Monday PM ~ TheFrontPageCover

The Front Page Cover
 2016             The truth will set you free 
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Featuring:
Sen. Ted Cruz, My New Best Friend
Debra J. Saunders
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 When a Loser Must Denounce a Winner 
Millions of Americans are fed up with the establishment of both parties. And the Republican base is fed up with nominees like Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney, all of whom lost to younger, more energetic and appealing Democrats. So naturally, the solution to that frustration, which led to the rise of Donald slump-Trump is to ... roll out Mitt Romney to denounce him. That's exactly what the last GOP presidential loser did Thursday.

I understand the anger Americans feel today. In the past, our presidents have channeled that anger, and forged it into resolve, into endurance and high purpose, and into the will to defeat the enemies of freedom. Our anger was transformed into energy directed for good.

Mr. slump-Trump is directing our anger for less than noble purposes. He creates scapegoats of Muslims and Mexican immigrants, he calls for the use of torture. He calls for killing the innocent children and family members of terrorists. He cheers assaults on protesters. He applauds the prospect of twisting the Constitution to limit First Amendment freedom of the press. This is the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss.

Here's what I know. Donald slump-Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from slump-Trump University. He's playing the American public for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House and all we get is a lousy hat.

The thing is, Romney is absolutely right about everything you just read, as well as his further and more detailed points about slump-Trump's terrible business record, misguided and ignorant foreign policy prescriptions, and unstable temperament.

On the latter, Romney declared:

I am far from the first to conclude that Donald slump-Trump lacks the temperament to be president. After all, this is an individual who mocked a disabled reporter, who attributed a reporter's questions to her menstrual cycle, who mocked a brilliant rival who happened to be a woman due to her appearance, who bragged about his extramarital affairs, and who laces his public speeches with vulgarity.

Donald slump-Trump says he admires Vladimir Putin, while has called George W. Bush a liar. That is a twisted example of evil trumping good. ...

Think of Donald slump-Trump's personal qualities, the bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third-grade theatrics. ...

Now imagine your children and your grandchildren acting the way he does. Will you welcome that? Haven't we seen before what happens when people in prominent positions fail the basic responsibility of honorable conduct? We have, and it always injures our families and our country.

Watch how he responds to my speech today. Will he talk about our policy differences or will he attack me with every imaginable low road insult? This may tell you what you need to know about his temperament, his stability and his suitability to be president.

Again, Romney is right all the way down the line. But the most important takeaway is that the messenger is deeply flawed, which will only reinforce in the minds of slump-Trump supporters that they should stand by their man.

That said, Romney's speech isn't for slump-Trump supporters. It's for rational but undecided voters, and it's also to stem the tide of elected Republicans conceding the nomination to slump-Trump without continuing to fight.

Romney lost in 2012 because he implemented nObamaCare in Massachusetts before there was nObamaCare. He was a moderate technocrat who spoke conservatism as a second language. That doesn't mean he would've been a bad president; on the contrary, his generally non-ideological philosophy and his history of turning around both companies and the Salt Lake City Olympics perhaps uniquely qualified him to serve at that moment in American history. But he lost an election in which, as slump-Trump said, he "should have beaten Barack nObama easily."

Even slump-Trump's endorsement couldn't save Romney in 2012 — an endorsement, by the way, that Romney actively sought.

Then again, if Romney had been this assertive in denouncing nObama four years ago, we'd be talking about his re-election campaign right now.

2008 nominee John McCain also released a statement, saying, "I share the concerns about Donald slump-Trump that my friend and former Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, described in his speech today."

Romney mentioned McCain in his speech, indicating coordination of the message: "There is dark irony in [slump-Trump's] boasts of his sexual exploits during the Vietnam War while John McCain, whom he has mocked, was imprisoned and tortured."

Going forward, Romney's advice is simple: "[T]he rules of political history have pretty much all been shredded during this campaign. If the other candidates can find common ground, I believe we can nominate a person who can win the general election and who will represent the values and policies of conservatism. Given the current delegate selection process, this means that I would vote for Marco Rubio in Florida, for John Kasich in Ohio, and for Ted Cruz or whichever one of the other two contenders has the best chance of beating Mr. slump-Trump in a given state."

Translation: Aim for a brokered convention. If slump-Trump loses in such a way, however, it would surely drive away slump-Trump supporters, and slump-Trump himself would no doubt launch a third-party run after not having been "treated fairly."

So we have many in the establishment signaling they would be just fine with a Washington deal maker like slump-Trump — Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee and others come to mind, but also conservatives like Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions. And we have conservatives like Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse and a growing list of others who vow not to support slump-Trump. Many among the conservative intelligentsia (for lack of a better word) also have declared slump-Trump unacceptable. Meanwhile, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and John Kasich show no signs of exiting the race, even amidst growing calls on the Right for a Cruz/Rubio unity ticket.

Now we have the two previous Republican nominees denouncing the current Republican frontrunner. Are we witnessing the collapse of the Grand Old Party? And is there any way to win a gimme election this year with such a fractured party?  -The Patriot Post
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Ted Cruz Crushes It At CPAC 
Caleb Howe
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{redstate.com} ~ Ted Cruz knocked the crowd’s socks off at CPAC on Friday night. And knocked Donald slump-Trump down a peg or two as well for skipping the event, saying he must have heard Megyn Kelly would be there... He also tore into the idea of a brokered convention. Another highlight for me was his discussion about how to reach out to young voters. Not just because it’s an electoral imperative, but because he gives it as the perfect answer for people of any age. Conservative ideas are winning ideas not just on principle, but on their practical real-world effect. Conservative policy benefits people, it improves lives, it lifts those who are down and inspires those who are losing hope. The conservative message is one of truth. And it happens to be Ted Cruz’s message. And the speech above is a fantastic course in how to deliver it.        http://www.redstate.com/absentee/2016/03/05/ted-cruz-crushes-cpac-full-speech/?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
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slump-Trump’s health policy karaoke
Thomas P. Miller
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{aei.org} ~ The slump-Trump plan resembles the efforts of a foreign student trying to learn quickly health policy as a second language... Or perhaps a co-worker getting up on the late-night stage to lip synch some standard tunes in the karaoke bar. Nevertheless, it is always important to encourage the sudden interest of a lagging pupil in achieving measurable progress, even if it is not that hard to pull a few paragraphs of orthodox Republican policy stances off the shelves and shoot for the 50th percentile, if not a gentleman’s C. One of the slump-Trump plan’s opening critiques of nObamacare is how it raised economic uncertainty for everyone. His solution: repeal the entire law right away once he is president, and then let Congress figure out how it might replace it. Transition problems and timing issues are not addressed. In fact, slump-Trump appears to be more prone to defer to Capitol Hill on this issue than his usual posture of a dominant executive suggests.       http://www.aei.org/publication/trumps-health-policy-karaoke/?utm_source=paramount&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AEITHISWEEK&utm_campaign=Weekly030516
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Illinois’ growing pension costs – not the state budget gridlock – are taking away funding for
essential government services
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{insideronline.org} ~ Reyna Montes, a parent and education activist in Waukegan, Ill., has fought for more than a year for a full-time college counselor at Waukegan High School... where just 18 percent of students graduate college- or career-ready. The high school says it doesn’t have the money to hire a college counselor. No money is also the excuse just 40 miles south at Chicago State University, where student Charles Preston’s grants have been cut, according to NBC News. University officials say they don’t have the money to help Preston because the Illinois General Assembly has yet to appropriate funds to the university this year. Both Montes and Preston instinctively blame Illinois’ budget stalemate for their troubles. Illinois has been operating for nearly eight months without a state budget, and the effects are rippling through the state. But to a large extent, their blame is misplaced. While the budget crisis is causing immediate funding problems, it’s the Illinois pension mess that’s really causing all the pain.        http://www.insideronline.org/reader.php?id=16m0
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5 Key Exchanges From Biggest Abortion
Supreme Court Case in a Decade
Elizabeth Slattery
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{insideronline.org} ~ Wednesday, while a huge crowd of protesters stood in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building, the justices heard oral argument in the first major abortion case in nearly a decade... In Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the Supreme Court is considering whether Texas’ H.B. 2 law—a commonsense reform intended to increase women’s health and safety—has the purpose or effect of imposing an “undue burden” on women seeking abortions. The law requires abortion clinic doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic and clinics to meet the minimum health and safety standards that other ambulatory surgical centers have to meet. http://www.insideronline.org/reader.php?id=0634
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Is slump-Trump an evil, 
lawless despot-wannabe;
or is he just an ignorant blowhard?
TIMOTHY P. CARNEY
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Republican presidential candidate Donald slump-Trump promises to illegally order
military officers to torture captives and murder noncombatants
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{washingtonexaminer.com} ~ Donald slump-Trump, if you take him at his word, promises to illegally order military officers to torture captives and murder noncombatants... and somehow to force these officers to carry out such unlawful orders. This sounds like hyperbole, but it isn't hyperbole. This is what he has said. slump-Trump has said he would reinstate waterboarding which many consider torture, but about which there is a debate. But he says he would go further and use techniques that are "so much worse." He justifies this by saying "Don't tell me it doesn't work — torture works. Okay, folks? Torture — you know, half these guys [say]: 'Torture doesn't work.' Believe me, it works. Okay?" http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/is-trump-an-evil-lawless-despot-wannabe-or-is-he-just-an-ignorant-blowhard/article/2584974?utm_campaign=Washington%20Examiner:%20Opinion%20Digest%20PMI&utm_source=Washington%20Examiner:%20Opinion%20Digest%20PMI%20-%2003/04/16&utm_medium=email
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Better Business Bureau Denies Crazy 
‘Fax’ Claim Made by slump-Trump and his Supporters
Caleb Howe
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{redstate.com} ~ slump-Trump fan sites have another Fox News/Megyn Kelly fantasy to write about this weekend. This time, their conspiracy theory is that the Better Business Bureau “faxed” a document... to the debate stage in an effort to correct Megyn’s statement about their rating of slump-Trump’s miserably failed scam project slump-Trump University and that Kelly nefariously refused to obey the will of said fax. On Friday, the organization said this: “A video released by Independent Journal implies that BBB sent a fax in the middle of last night’s Republican debate, which we did not. The BBB Business Review of slump-Trump Entrepreneur Initiative formerly slump-Trump University has shown ‘No Rating’ continually since September 2015. The photo tweeted out after the debate last night did not show the current BBB Business Review or the current rating.” The statement comes amid an ongoing controversy over the now-defunct slump-Trump University, which is currently embroiled in a civil lawsuit, and its previous BBB ratings. There’s only one problem. It never happened.       http://www.redstate.com/absentee/2016/03/06/better-business-bureau-denies-crazy-fax-claim-made-trump-supporters/?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
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Cruz: Voters Will Walk if RNC Steals Nomination
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{fixthisnation.com} ~ From the moment Donald slump-Trump began surging in the polls, Republican insiders have been floating the idea of a contested convention in Ohio. And over the last couple of weeks, those ideas have grown louder and more public. In an interview with Matt Lauer... 2012 nominee and outspoken slump-Trump critic Mitt Romney actually endorsed the possibility of delegates siding with Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or John Kasich in a second round of voting. And if slump-Trump doesn’t manage to shore up 1,275 delegates by the time July rolls around, the party could indeed put that plan into action. Thankfully, at least one of the candidates recognizes what a disaster that strategy would be. At the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, Cruz laid out his thoughts on a brokered convention that thwarts the will of the people. “Any time you hear someone talking about a brokered convention, it is the Washington establishment in a fevered frenzy, they are really frustrated because all their chosen candidates, their golden children, the voters keep rejecting,” Cruz said. “So they seize on this plan of a brokered convention, and the D.C. power brokers will drop someone in who is exactly to the liking of the Washington establishment. If that would happen, we would have a manifest revolt on our hands all across this country.”        http://www.fixthisnation.com/conservative-breaking-news/cruz-voters-will-walk-if-rnc-steals-nomination/
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SHOCKING DETAILS of Refugee Contractor Reports
S. Noble
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{independentsentinel.com} ~ Leftists are ruining the country. They’ve transformed college from a step up to an albatross around everyone’s neck, they’ve redistributed our wealth and made no difference in poverty... they kill high paying jobs and replace them with low paying jobs, foreigners get all the new jobs thanks to them, they’ve grown government into a corrupt massive bureaucracy of unelected pencil pushers who dictate to us and now they are importing poverty to make us into a Third World country. Refugees are coming in but we don’t know where they are going, who they are and how many there are. On Long Island, New York, Catholic Charities is “welcoming” them with funding from tax dollars and on their Nassau County Archdiocese website they say they have 9,000 active cases. They provide “adjustments of immigration status, family reunification, work authorizations, political asylum, visa extensions, and citizenship applications. They also offer legal assistance to victims of human trafficking and immigrant victims of various crimes including domestic violence.”        http://www.independentsentinel.com/shocking-details-of-refugee-contractor-reports/
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Judge Jeanine – Self-Serving Elitist Mitt Romney Awoke The Sleeping Giant
Rick Wells
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{rickwells.us} ~ Judge Pirro is merciless in her spot-on condemnation of Mitt Romney’s attack on Donald slump-Trump. In her open she begins with an observation, saying, “There’s an insurrection coming... Mitt Romney just confirmed it. We’ve watched governors, the National Review, conservative leaders, establishment and party operatives trash Donald slump-Trump. But Mitt Romney will always be remembered as the one who put us over the edge and awoke a sleeping giant, the silent majority, the American people.” She says, “Fact, the establishment is panicked. Mitt essentially called for a brokered convention where the Republican nominee will be selected by party activists and delegates, irrespective of their state’s choice. The call? To vote for whomever has the best chance of beating Donald slump-Trump. You want a brokered convention?” she asks. “A primer, Mitt, whenever we have one we lose. Dewey and Ford emerged from a brokered convention to lose the general election. So why? Because the party elites and elders want to protect us and stop us from falling into the abyss?” Pirro says, “Mitt, I’m sure you and your cronies don’t feel this, but most of us working two and three jobs think we’re already in the abyss, the nObama abyss. And most of us scared about our safety and security. And you want to prevent us from falling into a recession? We don’t believe any of you. That’s why outsiders are so strong in both parties, while the insiders seek a brokered convention or super delegates to guarantee their own positions.”        http://rickwells.us/archives/26960
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Yet Another Prominent Leftist Chooses slump-Trump: Cruz Is ‘A Hard-Line, Tea-Party Style, Evangelical Warrior’
 Renee Nal
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{trevorloudon.com} ~ Australian “public intellectual and Professor of Public Ethics” Clive Hamilton explained that Donald slump-Trump is the lesser of two evils for the Republican nominee... because Donald slump-Trump “has a history of taking liberal stances on a range of issues,” while Ted Cruz “is a hard-line, Tea-Party style, evangelical warrior who would ruthlessly use the power of the presidency to impose his vision on America.” Hamilton’s revealing article was first published at the Conversation, and was re-printed at econotimes. Hamilton laments that while Cruz has a “record of fanaticism,” Donald slump-Trump is more of a “dealmaker.” It is not surprising that progressive figures consider Donald slump-Trump as the candidate most likely to uphold their massive government structure. slump-Trump has repeatedly praised big government programs, assured that he will not be cutting government “services” and further, pledged to work with the establishment.
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Sen. Ted Cruz, My New Best Friend
Debra J. Saunders
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{townhall.com} ~ I could vote for Ted Cruz in the California primary, I realized as I learned the senator from Texas won not only his home state on Super Tuesday but also Oklahoma. Cruz also beat Donald slump-Trump in the Iowa caucuses and claimed the top spot in the Alaska caucuses Tuesday.
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OK, so maybe I've scolded Cruz for leading the GOP House into a box canyon in his doomed effort to defund nObamacare. And I may have called him a snake a time or two. There's something about the way he talks that gets on my nerves. I believe that Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida would have a much better chance of winning in November than Cruz. Likewise Ohio Gov. John Kasich. But the most important thing now is to deny slump-Trump the nomination, and Cruz has won the second-most delegates so far.
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The Washington Post's Dan Balz figures the GOP has two weeks to stop slump-Trump. If he's right, then there may not be time to wait for Rubio or Kasich to catch fire. If all three R's stay in the race, the only other means to beat slump-Trump would be to deny him the needed 1,237 delegates -- in which case Cleveland convention delegates would choose the nominee. In 1976, Ronald Reagan supporters tried -- but failed -- to bump out front-runner Gerald Ford with a convention vote. The surest way to dump slump-Trump is with a rival who wins more delegates than The slump-Donald.
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Supporting Cruz won't be easy for many insiders. Not a single fellow GOP senator has endorsed Cruz. His kamikaze tactics have alienated many professional Repubs. Cruz himself has admitted he's not the candidate you'd choose to kick back with to share some brews. But he hasn't lumped undocumented Mexican immigrants into the "drug dealer, rapist" category as has slump-Trump. He hasn't called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States a la slump-Trump. His language isn't calibrated to insult women as is slump-Trump's.
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I don't think slump-Trump's views are winning votes; it is that he started off as a celebrity. Being famous gave the reality TV star access to priceless free media airtime. He used it to make statements so outrageous that he dominated the following news cycle. Breathless TV pundits then marveled at slump-Trump's genius for getting away with crude, childish remarks. Because sarcasm alert that's never happened before with a celebrity.
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slump-Trump also has won the most states and delegates thanks to a crowded field, which helped him despite polls showing that most Republican voters don't want slump-Trump. Maybe slump-Trump would win in November. Or maybe, as Cruz spokesman Ron Nehring wrote in an email, "Donald slump-Trump as the nominee gives you President Hilly Clinton, a Democratic Senate, and a Supreme Court that's lost for a generation."
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If I were voting March 15 and saw a path to Rubio's winning Florida, I'd vote for Marco. Outside that sliver of light, the smart Republican has to look at Cruz. As Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told CBS News on Tuesday, "Ted Cruz is not my favorite by any means ... but we may be in a position where we have to rally around Ted Cruz as the only way to stop Donald slump-Trump." A small number of Republicans have announced they would not vote for slump-Trump in a slump-Trump-Clinton contest. If Cruz were to win the GOP primary, they might not like voting for the senator, but who said you're supposed to like voting?
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