Donald Trump Shatters the Republican Party

A great piece, from Shane Goldmacher, at Politico, "Trump shatters the Republican Party: How the 2016 primary will define the GOP for years to come."

Iran Pledges Huge Cash Bonuses to Palestinian Terrorists Who Kill Israeli Jews

This is extremely troubling, from Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Iran Pledges Cash for Killing Jews."

Jackie Johnson's Mostly Sunny Forecast

The Northern California mountains picked up 20 inches of new snow with that brief storm last week, so I'm not too worried about all the warm weather we're having in SoCal.

It's been nice.

Via CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Republicans Go from Denial to Acceptance

I don't know if the Kübler-Ross model applies, but no doubt the GOPe's going through some of the classic stages of grief. Eventually they're going to have to accept that Donald Trump's going to be the nominee.

That could come as early as next week.

At LAT, "Republican elite are shifting their thinking on Donald Trump: 'You know, this could happen'":

Republican leaders who view Donald Trump as a pox on their party have finally settled on a strategy: Resist him as long as they can. Then figure out how to retreat gracefully.

Most mainstream Republicans still worry that Trump would make a bad president. And they hold deep concerns that his incendiary rhetoric and ideological smorgasbord of ideas could damage the party, both politically and philosophically, so profoundly that it might never recover.

But even as many party elites have fallen in line behind Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in recent days — believing him the best hope to defeat Trump — they no longer dismiss the billionaire celebrity or insist that it will all work out, as it usually does for the establishment in GOP primaries.

“A lot of longtime Republicans, probably a couple weeks ago, had to sit down and think, ‘You know, this could happen,’ ” said Trent Lott, the former Senate majority leader from Mississippi who is now a Washington lobbyist.

For many in the party establishment, that reckoning amounted to an existential crisis, a moment to reflect on where their core beliefs end and where their practical political instincts kick in.

If Trump wins the nomination, his combative relationship with the establishment will end in an embrace, though perhaps an uneasy one, predicted Lott, who is backing Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

“They’re not going to sign up, and they’re not excited by the prospect,” Lott said of his fellow party standard-bearers. “But I think they’re thinking that if he becomes the nominee — he runs the table and becomes the nominee — we’re certainly going to support him if it comes to Hillary or Bernie.”

It’s a slow process. Several establishment figures, including former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Reagan administration Secretary of Education William Bennett, said in recent days that Trump has reached out to them to talk policy, sending a broader signal that he may be able to win over at least a few establishment allies. And others have sounded notes of increasing acceptance...

More.

Deal of the Day: Over 65% Off Latest Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 2-in-1 Convertible 11.6-Inch IPS Touchscreen Laptop (Tablet)

That's quite a deal.

Hurry while supplies last.

At Amazon, 2016 Latest Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 2-in-1 Convertible 11.6-inch IPS Touchscreen Laptop (Tablet), Intel Quad Core Processor, 4GB DDR3, 128GB SSD, HDMI, Bluetooth, Webcam, AC Wifi, Windows 10 Pro, 3.2 lbs.

Plus, from Gretchen Morgenson, Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Created the Worst Financial Crisis of Our Time.

And from Jeff Madrick, Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present, and Why Economies Grow.

BONUS: From Professor Benjamin J. Cohen, Currency Power: Understanding Monetary Rivalry.

Donald Trump Taunts Republican Rivals, Predicts Election Steamroller Toward the Nomination (VIDEO)

Hey, this is freakin' too good!

And I was watching last night as well.

At Politico, "Trump taunts rivals and predicts quick end to GOP race" (via Memeorandum).

Watch the victory speech at KTNV News 13 Las Vegas, "Donald Trump makes victory speech in NV."

And more, at CNN:

Super Sexy Samantha Hoopes Outtakes from Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2016 in Malta (VIDEO)

She's freakin' awesome.



FLASHBACK: "Uncovered Samantha Hoopes 2015 (VIDEO)," and "Samantha Hoopes, the Lady from the 'American Thickburger' Video."

False Flag? Ku Klux Klan Members Support Donald Trump at Nevada Caucuses (VIDEO)

I personally don't believe it.

I suspect these "KKK members" are a couple of leftists out to smear Donald Trump, and it worked. Far-left media and blog outlets are all over the story on Google.

It's a false flag operation.

Watch, at KTNV News 13 Las Vegas:

The #FreeStacy Twitter Exodus Has Begun

At the Federalist.

And see the latest update from R.S. McCain, "#FreeStacy: Have You Mentioned @srhbutts Lately? Perhaps You Should."

Adam Baldwin Sets Record Straight on Quitting Twitter

I like Adam Baldwin. He's a Hollywood actor who's pretty much like a regular guy. I've engaged with him a couple of times on Twitter, and he praised my reporting on the Los Angeles anti-Israel ANSWER protest with a "---> #IAmAndrewBreitbart" tweet. That was cool.

See his Twitter update on the #FreeStacy disaster, at Twitchy, "Adam Baldwin sets the record straight, bids farewell to Twitter."

RELATED: "Update from Robert Stacy McCain."

Donald Trump Wins Nevada Caucuses (VIDEO)

It was interesting watching last night, for one thing because I saw no polls on Nevada before the caucuses. But Fox News called the race immediately as the voting ended, so I guess the results were never in doubt.

I love this.

At the Las Vegas Sun, "With commanding Nevada victory, Trump strengthens his lead in GOP race":

Ten seconds before the Nevada caucuses officially closed at 9 p.m., an excited crowd of several hundred Donald Trump supporters counted down in a ballroom at Treasure Island.

As the clock struck 9, CNN called the election for Trump, sending the crowd into choruses of wild applause, whistles and chants of “Trump, Trump, Trump” that echoed throughout the room where Trump’s caucus watch party was being held.

The win comes as no surprise: Expectations were particularly high for Trump over the past few days. Polling in the state — scarce and uncertain as it was — placed Trump with a wide lead over Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Fresh off a first-place victory in South Carolina, Trump carried that momentum over into Nevada, holding two packed rallies Monday and Tuesday in Las Vegas and Sparks.

A solid victory in Nevada is expected to propel Trump solidly forward to next week, when 11 states hold their nominating contests on Super Tuesday. The Nevada win is Trump’s third first-place win in a row, following New Hampshire and South Carolina. (The only state he hasn’t won was Iowa, the first nominating contest, which Cruz carried.)

Nevada was long projected to be Rubio’s firewall, but instead he left the state in second place.

Trump won 46 percent of the vote. Rubio placed second at 24 percent and Cruz was in third at 21 percent. Ben Carson garnered 5 percent of the vote, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich is at 4 percent.

“A couple of months ago, we weren’t expected to win this one, you know that, right?” Trump told the crowd through whistles and cheers Tuesday night. “Of course, if you listened to the pundits we weren't expected to win too much, and now we're winning, winning, winning.”

The question now for Rubio and Cruz in the coming days is what, if anything, can knock Trump off his game...

Actually, Cruz is collapsing, big time. I expect he'll be getting calls to quit the race soon, especially next week, if his slide continues on Super Tuesday.

More.

Plus, at Politico, "Cruz: It's me vs. Trump now":

Ted Cruz was running a very close third in the Nevada caucuses on Tuesday night when he gave his concession speech, but that didn't stop him from declaring the Republican presidential primary a two-campaign race.

For Cruz, it's down to him and Donald Trump...

And at Memeorandum.

Update from Robert Stacy McCain

At the Other McCain, "What @FemFreq Didn’t Say."

I haven't tweeted today. I suspect I'll be back on the platform sometime soon, but it's not the same to me with Robert banned. Frankly, it's weird.

PREVIOUSLY: "Fire @Jack Dorsey!"

Allegations of Lies and Deception Take Toll on Ted Cruz Presidential Campaign

This is just sad.

I've never had any negative thoughts about Ted Cruz. Indeed, he's always seemed like a pretty stand-up guy, and no doubt a rock-ribbed conservative. But now he's being excoriated as a sleezeball? What a shame.

At the Washington Post, "Shouts of ‘liar’ are taking their toll on Ted Cruz’s campaign":

Ted Cruz’s presidential bid is in turmoil after repeated allegations of unsavory campaign tactics by his Republican rivals, leading some key supporters to call for a shake-up in the candidate’s message and strategy a week ahead of the crucial Super Tuesday primaries.

Aides and allies of the insurgent senator from Texas acknowledged in interviews this week that the campaign has been damaged by attacks on Cruz’s integrity from Donald Trump and Marco Rubio. They have pointed to a series of questionable tactics by the Cruz camp, including calls to voters suggesting that candidate Ben Carson was dropping out and the sharing of an inaccurate video suggesting Rubio had disparaged the Bible.

The video flap prompted Cruz to abruptly fire his chief spokesman, Rick Tyler, who posted the clip on social media, on Monday in an attempt to put his candidacy back on course. But the troubles continued Tuesday, when the campaign halted the sale of merchandise by a street artist whose social-media accounts include controversial and sometimes racist messages.

Cruz also weathered another wave of attacks from Trump on the eve of the Nevada caucuses. Trump told a rally in Sparks, Nev., that Cruz is “like a little baby — soft, weak little baby. . . . But for lying, he’s the best I’ve ever seen.”

Cruz and his aides say the accusations of deception are simply false. But with the issue dominating media coverage for more than a week, aides and supporters now acknowledge that the attacks have started taking a toll.

Louie Hunter, Cruz’s Georgia co-chair, said the allegations of untruths being pushed by Trump and Rubio have made their way to voters.

“I think both the Trump and the Rubio campaigns have seized on the narrative that if they say ‘liar’ enough, enough people are going to believe it,” Hunter said. “I think that has manifested itself into some people questioning, albeit incorrectly, the real moral character of Senator Cruz and of this campaign.”

The tumult comes at a crucial time for Cruz, who won the Iowa caucuses at the start of the month but finished third in both New Hampshire and, more disappointingly, South Carolina — a state filled with the evangelical Christians and tea party conservatives who make up his political base. After Tuesday night’s Nevada caucuses — which Trump was favored to win — Cruz is looking ahead to March 1, known as “Super Tuesday,” which features 11 state contests mostly in the South, including Cruz’s home state of Texas.

Cruz’s campaign has been focused on Super Tuesday since its inception, with the candidate calling the South a “firewall” that could help him gobble up delegates and secure the nomination. The campaign has poured time and resources into the delegate-rich region, believing its high percentage of religious and conservative voters would be natural Cruz supporters...

Keep reading.

Also at the Texas Tribune, "Cruz Campaign Pulls Work from Controversial Artist Sabo."

Fire @Jack Dorsey!

Following-up from yesterday, "Robert Stacy McCain Responds to Twitter Suspension — #FreeStacy."

Adam Baldwin, television star and well-known conservative on social media, quit Twitter once and for all yesterday.

He deleted everything except his final tweet, which links to Robert Tracinski, at the Federalist, "#FreeStacy: The Old Regime and the Twitter Revolution."

It's an excellent piece. I mean, I like Tracinski, but this essay really illustrates his range. And I love this from his concluding five-point plan to rescue the platform:

4) Fire CEO Jack Dorsey.

The “Trust and Safety Council” was Dorsey’s brainchild, and he’s the one who chose to give it over to political hacks with an axe to grind. In other words, while Twitter’s user base has been leveling off and its share price has been going down in flames, he’s been busy hatching a scheme to drive away even more of its users. If Dorsey were sole owner of Twitter, he would have a right to run it into the ground however he likes. But it’s a publicly traded company, and he has shareholders, co-owners of the firm who have a right to complain that he’s crashing their share prices for the sake of his own personal political crusade. The company’s remaining shareholders need to rebel before he sets fire to more of their money.

Other prominent Twitter users are also hanging up their hashtags, most notably Ace at AceofSpadesHQ, who said he's "done with it," except for "promotion" or "to criticize the regime."

I first signed up for Twitter to connect with tea party people and to promote my blog. It's been fun (while it's lasted) to connect with a lot of cool people ("tweeps") from around the country, but I'm seriously upset that Robert's been banned. His old R.S. McCain handle has been removed permanently. See, the Other McCain, "#FreeStacy: @rsmccain ‘Will Not Be Restored’; @SexTroubleBook Suspended."

I don't know about other folks, but these developments make Twitter definitely less fun for me. People keep talking about taking their debates elsewhere, but right now who knows where that's going to be?

.@Jack, Twitter is dead to me if you permanently ban my friend Robert Stacy McCain. @safety @Support cc. @Instapundit #FreeStacy

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) February 22, 2016

@lamblock Ima 'bout to cry frankly. I tag R.S. McCain in almost everything I tweet. It's not going to be the same. Folks are quitting.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) February 23, 2016

Well @Jack, the #Twitter time-suck is past its prime, and #TCOTs are bailing out. You might want to #FreeStacy. @safety @Support

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) February 23, 2016

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Also, from Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Plus, The Harper Lee Collection: To Kill a Mockingbird + Go Set a Watchman (Dual Slipcased Edition).

The New Shape of the Republican Race

From Ronald Brownstein, at the Atlantic (via Memeorandum):

After his solid, broadly based victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina, Donald Trump now holds a commanding position in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

But Trump still faces two “known unknowns,” to borrow the memorable phrase from former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, an architect of the Iraq War that Trump now excoriates. One is whether Trump has a ceiling of support. The second is whether, even if he does, any of his remaining rivals can unify enough of the voters resistant to him to beat him.

So far the evidence suggests the answers are: maybe, and not yet. Indeed over the first three contests, Trump’s two principal remaining opponents have shown mirror-image weaknesses. Texas Senator Ted Cruz has assembled a coalition of support that is too narrow; Florida Senator Marco Rubio is building a coalition that is too shallow.

As in his New Hampshire win earlier this month, Trump’s support in South Carolina transcended many of the usual fissures in Republican politics, according to exit poll results posted by CNN. The one big exception remained education: In each of the first three contests, including the Iowa caucus, Trump has not run as well among voters with a college degree as with those lacking advanced education. But because those white-collar voters have fragmented among many choices, none of Trump’s rivals is consolidating enough of them to overcome the New Yorker’s dominant position among voters without a college degree. The simple equation that Trump has consolidated blue-collar Republicans while the party’s white collar wing remains divided remains the most powerful dynamic in the race, even as Trump has failed to exceed 35 percent of the vote in any of the initial contests.

More.

But actually, I like this passage from this last weekend's Los Angeles Times:

...two factors could conspire to give Trump the nomination.

First, his challengers continue to find reasons to remain in the race, and the longer the field remains crowded, the harder it is for any one of them to attract more voters than Trump in a given state. In fact, one of Rubio’s main arguments is that “the longer this goes on, the worse it’s going to be,” and therefore he is the candidate who can unify the party. A Bush aide said he dropped out in part to help the party unite behind an alternative.

Trump himself mocked pundits for saying his opponents’ votes combined could defeat him if some of them drop out.

“These geniuses,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “They don’t understand that as people drop out, I’m going to get a lot of those votes also. You don’t just add them together.”

Second, polls show an increasing number of Republicans have become comfortable with Trump leading the party’s ticket in the November general election. In the Fox poll, 74% of Republicans said they would be at least somewhat satisfied with Trump as president. That number was far smaller (43%) among all voters.

To beat back Trump, Cruz, who won the Iowa caucuses, will need to pick up wins in a slew of Southern state primaries held March 1, and hope other contenders drop out. But the Texas senator ultimately will have to persuade more voters to embrace his pure form of conservatism and reject Trump as a phony, a case he has been trying to make for weeks.

“If you are conservative, this is where you belong,” Cruz told supporters Saturday. “Because only one strong conservative is in a position to win this race.”

Rubio, who may have been helped by his endorsement this week from South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, has a different challenge. The Florida senator will have to begin winning states and hope that a majority of Republicans decide they want a more mainstream candidate, despite polls showing voters are looking to back those who have not served in government.

Rubio did well among GOP primary voters who said they wanted to vote for the best general election candidate, but only about 15% of South Carolina voters said that was a priority.

“If it is God’s will that we should win this election,” Rubio said Saturday night, “then history will say, on this night in South Carolina, we took the first step forward to the beginning of a new American century.”

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2016 Cover Girls Open Up (VIDEO)

I haven't actually seen the new edition in hard copy.

I need to buy a copy for, eh, my records, lol.

Robert Stacy McCain Responds to Twitter Suspension — #FreeStacy

Robert's backup account, @SexTroubleBook, is now also suspended.

The evil SJWs have declared all out war on him --- and his supporters.

I wrote about this on Saturday, "Robert Stacy McCain Suspended on Twitter — #FreeStacy."

Folks should tweet to @Support, @Twittter, @Safety, and @Jack (Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder and current CEO), using the #FreeStacy hashtag.

.@Jack, Twitter is dead to me if you permanently ban my friend Robert Stacy McCain. @safety @Support cc. @Instapundit #FreeStacy

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) February 22, 2016

Meanwhile the Ralph Retort posted an email from Robert, "FOLLOW-UP: R.S. McCain’s Amazing Response to His Unfair Twitter Suspension":

I reached out to Mr. McCain before publishing our first story this morning. He got back to me with this response. In my opinion, it was too good not to be its own post. So, here you go…

As I have said for years: Being notorious is not the same as being famous, but it’s better than being anonymous.

That is to say, I don’t often complain about being hated or misunderstood. It comes with the territory. I started out in the news business as a $4.50-an-hour staff writer for a tiny weekly newspaper in Austell, Georgia. Most people have no idea what I did before I got involved in political journalism as an assistant national editor for The Washington Times in 1997, or even have any idea of the work I did there. The vast majority of people who read my blog or follow my Twitter feed have any knowledge of or interest in my personal “backstory.” It’s not about me. I am not the story. I am the guy telling the story, or I am the guy making jokes about the story. I understand that. But I think some people in the New Media era lose sight of this reality.

Politics is like football. It’s a team sport. Until I was in my mid-30s, I was a very partisan Democrat. Bill Clinton (who I voted for in 1992) cured me of my Democrat loyalty. During the 1990s, I began a rather deep autodidactic study of politics, history, economics, philosophy, etc. My politics are conservative, my economics are Austrian, my faith is Christian. It’s that simple — and certain people HATE me for it. But those people hate everybody who is not a Democrat. Fine. I understand that kind of hate, having once been a Democrat myself, but Democrats think of their personal hatred as “social justice.” And so I understand them better than they understand me.

However, it’s not about me.. I’m just a story teller, really, and also occasionally a cheerleader for my team. But I was making my living and paying my bills as a journalist before I got into politics, before there was any such thing as a blog or Twitter. So, if you will excuse my French, fuck “social justice,” and fuck all these pretentious idiots who popped up on the Internet three or four years ago claiming to be “experts” on something. They may fool some people, but they don’t fool me. Zoe Quinn, Brianna Wu, Anita Sarkeesian, that whole worthless crowd of phony hustlers? They don’t fool me. I was street-smart enough to spot their kind of hustle even before I got into the news business. “Social justice” is a three-card monte hustle, a cheap and transparent scam or, as Friedrich Hayek said, social justice is a mirage. The object of the SJW game — for Quinn, Wu, Sarkeesian, et al. — is for them to make money without ever doing any actual work except be a professional “activist.” Yeah, so fuck their activism, and fuck their claim to being morally superior to me (or you or anybody else) just because they are an “activist” who claims to be advancing “social justice.” They do not fool me, nor should anyone else be deceived by their bogus hustle, and the fact that my @rsmccain account got suspended? Just further proof of what I keep saying: Feminism is a totalitarian movement, and the First Rule of Feminism is, “Shut up!” Sarkeesian and her crowd cannot sustain their arguments against well-informed criticism, and so they attempt to “win” the argument by silencing all criticism.

This is why you can’t even state FACTS about these people on Twitter without being accused of “harassment.” Facts are harassment and truth is hate and Oceania Has Always Been at War With Eastasia. Sarkesian is anti-freedom because she is anti-truth. She and her little squad of soi-disant “feminists” are just hustlers looking for a free ride, and the only way they can get that ride is to silence anyone who speaks the truth about them and calls them out as the cheap bullshit artists they actually are. Me? Nobody cares about me. I am not the story. But I am the guy telling the story, and I’m not going to shut up so long as I can breathe. If I drop dead right here, right now, as soon as I click “send,” I will keep telling the truth, because that’s what the job is about. Fuck “social justice.” Give me freedom, and give me truth...

More.

Donald Trump to Hold Campaign Events in Las Vegas Today (VIDEO)

Following-up from previously, "Donald Trump's Momentum (VIDEO)."

At KTNV News 13 Las Vegas:

Donald Trump's Momentum (VIDEO)

At the New York Post, via Memeorandum, "Donald Trump leads polls in 10 of next 14 voting states."

And at the New York Times, "Donald Trump's Victory Spurs Renewed Scrambling Among Republicans."