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BALTIMORE — Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders used a campaign stop Saturday in this economically challenged city to decry the difference between the life expectancies of the nation’s rich and poor, declaring that “poverty is a death sentence.” “If you are born in Baltimore’s poorest neighborhood, your life expectancy is almost 20 years shorter than if you’re born in its wealthiest neighborhood,” the senator from Vermont said, adding that “15 neighborhoods in Baltimore have lower life expectancies than North Korea. Two of them have a higher infant mortality rate than Palestine's West Bank.” Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, promised an...

No, really. This is one of the best political commercials ever made. It won’t be on TV unless it gets recut, because it’s two and a half minutes long, but to recut this would be a shame. It packs in many of the reasons why Cruz is a better nominee than Trump, gets across the key point that if Trump is the nominee the media which has been fawning over him will turn on him the same way they turned on John McCain and Hillary’s opposition research feeding into the media coverage will turn the entire general election race into...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump is now the only Republican candidate with any chance of clinching the nomination before the convention.</p> <p>Ted Cruz was mathematically eliminated Tuesday after Trump’s big win in the New York primary.</p> <p>Trump won at least 89 of the 95 delegates at stake. John Kasich won at least three and Cruz was in danger of being shut out.</p>

With two weeks to go until Marylanders vote in their Republican primary, Donald Trump has a small lead over both Ted Cruz and John Kasich, who are currently splitting the non-Trump vote evenly, according to a new Washington Free Beacon poll. The poll of 600 likely Republican voters found Trump earning 33 percent of the vote, with single-digit leads over Cruz and Kasich, who earned 26 and 25 percent of the vote, respectively. The poll indicates that Trump’s lead in the state is shrinking, but it may not matter unless one of his rivals can consolidate voters unwilling to support...

I'm a real Marylander, wife, mom and grandmother, and I'm running to be Maryland's next United States Senator because it’s time to bring some new ideas and new people to Washington. Almost 36 years ago when my husband Mark and I got married, we had five dollars in our pockets – no car and minimum wage jobs. Mark was a laborer in construction, and I worked a variety of minimum-wage jobs. I put up drywall and helped build a golf course. I was a dishwasher, parking lot attendant, maid, and waitress. With hard work, I rose up through the ranks...

Delegate Patrick L. McDonough, a staunchly conservative Republican, will announce Friday that he will try to unseat Democratic Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger in November, saying he hopes to be part of a conservative revolution in this deep-blue state. Mr. McDonough, who has represented Harford and Baltimore counties in the House of Delegates for 17 years, said that he’s grown tired of what he derisively calls the “Maryland General Asylum” and that he’s ready to try to make an impact at the national level. A fan of GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s immigration policy, Mr. McDonough said he wants to use...

Things are looking grim for the Iowa Democratic party's efforts to mount a successful caucus on 1 February. The Guardian has learned the party is still lacking a temporary chairman to run the caucuses in up to 300 locations across the state with just over a week to go before caucus night. These officials preside over caucuses when they first convene. Caucuses can then elect a permanent chair but invariably the temporary chair is chosen. The chair ensures the Democratic party's complex rules are followed and that an accurate vote is taken and then reported to state Democratic party. There...

LAS VEGAS -- The three Democratic presidential candidates made their case here Wednesday night in an early state that may prove critical in securing the nomination. Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley delivered speeches at the "Battle Born Battleground" caucus dinner, hosted by the Nevada Democratic Party and Sen. Harry Reid, who introduced the candidates. ---snip--- O'Malley, who spoke second, dedicated a significant portion of his speech to knocking Ted Cruz. The former governor of Maryland is currently struggling with single digits in polls. "I'd like to say that Donald Trump is the most outrageous and unqualified person ever...

With a deeper-than-ever split between Republicans and Democrats over abortion, activists on both sides of the debate foresee a 2016 presidential campaign in which the nominees tackle the volatile topic more aggressively than in past elections. Friction over the issue also is likely to surface in key Senate races. And the opposing camps will be further energized by Republican-led congressional investigations of women’s health care provider Planned Parenthood and by Supreme Court consideration of tough anti-abortion laws in Texas....

WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 (UPI) -- Bernie Sanders said he thinks he can win over Donald Trump supporters because he can also channel the "legitimate" anger of "working-class people." In a CBS interview released Sunday, Sanders said many Trump supporters are people who are angry and fearful due to decreasing wages and the rising costs of tuition, among other issues. "What Trump has done with some success is taken that anger, taken those fears, which are legitimate, and converted them into anger against Mexicans, anger against Muslims," Sanders said, adding that he would use that anger to support things like an...

Due to the catastrophizing tendencies of political journalism, the revelation that Ben Carson has been lying about getting into West Point for 25 years has prompted rampant speculation about what happens if his campaign collapses and he drops out. Multiple commentators suggested that Ted Cruz, who, like Carson, is trying to court evangelical voters, has the most to gain...

There's a reason Hillary Clinton finished third in the 2008 Iowa Caucus, behind Barack Obama and John Edwards. In addition to her costly vote supporting the war in Iraq, Clinton has always pleaded "guilty" to being a moderate. It's this centrism (even when progressive values are now popular throughout the nation) that fuels questions about why she opposed gay marriage or as The Huffington Post writes, accepted "$133,246 to the Ready for Hillary PAC" from major prison lobbyists. The Iowa Caucus was once labeled as part of the Democratic Party's "extremes" by Hillary Clinton in a recently disclosed State Department...

CHARLESTON, S.C. — As Republican presidential candidates continued to sound the alarm Friday about Syrian immigrants, Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders took a step in the opposite direction, launching a petition drive to preserve the program that facilities their arrival in the United States. “In this moment, it is particularly important that we not allow ourselves to be divided by the anti-immigrant hysteria that Republican presidential candidates are ginning up,” Sanders, who was arriving here for a three-day campaign swing, said in an e-mail to supporters. “When hundreds of thousands of people have lost everything and have nothing left but the...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/editorials/2015/10/06/editorial-ted-cruz-wrong-syrian-refugees/73486846/

Attendees of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign rally in Alexandria said the ongoing FBI investigation into Clinton's use of private email has not changed their opinion of the former secretary of State. "Yes, I still support Hillary. I believe the inquiry has been just a way to lower her polls and so, yes, I definitely still support Hillary," a Democratic voter told PJ Media at the rally. "I still support her in spite of the investigation. I expect some mistakes were made and maybe some people somewhere could have been more truthful about some of the events, but there's...

Sen. Rand Paul prefers exhausting diplomatic efforts in dealing with overseas conflicts, and on Sunday he highlighted the difference between his softer approach to foreign policy and that of two other senators who are likely 2016 presidential candidates -- Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. The Kentucky Republican joined fellow first-term senators Cruz of Texas and Rubio of Florida on stage Sunday evening in California for a summit organized by Freedom Partners. That group is the central hub of the powerful network of organizations backed by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch....

Noah already wrote a policy rebuttal to Paul’s position, which Paul elaborated on this afternoon in a new op-ed at Time. (The op-ed, unlike his tweets, doesn’t mention Rubio by name. Although it does approvingly cite … George W. Bush?) Anyone want to make the case that the politics of attacking Rubio on this issue were smart, at least? I can’t figure out why Rand would do it. When I tweeted out my surprise a few hours ago, a dozen people tweeted back, “Maybe Paul’s just saying what he really believes.” No doubt. But the thing that distinguishes Rand from...

Beginning on Thursday night, a fight erupted on line between Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul over the new diplomatic opening to Cuba. Rubio slammed Paul for his ignorance, while Paul bizarrely accused Rubio of “isolationism” for opposing Barack Obama’s policies. Before that battle began in earnest, I spoke with incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a wide-ranging interview about his plans for the 114th Session of Congress. We discussed Cuba, and McConnell made it clear that he was relying on Rubio’s leadership on the issue — which might make for an awkward moment or two between McConnell...

Politically wounded presumptive nominee staggering in the desert of her email scandal.Hillary is politically wounded by her never-ending email scandal, which keeps sucking the life out of her favorability ratings, and has Democrats panicked with fear: “I’m not sure they completely understand the credibility they are losing, by the second,” said one Democratic strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “At some point this goes from being something you can rationalize away to something that becomes political cancer. And we are getting pretty close to the cancer stage, because this is starting to get ridiculous.” “Look, this is a...

* Trump said Sunday that 'black people 'are worse now than just about ever' * Claims Obama has done nothing for low employment rates * Weekend poll showed Trump has his greatest support yet nationally He has a 24.9 percent vote among Republicans, according to poll Days after assuring that he has the support of Hispanic voters, Donald Trump has now claimed that African-American people are also on his side - and that Obama has let them down. In yet another round of bashing the President, the billionaire said Obama has done 'absolutely nothing' for the black community. He gave...