Free Republic

The latest Quinnipiac Iowa poll had great news for Ted Cruz on several fronts. He is surging and now is just behind Donald Trump for the lead (technically a statistical tie): There is good news and bad news in the fact that he has 42% of those who consider themselves Tea Party.  The good news is that the Tea Party vote is not as divided as it has been in previous cycles and that Cruz seems to be the consensus Tea Party pick (not a shock based on my Twitter feed).  The bad news is that with such a level...

In the latest Quinnipiac poll of registered voters, they asked respondents about what was the first word that they thought of when they thought of Clinton and Donald.  The responses are pretty telling.  First here is Hillary's top 20 list: And now the Donald: Not surprisingly, a swear word makes it into Donald Trump's top 20.

I've always liked Ted Cruz, he is the Republican who I agree with most on the issues.  He's free market, pro-life and for a measured foreign policy (less aggressive than Marco Rubio but more aggressive than Rand Paul).  Most importantly, he would stick to his ideals despite pressure from the establishment.  He may have made some tactical errors because of that but I couldn't help but admire him for his idealism.  He has been the candidate that I would have voted for if I didn't care at all about electability.  Unfortunately, his interview last night with Megyn Kelly unmasked him...

The Quinnipiac poll of battle ground states had some pretty interesting information in it.  Most notably, amongst registered voters of all political stripes, the top 4 names are the same in each of the states polled (Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania).  The four are Rubio, Kasich, Fiorina and Carson, who seem to run the gambit of the GOP, from moderate (Kasich) to establishment conservative (Rubio) and full-on Tea Party outsider (Carson).  And all of them have better numbers than both Clinton and Biden. First, let's look at Florida: Note that Trump is very near the bottom in a very key state. ...

CNN came out with a poll of likely Iowa caucus goers yesterday which was pretty interesting as it asked about which issues were most important to them as well as how each candidate stacked up on those issues.  First, let's look at the voting preference results: As you can see, Trump continues to lead, while Ben Carson seems to be benefiting nicely from his closing remarks at the primetime debate.  Scott Walker's support seems to be collapsing as he was polling around 20% just a month ago. Now the question is, why is Trump still leading?  He seems to have...

Franklin Pierce/Boston Herald just came out with a NH poll which was interesting: Trump is leading by a bit, followed by Jeb and surprisingly by Kasich and Cruz.  Kasich certainly showed more charisma at the debate than Jeb, I wonder if there is a chance that the establishment decides to go with him instead at some point?  Walker's support has completely collapsed and Paul's has also gone down dramatically.  Carly Fiorina had a nice jump and also looks like she has very high favorables with very few people hating her: Carson, Fiorina, Kasich and Rubio all have very low very...

Last night, instead of focusing on True Detective, I ended up getting into a bit of a flame war on Twitter with some Donald Trump supporters.  Oh my, those people have no clue and you really couldn't pin them down on anything.  Ask a simple question like "how do you know Trump will govern as a conservative?" and the responses you get are "do your homework", "you're not very bright are you" and "Trump/Cruz is the only hope for this country".  The last is would only be true if your hope is for a historic route of the Republican Party. ...

To call growing concerns about the size, depth, history, ways and operations of our now-huge national-security operation "esoteric" or merely abstract is, simply, absurd. Our federal government is involved in massive data collection that apparently includes a database of almost every phone call made in the U.S. The adequacy of oversight for this system is at best unclear. The courts involved are shadowed in secrecy and controversy. Is it really wrong or foolhardy or unacceptably thoughtful to wonder if the surveillance apparatus is excessive, or will be abused, or will erode, or perhaps in time end, any expectation of communications...

For those of you who aren't as obsessed by politics as I am, Jen Rubin can best be described as the Eva Braun or the Tasmanian Devil of the Republican Establishment.  She was so Pro-Romney that she should have been voted "most likely to try to rape Mitt Romney when he isn't looking".  For all other candidates she made big deals over very minor points like what was painted over on rocks on leased hunting grounds and consulting arrangements and did so viciously and incessantly.  For 2016, she is probably trying to decide whether to turn her googly eyes on Chris...

The National Jewish Democratic Council are getting their panties in a bunch over the selection of Rand Paul to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claiming his anti-foreign aid position is anti-Israel (no comment from them though on their President's belief that much of the Jerusalem area should be Judenrein). You would think that a press release that "expresses outrage" over someone who is a "radical ideologue" with a "deeply disturbing record" would have more to say about that person than he wants us to send less money overseas. No money quotes? No taking the side of Hezbollah in the Israel-Lebanon...

Once again, the GOP establishment seems to be telling conservatives to sit down and shut up and just to nominate whoever they choose will be most "electable", whether or not they share our conservative principles.  Check out Jennifer Rubin's piece yesterday attacking the Club for Growth and Jim DeMint (who she refers to as "far right" like extreme leftists do) for not supporting Shelley Moore Capito for the soon to be vacated Senate seat in West Virginia: After years in which prominent Republicans courted her to run for the Senate, the popular Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) announced today...

I just started reading After America by Mark Steyn which I highly recommend to anyone.  It is probably the most humorous book on the economic apocalypse you'll ever read.  Anyway, Mark Steyn refers to a paper called "Financing US Debt:  Is There Enough Money in the World - and At What Cost?" by US Treasury official (and former Chief Economist of the Office of Management & Budget) John Kitchen and Menzie Chinn of the Robert M. La Follete School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin.  Using estimates from the CBO, they calculate how much US Treasury debt foreign...

Since Romney lost on Tuesday, many Republicans, like Sean Hannity and John Boehner, have been promoting a change in the Republican views on immigration policy to attract more hispanic/latino voters.  Unfortunately, I think this is a trap that will make Republican electoral prospects worse, not better. Just do the math, there are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in this country.  Let's say you do what Sean Hannity proposes and give those already here a "path to citizenship".  Now, assume they don't magically become Republicans when they gain their citizenship and 71% vote Democratic like in the last election. That...

There's a rule of thumb that if an incumbent is polling under 50%, that they are in deep trouble, as many of the undecideds tend to break for the challenger.  Therefore, in many ways it is more important what the absolute level of the incumbent in polls rather than where his challenger is (to a point at least).  If you look at the incumbent elections since 1956, the last Gallup poll has been extremely accurate in terms of predicting what the incumbent gets on election day and its hard for incumbents to gain any ground at the polls: As you...

As I posted yesterday, I was worried about Ryan going into the debate and it was justified.  Unlike Biden, who has run for President twice and is in his second run for VP, Ryan never has been in a formal, moderated debate at the national level and so was a little unsure of himself from the get-go.  He really only warmed up near the very end when he rattled off all the broken promises for this administration (it seems by then Biden got too tired to interrupt him).  So Biden won the argument.  He won by interrupting him at least...

I know the meme that has been going around is that the Romney campaign is in trouble and Obama has this thing won.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  People are basing this conclusion on polls that are using 2008 as a basis for their turnout estimates, which is just not going to happen. 2008 is what is called a "wave" year where one party has a tsunami of votes that pushes them to victory across the board.  Besides winning the Presidency, the Democrats were able to pick up 21 additional House seats and a whopping 8 Senate seats,...

Putin, Queen Elizabeth II and George W. Bush all go to hell. As they are ushered into Satan's office they notice a red phone sitting on his desk. Putin asks, "does that phone work?". Satan responds, "sure, you can even use it to call the living back on Earth, but its very expensive." Putin says, "well I'm worth billions", picks up the phone and calls Moscow, talking for an hour. Satan says "that will be $2 million". Then, Queen Elizabeth uses the phone, calls London and talks for two hours. Satan says "that will be $5 million". Finally, George W....

It is really shocking how 3 years after the official end of a recession we have made almost zero progress in reducing unemployment.  Already people are calling this the worst recovery in history and it seems they are right.  Take a look at this updated chart which tracks the number of unemployed and adds back those that have dropped out of the labor force: Looking at this chart, it's pretty clear that none of Obama's policies worked.  Not the $862 billion stimulus, not the massive transfer of "Obama money" to the undeserving.  We still have 18 million people out of...

It seems like an Obama speech doesn't go by where he doesn't talk about making the wealthy pay their "fair share" of taxes. As if the Bush tax cuts drastically lowered the tax burden for the richest Americans allowing them to benefit at the expense of everyone else. As Obama mentioned recently, "I’m not proposing anything radical here. I just believe that anybody making over $250,000 a year should go back to the income tax rates we were paying under Bill Clinton." Back then, everything was right and fair in the world. That is, as the data from the IRS...

Another month, another time the Obama administration wants you to "not to read too much into any one monthly report".  The worst part about today's bad jobs report is the truth is even worse.  As I have mentioned many times in the past, the current unemployment rate is being reduced by people simply leaving the workforce, not by the job market actually recovering.  If you assume the labor force participation rate is actually the same as when Obama was elected, the current unemployment rate is actually 11.3% and not 8.2%.  Also, Obama has had little to no success in bringing...