Free Republic

1. 2018 will be a very rough year for President Trump — and almost-catastrophic for the Republican Party, which has morphed into the Trump Party; 2. Last week’s Quinnipiac poll said it all: While 66 percent of the American people rate the economy as either “good or excellent,” only 36 percent approve of the job President Trump is doing; 3. Normally, a president’s approval rating tracks the rating of the economy: When the economy is struggling, so is the POTUS’ ratings. Conversely, previous presidents generally had their approval numbers go up when the economy went up; 4. But Trump’s behavior...

Representative Peter King (R-NY) warned on Morning Joe Wednesday morning that the Rand Paul/Ted Cruz wing of the Republican Party would use House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) surprise defeat last night to push a far-right agenda bent on shutting the government down.“My concern is a lot of things are going to be dead and pushed aside,” King said. “I’m concerned that the Ted Cruz supporters, the Rand Paul supporters, are going to use this as an excuse to basically stop the government from functioning. Thank god there’s no debt ceiling bill coming up. Thank god there’s no way to...

Rep. Peter King, who has pulled no punches in criticizing Ted Cruz, said Thursday that supporters of the Texas senator have been bombarding his office with “vile” phone calls. ..... “I’m not saying Ted Cruz is responsible for all his supporters, but he has tapped into a dark strain here in the American political psyche here, and again, the most obscene, profane stuff you can imagine all from people who say they support the Constitution,” King said. “I think what we have to do is reach out to his people and let them know that they’re following a false leader...

Rep. Peter T. King said Thursday that Sen. Ted Cruz is a “false leader” who is peddling a “false bill of goods” in the debate over defunding Obamacare and said Mr. Cruz, Texas Republican, has tapped into a “dark strain in the American political psyche.” -snip- “I don’t think it is possible to heal tensions with Ted Cruz,” Mr. King said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”