'There is no hope for the future of capitalist prosperity and a free society at home and world peace abroad unless the Republican Party is destroyed...'

From David Stockman (the former budget director), at Zero Hedge, "The Good, Bad & Ugly of Donald Trump" (via Serr8d):

America will need the Almighty’s unstinting favor if Donald Trump becomes our 45th President. Still, blessed be The Donald for running a demolition derby in the Republican primaries.

There is no hope for the future of capitalist prosperity and a free society at home and world peace abroad unless the Republican Party is destroyed. And, by golly, Trump may well accomplish the deed.

We need to be clear. There is no longer a Republican Party rooted in the main street highways and byways of America. What’s left of it is not really even the xenophobic, nativist, crypto-racist flotsam and jetsam of the populist right that Trump is successfully calling to political arms.

The fact is, the GOP has mutated into the Warfare State party. Nestled comfortably in the Imperial City, it operates a plethora of special interest rackets which underwrite its incumbents’ bi-annual electoral campaigns out in the provinces.

In the interim, GOP politicians idle their time in the capital and on foreign junkets conjuring and embellishing scary stories about terrorist threats and hostile regimes. So doing, they perceive enemies of the American Imperium to be stalking the planet everywhere and even creeping onto these exceptional shores.

In a word, as the party of the Warfare State, the GOP’s main business has become promoting the agenda, campaigns, machinations and glory of the Imperial City. Whenever its pro forma rhetoric about small government and fiscal prudence becomes inconvenient to the needs of the military/industrial/surveillance complex or the fund-raising requirements of its special interest rackets, the GOP’s putative conservative economics platform quickly becomes “inoperative” in the Nixonian vernacular.

There is no better prototype for the new GOP than Senators Lindsay Graham and John McCain. Their agenda consists exclusively of promoting and superintending Washington’s foreign projects, occupations, alliances and maneuvers. Cycling through Tel Aviv on a regular basis, showing up on the battlements of Kiev and lecturing the Chinese about maritime law in international waters, for example, they comically imitate the first century Roman Senators they fancy themselves to actually be.

Yet after decades in Washington they and most of their Senate colleagues have accomplished nothing that resembles the old Republican verities...

Keep reading.

It's good!

New Nationwide Poll Shows Donald Trump as Strong GOP Front-Runner Ahead of Super Tuesday (VIDEO)

It's at CNN, a new nationwide CNN/ORC poll.

And see, "Trump, Clinton dominant as Super Tuesday looms":

(CNN) - Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are poised to lead the nation's two major parties in this fall's presidential election, with a new nationwide CNN/ORC poll finding each well ahead of their closest competitors just as the race expands to a national stage.

Trump has expanded his lead over the diminished field to capture the support of nearly half of Republican voters, while Clinton tops Sanders by nearly 20 points.

On the Republican side, the new survey finds Trump's lead is dominant, and his support tops that of his four remaining opponents combined. The businessman tops his nearest competitor by more than 30 points: 49% back Trump, 16% Marco Rubio, 15% Ted Cruz, 10% Ben Carson and 6% John Kasich.

Trump's supporters are incredibly enthusiastic about the coming election, and largely committed in their support for him. Nearly 8 in 10 say that they are more enthusiastic about voting this year than in previous elections, among Republicans who are not supporting Trump, just 39% say they are more enthusiastic than in years past. Likewise, 78% of Trump's backers say they will definitely support him vs. 22% who say they could still change their minds. Among those backing other candidates, 57% say they are committed to their chosen candidate.

The survey asked those Republicans not currently backing Trump whether they would support him if he became the party's nominee, and just a quarter of Republicans overall say they probably or definitely wouldn't support him in November. That's about the same as the share saying they wouldn't back Rubio or Cruz.

Trump is widely viewed as the candidate in the field who would be most effective at solving the country's problems, 51% vs. 17% for Cruz, 13% for Rubio and 10% for Carson, and as being best able to handle the responsibilities of being commander-in-chief, 48% say so, compared with 17% for Cruz and 15% for Rubio. The billionaire is also seen as the one who best understands the problems facing people like you, 46% Trump vs. 18% Cruz and 15% Rubio.

As accusations of dishonesty have flown between Trump, Cruz and Rubio, voters say they are more apt to see Trump as honest and trustworthy. Asked who of the five candidates is most honest and trustworthy, 35% name Trump, 22% Carson -- who has largely stayed out of the mudslinging - 14% Cruz and 13% Rubio...

More.

And additional video, "Super Tuesday scenarios: Can Donald Trump be stopped?"

The GOP Implosion

Everyone's lost their minds.

It's all going to work out. I guarantee you.

At the Washington Post, "The Republican Party’s implosion over Donald Trump’s candidacy has arrived":

MADISON, Ala. — The implosion over Donald Trump’s candidacy that Republicans had hoped to avoid arrived so virulently this weekend that many party leaders vowed never to back the billionaire and openly questioned whether the GOP could come together this election year.

At a moment when Republicans had hoped to begin taking on Hillary Clinton — who is seemingly on her way to wrapping up the Democratic nomination — the GOP has instead become consumed by a crisis over its identity and core values that is almost certain to last through the July party convention, if not the rest of the year.

A campaign full of racial overtones and petty, R-rated put-downs grew even uglier Sunday after Trump declined repeatedly in a CNN interview to repudiate the endorsement of him by David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Trump had disavowed Duke at a news conference on Friday, but he stammered when asked about Duke on Sunday.

Marco Rubio, who has been savaging Trump as a “con man” for three days, responded by saying that Trump’s defiance made him “unelectable.” The senator from Florida said at a rally in Northern Virginia, “We cannot be the party that nominates someone who refuses to condemn white supremacists.”

The fracas comes as the presidential race enters a potentially determinative month of balloting, beginning with primaries and caucuses in 11 states on Tuesday. As the campaign-trail rhetoric grew noxious over the weekend, a sense of fatalism fell over the Republican firmament, from elected officials and figureheads to major donors and strategists.

“This is an existential choice,” said former senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota, who is backing Rubio. Asked how the party could unite, Coleman said: “It gets harder every day when you hear things like not disavowing the KKK and David Duke. It’s not getting easier; it’s getting more difficult. . . . I’m hopeful the party won’t destroy itself.”

The choice for voters is not simply one of preference but rather a fundamental one about the direction they want to take the country, with the insurgent Trump promising utter transformation...

You know, maybe all of these GOPe talking heads should defer to the people?

If voters pick Trump, that's democracy in action. The U.S. isn't all of a sudden going to turn into Nazi Germany from the 1930s. People need to have some faith that the constitutional system will work, even with a bombastic fellow like Trump in office. Obama certainly hasn't gotten his way on everything. I seriously doubt Trump's going to be worse, heh.

Keep reading.

I personally love all the hand-wringing and doomsday scenarios. It serves the GOPe right.

Influential Republican Senator Jeff Sessions Endorses Donald Trump (VIDEO)

Sessions is the man on immigration border control.

This is an excellent development for Donald Trump.

At the Washington Post, via Memeorandum, "In major blow to Ted Cruz, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama endorses Donald Trump for GOP nomination."

And watch, at CNN:

Inside the Republican Party's Pathetic, Last-Ditch Effort to Stop Donald Trump

This entire piece just drips with the GOPe's utter contempt for the rank-and-file white working-class voter.

The issues Donald Trump has championed should be the top GOPe priorities, but party elites (idiots) are obsessed with diversity and winning the Hispanic vote (and not alienating Muslims, I guess).

In any case, at the New York Times, "Inside the Republican Party’s Desperate Mission to Stop Donald Trump":

Despite all the forces arrayed against Mr. Trump, the interviews show, the party has been gripped by a nearly incapacitating leadership vacuum and a paralytic sense of indecision and despair, as he has won smashing victories in South Carolina and Nevada. Donors have dreaded the consequences of clashing with Mr. Trump directly. Elected officials have balked at attacking him out of concern that they might unintentionally fuel his populist revolt. And Republicans have lacked someone from outside the presidential race who could help set the terms of debate from afar.

The endorsement by Mr. Christie, a not unblemished but still highly regarded figure within the party’s elite — he is a former chairman of the Republican Governors Association — landed Friday with crippling force. It was by far the most important defection to Mr. Trump’s insurgency: Mr. Christie may give cover to other Republicans tempted to join Mr. Trump rather than trying to beat him. Not just the Stop Trump forces seemed in peril, but also the traditional party establishment itself.

Should Mr. Trump clinch the presidential nomination, it would represent a rout of historic proportions for the institutional Republican Party, and could set off an internal rift unseen in either party for a half-century, since white Southerners abandoned the Democratic Party en masse during the civil rights movement.

Former Gov. Michael O. Leavitt of Utah, a top adviser to Mr. Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, said the party was unable to come up with a united front to quash Mr. Trump’s campaign.

“There is no mechanism,” Mr. Leavitt said. “There is no smoke-filled room. If there is, I’ve never seen it, nor do I know anyone who has. This is going to play out in the way that it will.”

Via Memeorandum.

Diamond and Silk, 'Stump for Trump' Gals: Marco Rubio 'Had a Gay Lifestyle in the Past...' (VIDEO)

Oh boy.

This video's way worth it just for the look on Carol Costello's face when the "Stump for Trump" gals report that they've Googled Marco Rubio's past and "he owes America and the gay community an apology."

At Mediaite, via Memeorandum, "The ‘Stump for Trump’ Girls Just Said on CNN That Marco Rubio Had ‘A Gay Lifestyle’."

And on YouTube, "Diamond & Silk : Marco Rubio Had a Gay Lifestyle in the Past."

Chris Christie Endorses Donald Trump, Latest Twist in Wild Republican Presidential Campaign (VIDEO)

From Maggie Haberman, at the New York Times, "Chris Christie Endorses Donald Trump and Calls Marco Rubio 'Desperate'" (via Memeorandum):

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey endorsed Donald J. Trump on Friday, a major turn in a wild race and one that gives the New York businessman a significant boost as he heads into the pivotal “Super Tuesday” contests.

Mr. Christie was a candidate for president himself until he came in sixth place in New Hampshire’s primary. Seeing his political career facing an abrupt conclusion after his failed presidential campaign, he expressed his anger Friday at Senator Marco Rubio, whom he was said to be upset with, blaming the “super PAC” backing the Florida senator for halting his momentum in New Hampshire with a string of slash-and-burn ads.

The endorsement came a day after Mr. Rubio, in a withering debate performance, turned his guns on Mr. Trump for the first time, and followed up with his attacks on Friday morning, calling Mr. Trump a “con artist.”

At Friday’s news conference announcing the endorsement, which was peppered with demeaning insults of Mr. Rubio by the two men, Mr. Christie repeatedly attacked Mr. Rubio, calling his behavior at the debate “desperate” and reflective of a “losing campaign.”

Mr. Trump welcomed the endorsement with warm praise for the New Jersey governor... 

More.

BONUS: CNN's video is here, "Chris Christie endorses Donald Trump."

And watch this Gretchen Carlson interview with the Weekly Standard's Michael Warren, "How Donald Trump's presser changed the media's narrative."

Marco Rubio Attacks Donald Trump During Texas Campaign Rally (VIDEO)

So here comes Marco Rubio now, finally finding his wheelhouse?

Heh, he's on a roll. It's an amazing departure from his "Rubiot" performance a couple of debates back.

The obvious question is whether it's too little too late?

Watch, a CNN video, via Free Beacon, "Rubio shreds Donald Trump at rally, mocks his tweets, age, debate performance."

BONUS: At Twitchy, "‘Bit of his own medicine’: Marco Rubio reads Trump’s #MeanTweets [video]," and "Chuck Todd wonders if Rubio’s ‘con artist’ jab at Trump could backfire."

Donald Trump Leads Marco Rubio by 11 Points in Latest IBD/TIPP National Poll

Rubio's trolling Trump, and everyone's getting all jazzy-pants about it.

I seriously doubt last night's debate will make much difference, however. Trump's going to roll up a bunch of wins next Tuesday, not the least of which in Florida.

Here's the new IBD poll, "Clinton, Sanders Are in a Dead Heat; Trump Leads But Rubio Rises."

The Dems are statistically tied, but Trump still holds a large lead in the GOP race:

Despite her win in the Nevada caucuses Saturday, Hillary Clinton’s lead among Democrats over Bernie Sanders has evaporated nationally, 45% to 43%, according to the latest IBD/TIPP poll. Last month, Clinton topped Sanders 50% to 38%.

On the GOP side, Donald Trump held steady at 31%. Ted Cruz dropped a point to 20%. Marco Rubio, however, saw his support climb eight percentage points to reach 18% — a clear sign that much of the support of candidates dropping out the race have been gravitating to Rubio.

Meanwhile, Ben Carson has 8% and John Kasich has risen to 7%. Both are resisting pressure to step aside.

Trump’s lead, however, narrows considerably when first and second choices are combined. While 42% picked Trump as either their first or second choice, Cruz and Rubio were tied at 39%.

An analysis of the 12 states that vote for GOP candidates on Super Tuesday shows that Trump holds a similar lead, with 31% support. However, Rubio moves into second place at 23%, followed by Cruz at 20%.

Given Trump’s definitive win in Nevada on Tuesday, a string of victories on March 1 could give him a virtually insurmountable lead for the GOP nomination...

More.

Plus, on Florida, at ABC News, via Memeorandum, "Donald Trump Leads Marco Rubio by 16 Points in New Florida Poll."

BONUS: At WFAA News 8 Dallas, via Memeorandum, "Cruz, Trump tied in WFAA Texas poll."