#351826
On Sunday Ted Cruz and John Kasich joined forces to deny Donald Trump enough delegates to win the Republican nomination. ...
#351827
An important pipeline project—meant to ease a natural gas bottleneck in New England—was scrapped this week.
#351828
By Daisy Luther The tiny house movement has taken America by storm, in part because our economy is in the toilet. People are striving to reduce their expenses by embracing minimalism. They’re breaking free from the corporate grind because, as I’ve always advised, they are learning to live with less and radically reducing their expenses.?
#351829
Hugh Hewitt interview with Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard.
#351830
BEAVER, Pa. — A retired middle school principal was so moved by Donald Trump that he switched his Democratic Party registration so he can vote for him in...
#351831
Sometimes people on the East Coast act as if the political world revolves around them (OK, us). It usually doesn’t. Except this time. Voters in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rho…
#351832
"I stood not 20 yards from where Abraham Lincoln met the freed slaves 151 years ago in April."
#351833
UK: Muslim Uber driver refuses to accept blind woman because she had guide dog Australia: Muslim teen charged with Anzac Day jihad plot
#351834
It took almost 10 months, but Donald Trump finally has a nickname for John Kasich one of his two remaining obstacles on the way to the Republican nomination: "1 for 38 Kasich."
#351835
Celebrities are increasingly vocal in the political process, with movie stars like Rosario Dawson, a strident Bernie Sanders supporter, publicly roasting Hillary Clinton for facing an FBI probe ove…
#351836
US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a joint pitch Sunday for deeper transatlantic trade in the face of mounting opposition, vowing to complete a vast US-EU trade pact that could spur much-needed economic growth
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“We're not interested in politics," billionaire Charles Koch says.
#351838
Brexit campaigners blast ‘stage managed’ visit
#351839
From transportation to energy, and everything in between, should the government invest money in as many promising projects as possible? Or would that actuall...
#351840
Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. John Kasich forged a pact to keep front-runner Donald Trump from winning the Republican nomination for the White House, releasing in the late-night hours near-simultaneous statements that said they would divide their campaign efforts among the four state elections in the coming weeks, with each taking two. Cruz called a […]
#351841
President Obama announced Monday that he had approved the deployment of an additional 250 U.S. troops to Syria to fight the ISIS terror group.
#351842
Parts 1-4 of this series can be found here.
When Texas Sen. Ted Cruz found Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the latter was finishing a bowl of Skyline Chili 5-Way delivered to his suite at Quicken Loans Arena by an Ohio delegate who had wanted the Buckeye State governor to stay loose and relaxed.
Ted, Ted, come in. See what you missed when you skipped Ohio? Best damn chili in the country. I didn't have a prayer in New York, but I knew I'd eat my way for free through the boroughs. Isn't campaign food the best? Our wives can't say a thing ...
John Weaver, the ubiquitous presence at Kasich's right arm through the campaign, put his hand on the ebullient governor's shoulder. Kasich nodded and then slowed down.
So Ted, sit down. Mind if John stays? You can bring in Jeff if you want. We can start...
#351843
The best delegate trackers out there still think it likely that Donald Trump will fall short of the 1,237 delegates he needs to secure the GOP nomination on the first ballot.
But there’s one man who can cut a deal and instantly make Trump the de facto nominee: Ohio governor John Kasich. He would then probably be responsible for setting in motion devastating GOP losses in November of not only the White House but also control of the U.S. Senate.
#ad#Kasich himself claims there is “zero chance” he would sign on as Trump’s running mate as part of a deal to deliver his delegates for Trump. But Lyndon Johnson said the same thing before he became John F. Kennedy’s running mate, and so too did John Nance Garner before hitching up with FDR in 1932.
In addition, key Kasich allies are talking about a deal. Oklahoma senator Jim Inhofe told the Enid News in Oklahoma today, “I support John Kasich not so that he could be president, but so that if Donald Trump becomes president, I would want Trump to use him as vice president because Kasich is one of the smartest guys I know.”
But Kasich insists he is running for president and nothing else, assuring supporters that at a contested convention delegates could turn to him as a compromise choice. But his campaign strategy is, well, unorthodox. Ed O’Keefe of the Washington Post says he has been “stunned” at the Kasich M.O. He told CBS’s Face the Nation today:
He could be running another gubernatorial style campaign this week in Pennsylvania, like he did up in New Hampshire and place second. He hasn’t been doing it. He could be doing that in Indiana. He could — he could have done it in Maryland. And over and over again we just see him bouncing around to all these different states, making a few appearances, instead of honing in on one or two places to actually get a win or pick up a big collection of delegates. He just hasn’t done it.
Indeed, Kasich himself almost seems bored and disengaged when the subject of actually winning the nomination comes up. “I mean, I don’t know all this other delegate stuff, because I don’t spend time on it,” he told the Washington Post in an interview last week. He actually asserted that he didn’t even know that it took 1,237 delegates to win the nomination, a figure that is almost tattooed on the memory banks of everyone involved in the GOP race.
#share#If Kasich isn’t clued in to the details of the Cleveland convention, his chief strategist John Weaver certainly is. Weaver, a moderate Republican who has described his party as “a bunch of cranks,” was spotted in deep discussions with Trump’s new delegate tracker, Paul Manafort, at the Republican National Committee meeting in Florida last week.
Kasich himself almost seems bored and disengaged when the subject of actually winning the nomination comes up.
No one doubts that Kasich would be a better fit than most for the shoot-from-the-hip Trump. As a two-term governor with experience on national-security issues from his days in Congress, Kasich would fill clear gaps in the Trump résumé. But at the same time, he shares some of Trump’s free-wheeling, politically incorrect style, so the two could probably be comfortable with each other. Jonathan Allen of Roll Call notes that Kasich comes from the key swing state of Ohio, and ‘his selection would signal to the establishment wing of the GOP and the general electorate that Trump is serious about governing.”
But while Kasich would certainly be a credible choice, the old adage that almost no voters cast ballots for a ticket based on who is running for No. 2 applies. Kasich might help a bit in Ohio, but Trump’s negative ratings (65 percent in the latest polls) have resulted in him trailing Hillary Clinton, 49 percent to 39 percent in the RealClearPolitics average of all recent polls. Ted Cruz, by contrast, trails Hillary, 45 percent to 43 percent, and Kasich has an eight-point edge.
#related#Ron Christie, a former Kasich aide, says he doesn’t think the Ohio governor will ultimately sign on to the S.S. Titanic, I mean, S.S. Trump. Kasich himself appears leery. “It takes a long time to change negatives,” Kasich told CBS’s Face the Nation today. “You can’t turn negatives around overnight. It’s not possible to do, because when you create that negative impression in people, you just can’t talk your way out of it, unfortunately, for those that have high negatives.”
Parties aren’t known in the modern era for nominating kamikaze presidential tickets (Barry Goldwater and George McGovern being ancient exceptions). Nominating Donald Trump would look like a case of assisted suicide. It would be best for both the Republican party and John Kasich’s legacy not to join Trump’s ticket in a dramatic suicide pact. The post-election recriminations over loss of the Senate and any chance to influence the direction of the Supreme Court would be ugly for both Trump and whoever his running mate would be.
— John Fund is National Review Online’s national-affairs correspondent.
#351844
A 20-year-old man was in custody after threatening to bomb Saturday's rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Waterbury, Connecticut. The U.S. Secret Service contacted the Connecticut State Police about 12:45 p.m. after seeing a post on Twitter threatening to "bomb" the Trump rally, authorities said in a statement. Investigators found the social media posts, which were open to the public, came from the area of Ardsley Road in Waterbury -- about 30 miles southwest of Hartford -- from the account of Sean Taylor Morkys.
#351845
Authoritarianism, always latent in progressivism, is becoming explicit. Progressivism’s determination to regulate thought by regulating speech is apparent in the campaign by 20 state attorneys gene…
#351846
The presidential campaigns of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich announced late Sunday that they were coordinating their efforts in three upcoming primary states in an effort to prevent Republican front-runner Donald Trump from clinching the GOP nomination before this summer's convention.
#351847
Monkey Cage blogged on a very timely study on the impact of violent and nonviolent protests on voting behaviour. Non-violent protest in the 60s enticed sympathy and increased voter support for the …
#351848
A self-proclaimed activist has admitted to posting a series of racially threatening Twitter messages targeting students at Kean University last fall.
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AN ENGLISH city council REFUSED to host St George’s Day celebrations because the area is “too multicultural”.
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Gaza’s prime minister announced today that six attack tunnels leading into Israel had been demolished, claiming they were “dens of homo-Zionist depravity.”