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Washington (AFP) - Jeb Bush appeared destined to waltz to the 2016 Republican nomination, but his presidential bid has been upended to the point that even his cherished family pedigree might not be enough to salvage his flagging campaign. Charles Foster, a prominent immigration lawyer who raises money for Bush, said the meeting was mischaracterized by some as an emergency session where the clan swooped in to reverse the slide. "It's a long race and Jeb's campaign is set up to go the distance," he told AFP.

A frightening showing at the box office this weekend featured five disappointments—including two of the biggest flops in history. “ Steve Jobs,” “The Last Witch Hunter,” “Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension,” “Rock the Kasbah” and “Jem and the Holograms” all fell short, with only “Witch Hunter” cracking $10 million. “Kasbah” and “Jem” now rank among the worst openings of all time, and “Paranormal” missed expectations after weeks of anticipation over its divisive distribution strategy. Instead, holdovers “The Martian” and “Goosebumps” came in first and second place, respectively. “The Martian” grossed an estimated $15.9 million in the U.S. and Canada, bringing...

Rising tensions between former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Republican presidential primary rival Marco Rubio broke out into the open Friday after the two campaigns began exchanging pointed fundraising-related barbs, culminating with a senior Bush campaign aide accusing the senator from Florida of intentionally exaggerating fundraising totals reported to the media and the Federal Election Commission. “Lying about budgets. Guess Marco picked up something in the Senate,” Bush communications director Tim Miller tweeted Friday in an uncharacteristically blunt attack against Rubio, whom the former governor has described as a personal friend. At the heart of the dust-up is the Rubio...

A longtime Republican operative, though not directly involved in what they described as a “significant” operation to dismantle the Donald Trump campaign, has indicated Mr. Trump’s chances of actually winning the GOP nomination have been significantly reduced and will likely lead to the termination of Trump 2016 in the not-too-distant future.

Amid conflicting reports about Moscow targeting U.S.-alllied groups in Syria, GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said late Wednesday that she backs military readiness against Russian forces. “I believe we must tell the Russians that we will conduct [and] we will secure a no-fly zone around anti-Assad rebel forces that we’re supporting,” she said on Fox News’s "Hannity." “Does that mean we might use force against Russian jets?” host Sean Hannity then asked. “Well, hopefully not,” Fiorina responded. "Hopefully, if we are signaling clearly to the Russians are intention, it will not come to that.” “But if it does come to...

Ben Carson has surged into a statistical dead heat with Donald Trump in the race for the 2016 GOP nomination, a new poll shows. According to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday, Trump still leads the race, with the support of 21% of Republican primary voters across the U.S., but Carson follows with 20% — well within the poll’s 6-percentage-point margin of error. Just weeks ago, Trump was still the clear front-runner but Carson has been steadily gaining on him since Trump’s average performance in the second Republican debate earlier this month. And just one month ago, in the...

A couple was busted for allegedly robbing a bank after posting photos of their loot to Facebook, according to a police report. John Mogan, 28, and his girlfriend Ashley Duboe, 24, were charged with robbery for the heist at the Savings Bank in Ashville, Ohio on August 24. Mogan allegedly walked into the bank wearing a hooded sweatshirt and gave the teller a note demanding cash, and the teller did as told. Mogan's mugshot and Facebook photos show he is heavily tattooed with ink across his face including the phrases “Loyalty’s Thin” and “Betrayal’s Thick.”

Via RCP, the balls on this guy to even pay lip service to this subject in front of the Pope. Give me one example of the Obama administration going to the mat to expand religious freedom here or abroad. He fought Hobby Lobby and the Little Sisters of the Poor in court to make them provide contraception as part of their health-care plans notwithstanding their religious objections. He sits by and says nothing when small business owners are sued into oblivion by state AGs when they politely refuse to provide services to gay weddings on grounds that their faith doesn’t...

The death toll in a stampede outside Mecca has risen to 717, with at least 800 injured, the deadliest disaster on the annual hajj pilgrimage in over a quarter of a century. The crush happened in the Mina valley, a few miles outside Mecca, where a sprawling camp of 160,000 tents fills with millions of visitors for a few days each year. Tragedy hit when two large groups of pilgrims who were preparing for one of the last major rites of their trip met on an intersection of two roads, Saudi authorities said.

Twenty-four hours after his debate performance in front of an audience of 23 million Wednesday night, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush appeared in front of a more humbling number: about 100. As the Washington Post’s David Weigal and Ed O’Keefe reported, Mr. Bush’s first post-debate rally took place in a half-full Las Vegas rec center room.

Posted on September 17, 2015 by sundance OAN/GRAVIS have published an exclusive poll based entirely on the results from last night’s CNN debate (full pdf below). The poll shows the majority of those questioned viewed Carly Fiorina won the debate and reflects a predictable surge: According to this result, both Fiorina and Rubio gained status and favorable opinion amid those Republicans polled.

Bernie Sanders has jumped out to a nine-point lead over front-runner Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, and he's gained ground on her among Iowa voters in the Democratic presidential race, according to a pair of brand-new NBC News/Marist polls. In New Hampshire, the Vermont senator gets the support of 41 percent of Democratic voters, Clinton gets 32 percent and Vice President Joe Biden gets 16 percent. No other Democratic candidate receives more than 1 percent.

Former NBC newsman Tom Brokaw is apparently not a big fan of Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump. According to a Mediaite report, the legendary NBC newsman was at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., on Saturday to discuss his book, "A Lucky Life Interrupted," when he told the crowd that the idea of covering Trump was not exactly his cup of tea. "If I was at ‪NBC News right now leading with‪ Donald Trump every night, I'd call in sick," said Brokaw.

In an ongoing showdown, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump took another swipe at former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush by criticizing his use of Spanish on the campaign trail. “I like Jeb,” Trump said in an interview with Breitbart. “He’s a nice man. But he should really set the example by speaking English while in the United States.”

The more you hate Romney the more you should want him in the race, not just for strategic reasons, because it’ll split the center further, but for sheer comic value. If you think it’s funny watching Trump invent new insults daily to question Bush’s masculinity — we can’t be more than a week away from him calling Jeb “low T” — then you’ll have the time of your life watching him hassle Mitt as a choke artist whose piddling $300 million fortune would relegate him to carrying people’s clubs at Mar-a-Lago. **************************** One Romney bundler puts the odds of him...

Sarah Palin, unlike many of the GOP presidential candidates who made the trip to Cleveland for the Fox News/Facebook debates, has nearly single-handedly carved a new foundation for conservative resurgence since 2009. Sure 2009 may seem like a long time ago in political seasons, but can you imagine what the state of affairs would be in local, state and national conservative political circles if Palin had not arrived on the scene to breathe life and vitality into conservatism.

The University of New Hampshire has removed from its website a “bias-free language guide” that warned against using the word “American” because it fails to recognize South America. The guide was developed in 2013 by several advocacy groups whose members are appointed by the university president. It was mentioned in an annual report submitted by at least one of those groups in 2014, but the university said administrators did not know about it until this week, when it was criticized in the media. […] It suggested replacements for common terms, such as “person of material wealth” instead of rich and...

Florida Senate hopeful Alan Grayson didn’t file his official candidacy with the Federal Election Committee by the deadline, the Tampa Bay Times reports. Rep. Grayson (D) had 15 days to file the paperwork from when he announced his campaign on July 9 or after spending or receiving more than $5,000, but the FEC website does not show any filing as of Tuesday night. The campaign told the Times that the mistake was due to a “staff error.” Grayson’s campaign spokesman, Kevin Franck, said the form would be sent in “today.”

For the past six weeks, an overarching concern for the Republican Party has been the impact that Donald Trump might have on the GOP primary election — particularly the damage he could do on the debate stage by turning an already unmanageable 10-candidate forum into a full-on circus. On Sunday, though, Trump himself gave one of the clearest examples yet of why his candidacy is doomed to fail, and why, if handled properly, the debate stage could be his Waterloo. Trump called in to CNN's State of the Union on Sunday morning to speak with host Jake Tapper. Much of...

Former presidential candidate John McCain has some debate advice for the GOP candidates sparring with Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump: Stick to your message. "Answer the questions," Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said in a moderated discussion Saturday at the Aspen Institute. "Do not ... not so much ignore something like a direct attack, you don't want to totally ignore him, but get your message out," he said. Trump, who leads the crowded Republican field in several recent polls, recently said the Arizona senator, a former prisoner-of-war in Vietnam, was only considered a hero because he was captured. Trump has also...