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Meet Curly Haugland, former chairman of the North Dakota Republican party and current Republican national committeeman. Haugland is one of just 112 delegates who will arrive unbound to this summer’s Republican convention in Cleveland, free to cast a vote for any candidate he chooses on a first ballot because North Dakota does not hold a primary or caucus. That makes him a particularly valuable asset to the still-dueling presidential campaigns...

Ted Cruz's foreign policy team is taking aim at Donald Trump's bromance with Vladimir Putin as it courts wary anti-Trump elements within the Republican establishment. Daniel Vajdich, a member of Cruz’s recently announced national security team, blasted out an email last week inviting “GOP Russia hands” to join a Ted Cruz Russia Working Group, slamming Trump’s praise for the Russian president last year and asking for help “pushing back against Donald Trump’s dangerous Russia policy.” ...

(CNN)One year ago this week, Ted Cruz became the first of 17 candidates to argue that he could unite the Republican Party behind him. Now, he has his a chance to prove it. On the anniversary of a presidential launch that knew nothing of a man by the name of Donald Trump, contests and converts won of late will offer the clearest signal yet of whether he can indeed consolidate the anti-Trump movement and eventually defeat the billionaire front-runner. Cruz is favored to win this Tuesday's caucuses in Utah and is hopeful of sweeping the state's 40 delegates by eclipsing...

A cross discovered by an amateur Danish archaeologist may "change history" according to an expert, who believes the cross may date from before Christianity is thought to have reached Denmark. An amateur archaeologist on the island of Funen made a startling discovery last week – a necklace resembling Jesus on the cross. But after posting a picture of the discovery on Facebook, Dennis Fabricius Holm quickly found that the item may have a lot more significance than he had initially thought. “I finished work early last Friday, so I decided to spend a couple of hours searching with my metal...

CAIRO — Radar scans of King Tut's tomb have revealed two spaces on the north and east chambers of the pharaonic mausoleum that could contain the "discovery of the century," Egypt's antiquities ministry said Thursday. Antiquities Minister Mamdouh al-Damaty told a press conference that metal and organic masses were revealed by the scans, signaling that the rooms could possibly contain funerary objects. "It could be the discovery of the century. It's very important for Egyptian history and the history of the world," he said, adding that the chambers may well have belonged to a king or queen. Further tests will...

A multi-disciplinary team of scientists have discovered the skull of a weird, unique extinct human and who was found in an underground cave Homo naledi fragments of skull and jaw ======================================================================================================= Scientists have discovered a skull belonging to a previously unknown species of human from three million years ago. The research team made up of paleoanthropologists stumbled across the remains in an underground cave and have now put together a skeleton which stands at 4ft 9 tall and is described as "a really, really strange creature." Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and his co-horts stumbled...

If you're a fan of HBO's series "Rome," here's the producers and actors revealing Octavian's true storyline. It's HBO, so the mature warning should be obvious. https://youtu.be/XnwpjE4MrB0

Mr. Pérez and other farmers say an outbreak of crime in the countryside is driving down food production and exacerbating Venezuela's chronic food shortages. They describe roving gangs stealing tractors, combines, trucks, laser-guided land levelers and agrochemicals. The thieves often resell these expensive, hard-to-find supplies to other farmers on the black market, or for a ransom to their original owners. The rural crime spree, which farmers say has accelerated since it began about two years ago, has forced some growers to cut back. SNIP Even Mr. Pérez, who produces tons of rice annually, feels the pinch. He said the lines...

Experts probing the discovery of 13 hand prints in the eerie Egyptian Cave of Beasts say the 8000-year-old stencils did not belong to humans Anthropologists probing the discovery of tiny 8000-year-old hand prints in an Egyptian cave say they were not made by human hands. Explorers stumbled across the tiny hand imprints in a Saharan cave after unearthing more than 5000 images carved into the stone in Egypt's southwest border with Libya 14 years ago. But a study of the 13 tiny hand prints show that not only are they not human - but that they are believed to belong...

After undercover videos released in July showed that Planned Parenthood was involved in the trafficking of aborted baby body parts, Donald Trump said he wasn't sure if the Planned Parenthood should lose all of its federal funding. He later shifted, saying: "I wouldn't do any funding as long as they are performing abortions." Trump has stuck to that line, but he has also offered a lot of aid and comfort to Planned Parenthood by arguing it does "wonderful things." At Thursday night's debate, Trump said that "millions and millions of women — cervical cancer, breast cancer — are helped by...

Following Thursday's Republican presidential debate, Donald Trump discussed an instance in which he had to hire foreign workers. "It's almost impossible to get help. And part of the reason that you can't get American people—you know, they want full-time jobs. This is a 4-month 5-month job." Watch the full clip here: ...

Republican presidential candidate Texas Senator Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) cr97% argued fellow GOP candidate Donald Trump can't beat Democratic candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton because he "agrees with Hillary Clinton and can't take it to her" during Thursday's GOP presidential debate on CNN. Cruz said, after stating he would release his tax forms, and that if Trump is being audited, it gives more of a reason for him to release his tax returns, because the voters should know if there is fraud, "[I]n the last 10 polls on Real Clear Politics he's [Trump's] lost to Hillary on eight...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz kept attacking his rival Donald Trump after they faced off onstage at CNN's Republican presidential debate on Thursday night. In an extended interview on Fox News, Cruz went after the Republican frontrunner. "I think that what became very clear is that Donald Trump is not the right candidate to go head-to-head with Hillary Clinton in November," Cruz said. "That on policy issue after policy issue, his position is identical to Hillary." Cruz cast Trump's policies as in line with those of "liberal Democrats." Trump has previously called himself a Democrat before running for the Republican presidential...

Among South Carolina Republicans who preferred above all else a candidate "who tells it like it is," 77 percent voted for Donald J. Trump. That is astonishing, given that Donald Trump's entire life has been an extended exercise in deception. Start with his wealth... Then there are Trump's lies about his personal life... And, now, there are Trump's political lies...

'Duck Dynasty' game changer? Large crowd in SC for Ted Cruz; Sean Hannity, Phil Robertson appear [pics, video]...

Donald Trump's opponents are increasingly targeting him in a slew of TV attack ads that throw shade on his business ventures and conservative credentials and draw attention to some of his un-presidential qualities on the campaign trail - like his use of the f-bomb. In large part, that is unsurprising. Mr. Trump is the front-runner heading into the South Carolina primary on Feb. 20 and the ads are ratcheting up the pressure - aimed at dislodging the billionaire real estate tycoon from the top of voter survey polls. Another wealthy Republican candidate faced a similar barrage of TV attacks four...

Trump is Owned by EVERY Bank on Wall St. (Except Citi, Who He Stiffed for $300M)...

I have been reading History since I was in the Fourth Grade thus destroying any hope of an Academic Future. About 17 years ago I ran across a web page about what happened in 3200 BC and the birth of Civilization as we know it. Cool. Lately I have seen posts on the GGG thread about the Sea People and the death of the Old Kingdom. It seemed to me rather strange that the Old Kingdom croaked in the same time frame as the Sargonite Empire in the two rives area and the sea people occurred at the time of...

It's not the first underground city to be discovered in the region; there are some 250 known subterranean dwellings of various sizes hidden within the fantastical landscape. The two biggest are Kaymakli and Derinkuyu; the latter is estimated to have been able to house up to 20,000 people. Both cities have been known for decades. But this new underground town, hiding beneath a centuries-old castle on a hilltop right in NevÅŸehir, just might be the biggest. One early estimate by geophysicists put its area at nearly five million square feet and its depth at 371 feet. If those estimates are...

Video at link and also at Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY_3ggKg0Bc#t=485 A good disaster story never fails to fascinate and, given that it actually happened, the story of Pompeii especially so. Buried and thus frozen in time by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, the ancient Roman town of 11,000 has provided an object of great historical interest ever since its rediscovery in 1599. Baths, houses, tools and other possessions (including plenty of wine bottles), frescoes, graffiti, an ampitheater, an aqueduct, the "Villa of the Mysteries": Pompeii has it all, as far as the stuff of first-century Roman life goes.The ash-preserved...