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Just got back from my caucus... My head is still spinning. Check in was slow but reasonably controlled. Super-long lines. I've never seen turnout like this. Got my credentials, but no presidential ballot. They said those would be delivered to our caucus room. Got to my caucus room. I counted about 120 people there (no idea how many were actually registered and credentialed). We elected Precinct Officers, State Delegates, and County Delegates - the typical incompetence and ignorance of the rules you'd expect to see from volunteers, but all went somewhat smooth. ...Then came the Presidential Ballot. Someone shows up...

Donald Trump, who denies that his provocative and sometimes profane rhetoric (particularly against Muslims_ has anything to do with violence and protests at his University of Illinois-Chicago rally, once blamed conservative activist Pamela Geller for provoking an attempted armed assault by – wait for it – unnecessarily provoking Muslims. As Gideon Resnick noted last December in the Daily Beast, pre-candidate Trump was not as passionately concerned with Pamela Geller’s First Amendment free speech rights as he now is about his own:

Donald Trump won the South Carolina primary across the board, but he did particularly well with the 10 percent of voters who named immigration as the nation's top issue. In addition, some who named other issues -- the economy, national security -- were undoubtedly also concerned about immigration, and Trump's hard line likely helped him with them, too. Which is why people who follow immigration closely were stunned Thursday night when Trump, at the Fox News debate here in Detroit, announced that he has changed his position on one key element of the immigration debate -- the use of H-1B...

Seemingly wounded by Mitt Romney's critiques of his business acumen, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump put some of his Trump products on display for a national TV audience in what was supposed to be a victory press conference. Trump spoke from the Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida after he was projected to win primaries in Michigan and Mississippi on Tuesday. Romney questioned the success of Trump's businesses in a speech last week. But Trump rejected that notion, bringing his own steaks, water, and wine to his press conference in an attempt to prove himself. "I have very successful...

Donald Trump’s meat was the topic of social media chatter on Tuesday after his overwhelming victory in the Michigan and Mississippi primaries.During a press conference held at his Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Fla., the GOP front-runner spent time touting what he said were his his name-brand line of Trump Steaks. The billionaire started the gourmet steak line in 2007 and sold it through Sharper Image.But as some observers pointed out on Twitter, the filets Trump was serving up at the event came wrapped in packaging from a company not affiliated with the his business empire.“Trump steaks. Where are...

He stated this morning that he wasn't talking about H-1B:"Megyn Kelly asked about highly-skilled immigration. The H-1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration". So what WAS he talking about? What's his new position and how was his old position different? Will he ever tell us?

Short version: at last night’s debate the topic of H-1B visas* came up.  Last night Megyn Kelly asked Donald Trump at the debate how he felt about temporary work visas now.  Trump said that he loved them to death, and was softening the position found on his website.  Somewhere out in the political wilderness, Senator Jeff Sessions (an H-1B visa restrictionist who is endorsing Trump solely because of Trump’s position on immigration, supposedly) immediately suffered a nosebleed from the psychic shock of this sudden, yet inevitable betrayal**.  The Trump campaign had to go out and send around an email saying, No, really, forget...

Republican front-runner Donald Trump said Thursday he is softening his stance on visas for highly-skilled workers. “I’m changing. We need highly-skilled people in this country,” Trump said during the Fox News Republican debate in Detroit. “If we can’t do it, we will get them in.” Trump’s stance toward awarding H1-B visas is different from the one he takes on his campaign website, which argues that more visas for highly-skilled foreigners would “decimate American workers.” “One of the biggest problems we have is people go to the best colleges … as soon as they’re finished, they get shoved out. They want...

Senator Ted Cruz won a hard-fought partial victory in Texas during last night’s Super Tuesday primary battle. It was the culmination of months of time and money spent meant to culminate in a clear post-Super Tuesday lead in the race to the GOP nomination this summer. The southern states were to be Cruz’s ticket to the White House. For Cruz, that ticket never arrived. The Texas senator remains well behind Donald Trump in the delegate count, and now rumors are swirling of a campaign that has spent almost as much money as did the already-departed Jeb Bush fiasco, with little...

A long-time political insider just made a bombshell announcement about conservative Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who is running for President. This Republican operative, who has worked on 9 different presidential cycles, couldn’t keep it quiet any longer after being in talks with key leaders of Cruz’s and Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) campaigns. The insider is Roger Stone. He once worked for Donald Trump, and passed along his report to a popular radio host that Cruz used a high-priced attorney to confidentially request that Rubio’s team promise Cruz a Supreme Court appointment in exchange for Cruz exciting the race. This is...

Donald Trump on Monday did not refute a report claiming he told The New York Times editorial board in an off-the-record meeting that his immigration views are in fact more flexible than he has made them seem throughout his presidential campaign. "Everything is negotiable," Trump said Monday on Fox News, responding to a question about whether the report, which undermines Trump's hardline stance on immigration, was accurate.

For months now, Donald Trump has spouted the same line on immigration, promising to build a border wall and deport people here illegally. Last night, he admitted he would not deport the 11 million people in the United States illegally.... Trump appeared on Sean Hannity's show.... Here's the key transcript: "We had a board meeting [at the New York Times], it was off-the-record, suddenly they leak it..." Trump said. "They said it's negotiable on the wall," Hannity said... "By the way it is negotiable. Things are negotiable," Trump said. Trump was quick to add that the negotiation does not include...

It's better to say 'Mis-spoke' or call the subject 'a factual inaccuracy', because we don't know if Trump forgot and is just covering up for a mistake. A lie is a complex thing.

Many people believe that higher education is a de facto scam. Trump University, Donald Trump's real-estate institution, was a de jure one. First thing first, Trump University was never a university. When the "school" was established in 2005, the New York State Education Department warned that it was in violation of state law for operating without a NYSED license. Trump ignored the warnings. (The institution is now called, ahem, "Trump Entrepreneur Initiative.") Cue lawsuits. Trump University is currently the defendant in three lawsuits - two class-action lawsuits filed in California, and one filed in New York by then-attorney general Eric...

One of the most amazing abilities Donald Trump has is being able to lie about his own record and get away with it.-snip- Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz cross-examined 2016 rival Donald Trump on Thursday's GOP debate stage,-snip- "True or false: you said the government should pay for everyone's health care?" Cruz asked Trump. "That's false," Trump flatly said. "You've never said that?" Cruz asked, seemingly surprised by the denial. "I said it worked in a couple countries," Trump quipped. "But you never stood on this debate stage and said, 'It worked great in Canada and Scotland, we should do...

Donald Trump says he cannot release his tax returns because he is undergoing an audit that goes back “four or five years.” But the Internal Revenue Service usually does not look back more than three years. “Generally, the IRS can include returns filed within the last three years in an audit,” the agency’s website says. “Additional years can be added if a substantial error is identified.” The IRS further reports, “The statute of limitations limits the time allowed to assess additional tax. The statute of limitations is generally three years after a return is due or was filed, whichever is...

Donald Trump claims he can't release his tax returns until he's done being audited by the IRS. But the federal agency on Friday said that's not true. "Federal privacy rules prohibit the IRS from discussing individual tax matters. Nothing prevents individuals from sharing their own tax information," a spokesperson for the IRS said in a statement. The Republican presidential front-runner's refusal to release his tax documents came up repeatedly during Thursday's GOP debate, hours after former Republican nominee Mitt Romney suggested that Trump's reluctance stems from the possibility there might be a "bombshell" in his taxes. "I want to [release...

During Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate, presidential candidate Donald Trump tried to defend previous comments about how he would potentially nominate his pro-abortion sister to the Supreme Court. Trump has faced criticism in some quarters from pro-life voters who point to a past interview he gave about his sister, who is a pro-abortion attorney. As National Review reported in 2015: Donald Trump told Mark Halperin yesterday that his sister, a federal judge, would be a “phenomenal” Supreme Court justice. He also said that “we will have to rule that out now, at least.” If he ever becomes president, let’s hope...

"Apart from the fact that judges do not sign bills into law, pro-life attorney Matt Bowman of Alliance Defending Freedom indicates Trump is wrong on the point and that Justice Alito, when he was a lower court justice, not only did not agree with Judge Maryanne Trump Barry on opposing a bill to ban partial-birth abortions he went out of his way to indicate how he disagreed with her. While some pro-life voters were shocked that Trump continued to defend Planned Parenthood others are shocked that Trump would defend his sister's support for partial-birth abortions by falsely maligning a pro-life...

At the GOP debate in Houston, Donald Trump pushed back at a claim from Texas Sen. Ted Cruz that Trump was in favor of the United States helping Libyans oust dictator Muammar Gaddafi. "He said I was in favor in Libya," Trump said, sounding perplexed. "I never discussed that subject. I was in favor of Libya? We would be so much better off if Gaddafi would be in charge right now." Oh, Trump discussed it. And thanks to BuzzFeed, we have the video. (All the hat tips to Andrew Kaczynski.) It comes from 2011, on Trump's video blog. "I can't...