Kindly proffered by Senior Summer Intern @BiffSpackle.
We all know that Iran intends to procure and detonate nuclear weapons.
And Democrats who support this deal should also know that we will remember. (Re-posted with permission, “NOSTRADUMBASS COMIX: Presidential Predictions Edition” originally appeared HERE)
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Polling has been sparse or nonexistent in the states that will hold mid-March caucuses, despite the fact that they hosted some of 2008’s and 2012’s biggest upsets. President Obama’s campaign flooded Western caucuses to gain a delegate advantage that Hillary Clinton never overcame. Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum won third place or worse first four contests after Iowa. He only became a threat to Mitt Romney after he took the Colorado and Minnesota caucuses.
Senator Rand Paul, who is currently polling in the low single digits, is hoping that sleepy front-runners and passionate local support will let him repeat history. Interviews with local Republicans suggested only a few campaigns had engaged so far. Only Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has an Alaska chairman. Only Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) has also campaigned in Wyoming. . . [But Paul] never drew less than 300 people to a speech [while campaigning in the West this week], and each one put him back in touch with Ron Paul superfans. Many wore shirts from the 2012 campaign, some of it home-made. . .
[Of concern to Senator Paul, many Ron Paul fans remain disgruntled by the last campaign. In 2012,] the RNC changed caucus rules so that the “beauty contests,” the events most people showed up for and covered, would decide the delegate counts. That decision alienated the liberty movement. It wasn’t enough that their party rejected them. The party had decided that Paul’s painstaking, grass-roots organizing was essentially illegitimate, and could never be repeated. . .
In Fairbanks [Senator Paul] was shuttled around in the black H1 Hummer of two-time U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller. . . Miller served as a living embodiment of what the establishment could do. He had won a 2010 Senate nomination, only to watch the GOP endorse a write-in campaign for Sen. Lisa Murkowski. He ran again in 2014, and nearly won a nomination again.
“Apathy is the problem here,” said Miller. “There’s been some structural crumbling of the Ron Paul movement — that’s probably the best way to put it. There’s a high degree of skepticism, about why you should vote at all, that is particularly pronounced in the interior of Alaska. What we need people to understand is that if we lose America, that’s it. We can’t let that happen. We have to participate.” (Read more from “Who is the Only GOP Candidate Working the Western States and Does He Really Have a Chance?” HERE)
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Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley thinks the Democratic Party’s decision to limit the number of primary debates is tantamount to rigging the nomination process.
“Four debates and only four debates — we are told, not asked — before voters in our earliest states make their decision,” the presidential candidate said at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Summer Meeting on Friday.
“This sort of rigged process has never been attempted before,” he added. “One debate in Iowa. That’s it. One debate in New Hampshire. That’s all we can afford.”
After O’Malley’s speech wrapped up, observers noted palpable tension as he greeted DNC Chair, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. (Read more from “O’Malley Challenges DNC Over ‘Rigged’ Debate Schedule” HERE)
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The intrigue and speculation has just been pumped up regarding the Democrats’ 2016 picture and how it may be totally reshaped in the coming weeks. Vice President Joe Biden reportedly took time out of his vacation at his Delaware home to travel to Washington for a secret, unannounced meeting with Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. The two are said to have met over lunch on Saturday at the Naval Observatory, the vice president’s official residence, where they discussed a wide range of issues impacting the 2016 race.
And with Hillary Clinton appearing to sink deeper into the Emailgate scandal with each passing day, the Biden-Warren rendezvous in D.C. is fueling all sorts of chatter about the real purpose of the get-together. Newsmax notes that “political pundits are abuzz with the possibility of a Joe Biden-Elizabeth Warren 2016 ticket.”
While the 72-year-old Biden has been considering whether to toss his hat into the ring for a third presidential run, he hasn’t yet made up his mind — or at least he hasn’t let it be known whether he’ll jump into the race. The Newsmax report on the secret meeting between the VP and the senator says that Biden “has told friends that if he does run for president, he will serve only one term, making an early announcement of his vice-presidential running-mate a strong possibility.”
The Wall Street Journal over the weekend reported that Biden is “leaning toward” a 2016 bid for the White House. The article referred to the Biden-Warren meeting as a significant indicator of the vice president’s frame of mind. “A surprise weekend trip to Washington to meet with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), a darling of the party’s liberal wing, represented a pivot from potential to likely candidate, one Biden supporter said.”
As Western Journalism reported late last week, a new Quinnipiac University poll of three swing states showed that Biden fared as well as or better than Clinton in head-to-head matchups with top GOP presidential candidates, even though the vice president isn’t officially in the running. The survey also showed that voters in each of the key states of Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania found Biden to be more trustworthy than Clinton. (Read more from “This Secret Meeting Just Held in D.C. Could Prove to Be a HUGE Turning Point for 2016” HERE)
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One New Jersey woman has a special request from beyond the grave: Stop Hillary Clinton.
“In lieu of flowers, please do not vote for Hillary Clinton,” Elaine Fydrych asked mourners at the end of her obituary, reports CBS Philly.
The native of Philadelphia, passed away in Gloucester Township, New Jersey, on Aug. 13, aged 63. Her distinctive obituary published in the South Jersey Times exemplified her humor, even in death. According to her biography, Fydrych loved theater, acting and comedy, The Huffington Post reports . . .
In the most recent CNN/ORC national poll, Clinton still took the lead with 47 percent of Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters, while Sanders earned 29 percent. In the same poll last month, Clinton had 56 percent and Sanders 19 percent. Additionally, the poll revealed that 53 percent of Democrats think Vice President Joe Biden should jump into the race, reports Politico.
In a hypothetical matchup against Republican candidate Donald Trump, Clinton still came out on top, but with slightly less of a lead. This month, Clinton earned 51 percent to beat out Trump’s 45 percent, while in July she had a 56 percent advantage to Trump’s 40 percent, Politico documents. (Read more from “New Jersey Woman’s Obituary Asks Mourners to Not Vote for This Presidential Candidate” HERE)
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By Kellan Howell. Just when it seemed the 2016 presidential race couldn’t get any more crowded, or colorful, another oddball candidate has put in a bid for the White House — under the name Deez Nuts.
Mr. Nuts is running as an independent from Iowa and filed his candidacy Sunday with the Federal Election Committee.
The presidential campaign committee “Deez Nuts for President 2016” is registered in Wallingford, Iowa, the smallest hometown of all the presidential hopefuls with a population of 197. (Read more from “”Deez Nuts” Joins 2016 Presidential Race” HERE)
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Presidential Sensation Deez Nuts Is a 15-Year-Old Iowa Farm Boy
By Ben Collins and Emily Shire. Deez Nuts, the Independent candidate from Iowa, is polling at 9 percent in North Carolina for President of the United States.
Sadly, Deez Nuts does not appear to exist. But Brady Olson does.
“When I heard about the Limberbutt McCubbins story, I realized I could,” Olson tells The Daily Beast.
Brady Olson is 15 years old. He filed to run for the President of the United States with the FEC on July 26 as Deez Nuts. (Editor’s note: Of course, this means Brady doesn’t meet the Constitution’s 35 year age requirement)
According to a Public Policy Polling survey released Wednesday, almost one in 10 Tar Heel State voters would vote for him in a race between Nuts, Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton. (Read more from this story HERE)
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By Alan Rappeport. For the Republican Party, the presidential candidates keep coming.
The next wave arrives this week, with Carly Fiorina announcing her long-shot bid for the Republican nomination Monday morning and former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas set to announce his own on Tuesday. Ben Carson announced his bid on Sunday night. They will join Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul in the race.
Ms. Fiorina started things off low-key on Monday with an announcement, which is to be followed by a call with reporters and a virtual town-hall-style meeting. Later in the week, she will head to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
A former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, Ms. Fiorina is the second woman to make a run for the White House in this election cycle, following Hillary Rodham Clinton’s announcement last month. Ms. Fiorina brings strong business acumen and a promise to be a more compassionate version of Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee. And she has suggested that she is the perfect antidote to Mrs. Clinton, who many believe has an easy path to the Democratic nomination.
“I think that if Hillary Clinton were to face a female nominee, there are a whole set of things she won’t be able to talk about,” Ms. Fiorina said at a breakfast in Washington last month. (Read more from “Carly Fiorina and Mike Huckabee Joining G.O.P. Race on Heels of Ben Carson” HERE)
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Famed Neurosurgeon Ben Carson Announces White House Campaign
By Ed White. Retired surgeon Ben Carson has made it official, telling a crowd in his hometown of Detroit that he’s running for president.
The former head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins hospital has never run for public office. But he’s a star among some conservatives and will try to parlay his success as an author and speaker into a competitive campaign.
He told his rally: “I’m Ben Carson and I’m a candidate for president.” (Read more from this story HERE)
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Photo Credit: Latest
“I’m running for president. Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion. –H” she tweeted around 3:30 p.m.
Top Clinton aide and campaign manager John Podesta, in an e-mail to veterans of Clinton’s 2008 campaign, donors and fundraisers, minutes earlier sent an e-mail blast with the words that supporters, detractors and political pundits had been waiting for: “It’s official: Hillary’s running for president.”
[Editor’s note: Here’s a Hillary Campaign YouTube Ad]
The e-mail was distributed moments before her official campaign Web site, HillaryClinton.com, went live with her announcement.
“So I’m hitting the road to earn your vote because it’s your time,” the second-time candidate said.” And I hope you’ll join me on this journey.” (Read more from “Hillary Announces for President With Typos, She ‘Fought Children and Families’ During Political Career” HERE)
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Wealthy Hillary Clinton finally enters formal race to be president with video telling middle class voters ‘the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top’ of the economy
By DAVID MARTOSKO.
•’Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times,’ says the multimillionaire politician in a launch video
•Her chief of staff stepped on her big moment with an email to donors saying, ‘I wanted to make sure you heard it first from me’
•Clinton’s press office left an embarrassing typo in its press announcement, saying that she had ‘fought children and families all her career’
•Official campaign website is full of biographical material but includes no policy statements or issue platforms
•Republican Party fires its opening salvo: ‘Americans need a president they can trust and voters do not trust Hillary Clinton’
•Hillary will start her ‘listening tour’ in Iowa and New Hampshire without huge fanfare, and then have a more formal launch event in May
Wunderkind campaign manager, 35, was a child when she was first lady and didn’t live through her defining White House scandals. (Read more from this story HERE).
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When Hillary Clinton’s Announcement Delayed, Political Reporters Get Testy
By Joshua M. Patton. A report from The Guardian said that the “big announcement” from Hillary Clinton today was coming at noon Sunday, but hours later there were no e-mail to supporters or announcement from the candidate. This has more than a few political reporters upset about how she’s messing with their Sundays.
“Hillary Clinton’s 2016 announcement, for which the political press has been waiting since at least November 2012, if not November 2008, was originally maybe possible scheduled for the noon-1 hour, tethering us content jockeys to our laptops or smart toys on an otherwise gorgeous spring day,” according to Mediaite.com. (Read more from this story HERE)
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SNL Gets in on the Hillary Debut
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Former Hewlett-Packard Co Chief Executive Carly Fiorina said on Sunday the chances she would run for the U.S. presidency in 2016 were “higher than 90 percent” and that she would announce her plans in late April to early May.
Fiorina, speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” said she could not yet announce the bid because she was working to establish her team and put together what she described as “the right support” and financial resources.
Fiorina is one of many potential Republican presidential candidates including former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
Earlier this month, Texas Senator Ted Cruz became the first major figure from either political party to formally announce his 2016 presidential bid.
Rubio may announce his intentions to run in mid-April, a local Florida newspaper reported this month. (Read more from “Former HP CEO Fiorina Puts Chances of Presidential Bid over 90 Percent” HERE)
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By Hunter Walker. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) launched his presidential campaign shortly after midnight on Monday with a brief message and video he posted on Twitter.
“I’m running for President and I hope to earn your support!” Cruz wrote in his tweet.
[Hear what Sen. Ted Cruz’s father has to say about his son’s run in this exclusive interview:]
Cruz has long been expected to throw his hat into the presidential race. His announcement made him the first major candidate to officially begin a campaign.
Cruz’s 30-second video features shots of nature, people riding motorcycles through the desert, children playing baseball and reciting the pledge of allegiance, multiple American flags, and a church. It closes with a shot of Cruz waving. (Read more from “Ted Cruz: I’m Running for President” HERE)
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Ted Cruz Plans to Announce Official Presidential Bid Later Today
By Theodore Schleifer. Sen. Ted Cruz plans to announce [later today] that he will run for president of the United States, according to his senior advisers, accelerating his already rapid three-year rise from a tea party insurgent in Texas into a divisive political force in Washington.
Cruz, scheduled to speak Monday at a convocation ceremony at Liberty University in Virginia, will not form an exploratory committee but rather launch a presidential bid outright, said advisers with direct knowledge of his plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity because an official announcement had not been made yet. They say he is done exploring and is now ready to become the first Republican presidential candidate.
Over the course of the primary campaign, Cruz will aim to raise between $40 million and $50 million, according to advisers, and dominate with the same tea party voters who supported his underdog senate campaign in 2012. But the key to victory, Cruz advisers believe, is to be the second choice of enough voters in the party’s libertarian and social conservative wings to cobble together a coalition to defeat the chosen candidate of the Republican establishment.
The firebrand Texan may have few Senate colleagues who will back his White House bid, but his appeal to his party’s base who vote disproportionately in Republican primaries could make him competitive in Iowa and beyond.
Yet critics of Cruz argue that he will have trouble raising high-dollar donations from traditional contributors, will land few endorsements from the nation’s political establishment and be unable to escape comparisons to President Barack Obama, who also ran for president in his first Senate term. And if he advances to a general election, Cruz trails likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton solidly in early public opinion polls. (Read more from “Ted Cruz to Announce 2016 Presidential Bid on Monday” HERE)
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