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An ad created by the super PAC supporting John Kasich has adopted Donald Trump’s nickname for rival Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): “Lyin’ Ted.” New Day Independent Media Committee’s video ad begins, “Many just call him Lyin’ Ted,” as a narrator proceeds to list Cruz’s alleged “lies.” “Lied about Ben Carson to steal a win in Iowa; lied about being the best for the GOP when polls show he can’t even beat Hillary Clinton; his TV ad about John Kasich lied. Stations had to pull it off the air.”“If Ted Cruz’s mouth is moving, he’s lying,” the ad continues.

Donald Trump is a boor. He's a vulgarian, a liar, an ignoramus. He has only the most cursory grasp of policy, a stentorian voice and a great big set of self-assurance. He's winning the Republican nomination. Why? It is partly because of the Clintons. While the media point and laugh at the Trump reality show carnival, they forget that the Clintons originally took us all to the circus. This week, we found out that Hillary Clinton's email scandal now occupies the attention of 147 FBI agents, and that she will be questioned by the FBI. We found out that her...

The term “gaslighting” comes to us from a play called “Gas Light,” written in 1938 by British playwright Patrick Hamilton. The play focuses on an abusive husband in the 1880s who convinces his wife that she is going crazy. One of his methods is lowering the gaslights and telling her it hasn’t gotten any darker. It’s all in her imagination. Donald Trump has been playing this game on the American people, or at least a meaningful portion of it, for five months now. Telling us that Trump University was a success. Telling us that he only worked with the mafia...

NBC anchor Chuck Todd isn’t buying the National Enquirer hit piece on Ted Cruz. On the March 27 edition of Meet the Press, Todd commented that “there’s more evidence that ties Trump to planting the story, than there is to the story itself tying anything to Cruz.” Todd also accused Trump of taking a page out of the “LBJ playbook.” Discussing the story with NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell, Todd retorted that “Trump is almost trying to borrow a page from the LBJ playbook, when he put out a statement on the National Enquirer – let me put...

Donald Trump has denied any connection to the National Enquirer story released yesterday claiming Ted Cruz has had 5 mistresses: I have no idea whether or not the cover story about Ted Cruz in this week’s issue of the National Enquirer is true or not, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it, did not know about it, and have not, as yet, read it. Likewise, I have nothing to do with the National Enquirer and unlike Lyin’ Ted Cruz I do not surround myself with political hacks and henchman and then pretend total innocence. Ted Cruz’s problem...

CHIP REID CBS NEWS March 25, 2016 Trump Feeling Female Voter Backlash (snip) A CBS News/New York Times poll in October found that 57 percent of registered women voters had an unfavorable view of Trump. Now, it's up to 63 percent.

The truth behind the rumor-mongering, however, is a little more complex. A half-dozen GOP operatives and media figures tell The Daily Beast that Cruz’s opponents have been pushing charges of adultery for at least six months now—and that allies of former GOP presidential hopeful Marco Rubio were involved in spreading the smears. For months and months, anti-Cruz operatives have pitched a variety of #CruzSexScandal stories to a host of prominent national publications, according to Republican operatives and media figures. The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg News, Politico, and ABC News—reporters at all those outlets heard some version of...

Michael Savage said today on his radio show that the National Enquirer story smearing Ted Cruz is completely false, and he knows this based on a source he says he would trust with his life. Savage points out that Cruz is rightly offended over this utter garbage. But even more so, Savage says that he abhors these attempts of assassination by innuendo, as it has been done to him, and while he doesn’t blame Trump for the story, he threatens to withdraw his support of Trump if he doesn’t completely disavow the story and the man who owns the National...

The latest issue of the National Enquirer contains a story alleging that Ted Cruz has had extramarital affairs with five women. The story features pixelated photos of women the Enquirer claims were involved in affairs with the Texas senator and presidential candidate. There’s been speculation that one woman in a blurred photograph is Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson. Pierson offered these comments on the story:

‘#FakeToughGuy’: GOP Sen. Ben Sasse Shames ‘Tiny Little Man’ Donald Trump For Attack On Heidi Cruz,,,

Poll: Nearly Half Of Republican Women Wouldn't Vote For Trump By GABBY MORRONGIELLO 3/24/16 A new survey of women voters suggests a general election contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton could be disastrous for the Republican Party. Nearly half of the female Republican electorate (47 percent) currently has a difficult time imagining voting for Trump as the Republican presidential nominee, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Far fewer say the same of Trump's two remaining opponents, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (32 percent) and Ohio Gov. John Kasich (27 percent). Trump also has the worst favorability rating...

DONALD TRUMP OPEN TO NUCLEAR RETALIATION AFTER BRUSSELS ATTACK Reena Flores CBS News March 24, 2016 Donald Trump is not ruling out the use of nuclear weapons in the U.S. fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), according to an interview with the GOP front-runner that aired on Bloomberg TV Wednesday. Asked if he would consider nuclear retaliation after this week's terror attacks in Brussels, Trump responded: "Well, I'm never gonna rule anything out. And I wouldn't wanna say. Even if I felt -- it wasn't going -- I wouldn't wanna tell you that because, at a...

This month, about half (47 percent) of Republican female primary voters said they could not imagine themselves voting for Trump. (About 40 percent of male GOP primary voters said the same.) Compare that to their relative willingness to accept Trump's rivals. Only about three in ten female Republican voters say they can't imagine backing Ted Cruz (32 percent) and John Kasich (27 percent). The poll, which was taken before Marco Rubio exited the presidential race, also showed that only 30 percent of GOP women couldn't imagine backing the Florida senator.

The Republican establishment is sending in the cavalry for Ted Cruz, the latest unexpected twist in a presidential race that has defied all expectations. Many prominent members of the GOP establishment intensely dislike Cruz. But they now acknowledge that he is the best option — perhaps the only option — to deny Donald Trumptheir party’s nomination. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush jumped on the bandwagon on Wednesday with a surprise endorsement of Cruz, describing the Texas senator as “a consistent, principled conservative” in a Facebook post. Bush’s admiration for Cruz was noticeably lacking during the Floridian’s own run for the...

Talk about political whiplash. Exactly one week ago, 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney -- in his effort to defeat Donald Trump -- campaigned in Ohio with John Kasich, telling the state's voters to cast ballots for their governor. "Unlike the other people running, he has a real track record," Romney said of Kasich. "He has the kind of record that you want in Washington, and that's why I'm convinced that you're going to do the right thing tomorrow." Today, however, Romney's voice appears on robocalls in Arizona and Utah, telling these voters to side with Ted Cruz -- and...

Ted Cruz’s campaign has been exploring the possibility of forming a unity ticket with ex-rival Marco Rubio — going so far as to conduct polling looking into how the two would perform in upcoming primary states. The motivation, hashed out in conversations among Cruz’s top aides and donors: to find a way to halt Donald Trump’s march to the Republican nomination. It’s unclear whether Cruz’s campaign brass views a partnership with Rubio as realistic or quixotic. In Rubio’s orbit, according to three sources, it’s seen as an outright nonstarter — with Rubio telling his team that he isn’t interested. Yet...

A top presenter on Russian state TV has come out firmly in favour of Donald Trump in his bid to become US president, hailing him as an "anti-establishment" candidate who is ready to co-operate with Moscow. Russian state TV has regularly shown sympathy towards Mr Trump, especially after his apparently complimentary remarks about President Vladimir Putin. But it is only in the last week or so that it has started to unequivocally praise him. Fronting his two-and-half hour news review on official channel Rossiya 1 on 13 March, Dmitri Kiselyov hit out strongly at what he saw as a conspiracy...

In an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation," establishment-type Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., admitted that he would prefer to lose the election to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton than to have Trump as president. "We can lose an election, but I don’t want us to lose our heart and soul," said Graham. "If we nominate Donald Trump, and he carries the banner of the Republican Party, given who he is and what he said about immigrants, about Muslims and young women, we will not just lose the election. We have lost the heart and soul of the conservative movement. That's what...

Top political aides to Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz connected Friday to discuss how delegates currently bound to Rubio might be allocated, a Cruz campaign aide confirmed to RealClearPolitics.Although the conversation between Rubio’s former campaign manager, Terry Sullivan, and Cruz Campaign Manager Jeff Roe was brief and no resolution was reached, the development suggests the two former rivals could be moving toward detente if not an active collaboration.-snip-If Rubio does decide to endorse Cruz, the aide said, that decision would likely be reached between the two of them, not among senior aides. “Marco and Ted are good friends, so...

The primary component of GOP presidential candidates’ health policy proposals is to repeal Obamacare. Once GOP frontrunner Trump released his plan, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget took notice and did an analysis of the likely fiscal effects from Trump’s plan. Presumably, these fiscal effects would also apply to the other Republican candidates who also support repealing Obamacare. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) is a budget watchdog group that began 35 years ago. For the past few years it has been housed with the neo-Democratic think tank, New America. The two organizations parted ways over the...