on Reporter
By B. Christopher Agee. Among the reasons many Republicans list for opposing Donald Trump’s bid to become the party’s presidential nominee is the fact that, in head-to-head polling against presumptive Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton, the brash billionaire has repeatedly and decisively lost. A recent CNN/ORC poll showed a dramatic shift from previous reports, with Trump down a whopping eight points against Clinton.
Not only did both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio come out on top against Clinton in that hypothetical match-up, the news got even worse for Trump when pollsters probed the favorability factor. Trump fared worse than anyone in either party with 6 in 10 respondents sharing an unfavorable opinion of him.
The very CNN poll Donald Trump said to look at shows him losing to Hillary Clinton and me beating her #GOPDebatehttps://t.co/P71S1WEhrY
A subsequent poll conducted by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal confirms Trump would face a pronounced electoral deficit against Clinton if the general election were held soon. In a one-on-one race, respondents said they would give Clinton a 13-point margin of victory. Both Cruz and Rubio remain competitive with Hillary, the poll results found, as both Republicans finished within two points — or less than the survey’s margin of error — of the former secretary of state. (Read more from “Brand New Poll Just Revealed Best Candidate to Go up Against Clinton – It’s NOT Who You’d Think” HERE)
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Donald Trump to Storm Convention Just Shy of Delegate Threshold for Nomination
By Ralph Z. Hallow. Donald Trump is on track to hand the Republican establishment an unprecedented defeat at the national convention in July, despite being outspent 3-1 by party leaders and their associates in their all-out effort to turn primary and caucus voters against him, according to a state-by-state delegate allocation analysis by The Washington Times.
By the time California and three other states count their votes from the last four primaries June 7, the brash billionaire businessman and TV star will be 74 or so delegates short of the 1,237 majority needed for the nomination, the analysis shows.
With so large a plurality in the offing, it is increasingly unlikely that the Republican establishment, fronted by 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney, will carry through with plans to change the convention rules to wrest the nomination from Mr. Trump and hand it to an establishment-approved candidate such as Marco Rubio or John Kasich, or even a noncandidate like House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who is expected to be named the convention’s chairman and has the adoration of the party’s power brokers.
“I cannot imagine him not getting a majority on the first ballot if he’s only 74 delegates short of a majority,” said Republican superlawyer and Constitution scholar James Bopp Jr. (Read more from “Donald Trump to Storm Convention Just Shy of Delegate Threshold for Nomination” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-10 01:06:222016-04-11 10:51:44Brand New, Surprising Poll Reveals ‘Best’ Candidate to Go up Against Clinton; Analysts Now Predict Brokered Convention
The Oregon militia members who occupied a wildlife refuge in protest of the government could face decades in prison under a set of new criminal charges, including firearm offenses, theft of public property and damaging a Native American archaeological site.
Federal prosecutors in Portland have greatly expanded their case against brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy and more than a dozen defendants who participated in the armed takeover of the Malheur national wildlife refuge in the high-profile standoff that began 2 January and dragged on for 41 days in rural Oregon.
Last month, after the final four occupiers surrendered to the FBI, officials arrested and charged a total of 25 people for their roles in the armed anti-government demonstration on public lands controlled by the federal government.
The rightwing activists, who traveled from across the US to protest the government’s land-use restrictions in the west, are all accused of using “force, intimidation and threats” to conspire against and impede government officials – a federal felony offense that carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison.
But on Wednesday, prosecutors unveiled a slew of new charges against 19 of the 25 defendants in the case – an indication that the federal government plans to aggressively target the protesters, some of whom could face more than 20 years in prison if convicted of all the offenses. (Read more from “Oregon Militia Members Were Just Delivered Devastating News” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-10 01:04:002016-04-11 10:51:44Oregon Militia Members Were Just Delivered Devastating News
Conservative talk show host Mark Levin endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for president Wednesday on his recently-launched television program.
“I’ve decided I’m going to let you know who I support for president of the United States by the end of this discussion and why,” Levin said at the outset of a 47-minute video. “Some of you will be angry at me. Some of you will think I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread. Think as you will, but at least listen to what I have to say.”
After discussing the founding of the U.S., Levin said his “purpose here tonight is not to trash any candidate.”
“My purpose here tonight is to tell you why I support Ted Cruz for president of the United States,” he said. “I support Ted Cruz for president of the United States because I believe everything I’ve just discussed with you.”
“He appreciates, he embraces, he understands, and he has fought for throughout his life too. That is the Constitution, the republic, individual sovereignty, the separation of powers, the Bill of Rights, family, faith, a secure border, our national security,” Levin said. (Read more from “‘Some of You Will Be Angry at Me’: Mark Levin Makes 2016 Endorsement” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-10 01:02:382016-04-11 10:51:44‘Some of You Will Be Angry at Me’: Mark Levin Makes 2016 Endorsement
The State Department announced it may put off its review of the sensitive classified information former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent on her illegal, insecure email server until after Election Day.
The server is at the heart of the scandal over Clinton’s mishandling of an Islamic terrorist attack in militant-infested Benghazi, Libya on the 11th anniversary of 9/11 that left four Americans, including U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens, dead. Even now, three years after the assault, the Obama administration has failed to provide an autopsy report about Stevens who was initially reported to have been ritualistically sodomized before being murdered by Muslim terrorists.
But this possible delay is a transparent ploy intended to benefit Clinton’s presidential campaign.
If the review is delayed for eight months or more, voters who are entitled to know the true extent of Clinton’s misdeeds may not find out exactly what she did until it is too late to reject her at the ballot box in November.
The review is intended to examine to what extent Clinton’s cavalier approach to keeping state secrets may have damaged national security. The Clinton campaign brushes the probe off but sources at the FBI and the Justice Department say a criminal investigation of the former top diplomat is already underway.
If the FBI is moving forward, it has changed gears since last fall when the investigative agency was criticized for dragging its heels in probing the Clinton matter.
The White House is obviously in no hurry to conduct a proper investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s crimes so it is stonewalling, falling back on an old Clinton tactic aimed at making big problems go away. Of course there is no earthly administrative reason why the State Department can’t complete its review in a timely manner, but the Obama administration is interested only in politics, not justice or national security.
But the Obama administration is apparently hoping that the power of bureaucratic inertia will help get Hillary into the White House.
“We’re not going to rush judgment of any of these things,” Department of State spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
“I’m not going to commit to a specific timeline. The secretary wants this review done thoroughly and accurately and efficiently, and he’s not going to allow himself or the process or the department to be driven by the political calendar on this,” Kirby said.
Kirby’s attitude stands in stark contrast to that of federal judge Rudolph Contreras who ordered more than 30,000 of the Clinton emails to be made public. Contreras said voters are intensely interested in the emails and that’s a key reason why he ordered the document dump be completed by the end of February, just before the Super Tuesday primaries were held.
This effort to derail any effort to hold Clinton politically accountable is yet more proof pointing to her guilt.
The fact that Mrs. Clinton destroyed email evidence — evidence subject to a congressional subpoena, no less — is already evidence in itself that she obstructed justice through spoliation of evidence. Spoliation means you can take as evidence the fact that evidence has been destroyed. Courts are entitled to draw spoliation inferences and convict an accused person on that basis alone.
Hillary knew from her first days running Foggy Bottom what the rules regarding official email were. She knowingly conspired with others to evade them. Evidence strongly suggests that Obama administration officials at the highest levels were long aware of Clinton’s cloak-and-dagger email infrastructure. The congenitally corrupt Clintons created the system to frustrate Freedom of Information Act requesters, shield Hillary’s correspondence from congressional oversight, and steer money to the international cash-for-future-presidential-favors clearinghouse known as the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, which, amazingly enough, still enjoys tax-exempt status.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has granted immunity to Bryan Pagliano, the former State Department staffer who maintained Clinton’s illicit email server, according to an unnamed law enforcement official. The grant comes as the FBI investigates Clinton’s mishandling of classified information in messages she sent through her insecure email system.
Pagliano had worked on Hillary’s 2008 presidential campaign before installing the server in her Chappaqua, N.Y. home in 2009. He invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself when he previously testified before Congress.
Experts say the so-called home-brew server was probably hacked by foreign intelligence agencies. The Russians alone tried at least five times to break into Clinton’s email. She has long maintained she never received or sent classified information through her hacker-friendly Internet server, even though many messages have been found to contain classified “top secret” information.
This kind of incompetence and corruption is just a small taste of what awaits Americans should Hillary Clinton become president. (For more from the author of “State Department Just Announced Horrific News About Hillary Email Scandal” please click HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-10 01:01:592016-04-11 10:51:45State Department Just Announced Horrific News About Hillary Email Scandal
By Greg Richter. GOP front-runner Donald Trump spoke at Regent University on Wednesday then sat down for a question-and-answer session with founder, the Rev. Pat Robertson.
“You inspire us all,” Robertson told the real estate mogul, who has secured the endorsement of Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr., and is bringing in evangelical voters to his camp.
Speaking of Secretary of State John Kerry, whose Iran deal Trump has criticized, Trump said, “Kerry did not read the ‘Art of the Deal,'” Trump’s own bestseller. “Probably not the Bible, either,” The Blaze reports.
Trump said he would nominate someone to replace Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia who was pro-life and who embodied the late justice’s conservative temperament. (Read more from “Pat Robertson Endorsed Trump: ‘You Inspire Us All'” HERE)
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Why Did Karl Rove’s Carly Fiorina Endorse Cruz?
By David A. Graham. It’s not just the Republican establishment that’s starting to coalesce around Ted Cruz. It’s the putative outsiders, too.
On Wednesday, former presidential candidate Carly Fiorina endorsed Cruz. “Ted Cruz is a fearless fighter for our constitutional rights,” she said in a statement. “Unlike the status-quo political class in D.C., Ted Cruz didn’t cower when he got to Washington—he stood unequivocally for the American people.”
Fiorina allying with Cruz makes some superficial sense—one outsider endorsing another. But it probably makes the most sense to see Fiorina’s endorsement of Cruz as a statement of disgust with Donald Trump, and a realization that the only candidate with any serious chance of stopping him is the Texas senator.
Throughout her presidential run, Fiorina positioned herself as an outsider—a corporate executive rather than a party creature. That wasn’t exactly true. She had run for Senate as a Republican in 2010 and been an adviser to John McCain in 2008, and as McKay Coppins notes, party insiders encouraged her to run, thinking that it would benefit the party to have a woman and business leader in the race. Running as an outsider was shrewd in a year when Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz were all doing the same, but it wasn’t enough, and she dropped out in early February. (Editor’s note: Karl Rove encouraged donors to pour millions into her 2010 failed senate race – which she lost badly – much to the detriment of competitive tea party races throughout the country. This led some analysts to believe that she was used by the Establishment to drain away much needed resources from real conservatives running elsewhere) (Read more from “Why Did Carly Fiorina Endorse Ted Cruz?” HERE)
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Meghan McCain: Fiorina Endorsement ‘Swayed’ My Opinion of Cruz
By Rebecca Savransky. Meghan McCain on Wednesday said Carly Fiorina’s endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has influenced her opinion of the Texas senator.
“I’ve been hesitant about Ted Cruz and the Carly Fiorina endorsement has swayed my personal opinion,” McCain, the daughter of Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain, said on Fox News, The Right Scoop reported.
McCain said she was a “huge” fan and supporter of Fiorina during her presidential campaign. She noted that Fiorina’s endorsement of Cruz could have a “major impact.”
“I think her most notable moment was when Donald Trump talked about her face and she responded so eloquently during the debate,” McCain said. (Read more from “Meghan McCain: Fiorina Endorsement ‘Swayed’ My Opinion of Cruz” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-10 01:01:292016-04-11 10:51:45Unsurprisingly, Pat Robertson and Carly Fiorina Chose Different Candidates For President; But Their Choices Will Surprise You
By Ryan Grim, Nick Baumann and Matt Fuller. Billionaires, tech CEOs and top members of the Republican establishment flew to a private island resort off the coast of Georgia this weekend for the American Enterprise Institute’s annual World Forum, according to sources familiar with the secretive gathering.
The main topic at the closed-to-the-press confab? How to stop Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google co-founder Larry Page, Napster creator and Facebook investor Sean Parker, and Tesla Motors and SpaceX honcho Elon Musk all attended. So did Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), political guru Karl Rove, House Speaker Paul Ryan, GOP Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.), Cory Gardner (Colo.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Ben Sasse (Neb.), who recently made news by saying he “cannot support Donald Trump.”
Along with Ryan, the House was represented by Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton (Mich.), Rep. Kevin Brady (Texas) and almost-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), sources said, along with leadership figure Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.), Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (Texas) and Diane Black (Tenn.). (Read more from “50+ Jets Fly the World’s Elite to Secret Island Meeting to Stop Trump” HERE)
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Elites Are Horrified by Donald Trump. What If Republican Voters Don’t Agree?
By Greg Sargent. With anxiety about Donald Trump rising among GOP elites and conservatives, we’re seeing more and more efforts from right-leaning writers to explain the ugliness of Trumpism — its bigotry, its authoritarianism — as a way of dissuading Republican elected officials and GOP voters in coming primaries from supporting him.
Which gives rise to a question: Are the Republican candidates running against Trump making anything close to this same case? . . .
It’s true that some criticism has been directed at Trump for supporting Obamacare, abortion, gun control, and private property seizures. But those criticisms remain comfortably within the boundaries of GOP orthodoxy. Trump’s rivals seem to believe there is some risk, or at least nothing to gain, in hitting him for vowing not to touch the entitlements of aging Republicans, for attacking free trade deals as bad for workers, and for vowing a very hard line on immigrants and Muslims — as if such attacks would not win over Republican voters, or might even alienate them.
All the high-minded criticism from right-leaning writers could dissuade Republican politicians from supporting Trump, by warning them what a disaster he’d be for the country (and for conservatism and the GOP), thus persuading them not to act on short-term political expediency if he keeps winning. That’s a noble goal and could make a difference. But the fact that some of these criticisms of Trumpism are not being targeted towards Republican voters in any serious or sustained way tells us a lot about why Trump is succeeding. (Read more from “Elites Are Horrified by Donald Trump. What If Republican Voters Don’t Agree?” HERE)
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Tech Titans, GOP Elite Plot Trump Attack on Private Island
By Douglas Ernst. A parade of tech titans flew to a private island over the weekend to discuss ways of derailing Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Congressmen from both sides of the political aisle, political operatives, and influential members of the media were also in attendance.
The American Enterprise Institute held its annual World Forum on St. Simons Island, Georgia, on Sunday. Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, said in an email that attendees were focused on finding a way to stop Trump, the Huffington Post reported Monday.
“A specter was haunting the World Forum–the specter of Donald Trump,” Kristol said while lifting a line from the “Communist Manifesto,” the website reported. “There was much unhappiness about his emergence, a good deal of talk, some of it insightful and thoughtful, about why he’s done so well, and many expressions of hope that he would be defeated. The key task now, to once again paraphrase Karl Marx, is less to understand Trump than to stop him” . . .
Radio host Rush Limbaugh weighed in on the event, which allegedly featured a a presentation by Rove on the Republican front-runner’s biggest weaknesses.
“It was a circle, and they were sitting around the circle, and they were all telling each other or asking each other, ‘How the hell did this happen?’ And it’s an understandable thing. They think they run the world. They think they control these things. And out of the blue comes the Trumpster,” said Limbaugh. “You got all these tech CEOs and all these left-wing inventors and tech people with these Republicans? That’s crony capitalism right in front of your face, or crony socialism.” (Read more from “Tech Titans, GOP Elite Plot Trump Attack on Private Island” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-10 00:58:282016-04-11 10:51:4550+ Jets Fly the World’s Elite to Secret Island Meeting to Stop Trump
