Free Republic

Whenever Ted Cruz appears on television, I cringe as unpleasant memories of distant relatives cross my mind, reminding me of things best forgotten. And what is best forgotten is simply the Hispanic political tradition of severity. Think Francisco Franco. Think Fidel Castro. Think Ted Cruz? Yes, Ted Cruz is a would-be autocrat. My paternal grandmother, a Galician matron who despised sexism in all its forms, called it “la maldición gallega,” or “the Galician curse.” By that she meant the dreadful and familiar anti-democratic tendency in the political lives of the Hispanic world where dictators, strongmen, caudillos, and caciques have ruled...

From his career in New York real estate to his extraordinary campaign for the White House, the court of Donald Trump has operated much like that of Louis XIV of France: everything revolves around the imperious, bouffanted Sun King. “He is a total narcissist, and what you see here is the way he’s always been,” said a source intimately familiar with Trump’s way of working, who declined to be identified criticising a potential president. “This, between you and me, will be the destruction of the United States.”

Via Red State, not a huge deal but worth flagging in case there’s another poll this weekend showing his numbers dipping a bit in New York on the eve of the primary. That would suggest a trend, and that would be a big deal given what’s at stake. To be clear: Trump’s going to romp in NY on Tuesday night, winning by 25 points or better, and will pick up something like 75 delegates even in a worst-case scenario. But since his path to 1,237 is so difficult, it matters a lot whether he ends up with 75 in New...

Bad Newz For Cruz A series of brand new trend polls highlight an ongoing discussion/trend. With increased visibility Senator Ted Cruz support decreases. It would be inaccurate to say Cruz is collapsing, if it were not for multiple polls indicating the same trend line. However, when you have three completely disparate polls, indicating an almost identical retraction, you cannot dismiss the reality. Fox News and IPSOS Rueters both identify the issue on a national scale, and within the CBS polling of Pennsylvania voters you find the specifics as to why. First, the Fox Trend Poll showing Donald Trump extending his...

He won a big victory in Wisconsin. He pierced the Donald Trump mystique. He even got some of the Capitol Hill lawmakers who regard him as a revolutionary and renegade to slink cautiously into his corner. By all logic, this should be a Ted Cruz moment — if only the next primary weren’t in New York. But on Tuesday, New Yorkers go to their polling places, and though Cruz has been the beneficiary of the calendar before — his performance on Super Tuesday helped force out of the race Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a demographically identical and philosophically similar...

‘Gestapo tactics.” That’s how Donald Trump’s recently installed campaign manager, Paul Manafort, characterized the Ted Cruz campaign’s successful effort to win all 34 of Colorado’s pledged national-convention delegates at the long-scheduled Republican congressional-district and state conventions. “Today winning votes doesn’t mean anything,” Trump complained. “It’s a corrupt deal going on in this country and it’s not fair to you people.” Such complaints typically come from people who are not, in one of Trump’s favorite words, “winners.” Trump conspicuously refrains from complaining about the fact that, even though he has won just 37 percent of the votes cast in Republican primaries...

Marco Rubio won Minnesota decisively on March 1, but the 17 delegates he was awarded are now up for grabs, free to vote for any candidate they like on a first ballot at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. In a hotly contested Republican primary that looks increasingly likely to culminate in a contested convention this summer, those delegates will be critical. The battle for them is essentially throwing states such as Minnesota, which have already held their nominating contests, back into play as they elect delegates at state conventions. And Ted Cruz’s campaign, which has run circles around Donald...

In 1980, Ronald Reagan campaigned on a four point economic recovery plan. First, reduce tax rates, to increase incentives for job creation, investment, business start-ups and expansion, and wage growth due to the resulting increased demand for labor and increased productivity. Even liberal Keynesian economics holds that tax cuts are pro-growth. Two, reduce regulatory costs and barriers to business, which can act as further tax cuts. Three, reduce federal spending, to reduce the government’s drain on the private sector. And four, restrain monetary policy to restore a stable value for the dollar. After Reagan led adoption of those policies in...

AUDIO LINK (40 MINUTE SEGMENT) “Cruz's roots: Asked by (Anderson) Cooper if he was more a product of the Northeast or Texas, Cruz chose the Lone Star State. "When I went off to Harvard Law School my dad jokingly referred to it as missionary work," Cruz said. Cruz had completed his undergrad studies at Princeton University by then, becoming the first member of his family to attend an Ivy League school. "To be admitted to Princeton was an extraordinary thing," he said. "It was a world, frankly, that I didn't know. When I arrived there it was a scary place....

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/04/14/ben-carson-could-trump-spoiler-new-york-primary/83036318/

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers spoke at the International Monetary Fund on Wednesday, warning against austerity measures amid a tepid economy. Yahoo Finance sat down with him to get little more color on the economy and to find out what keeps him up most at night. “I think the prospect of Donald Trump being President would be the gravest threat to our prosperity, our security, and our freedom in my adult lifetime,” Summers said. “That's the thing I would worry most about.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)97% can add Nebraska to his list of states where he’s out organized GOP frontrunner Donald Trump in collecting delegates. “Party officials say they saw virtually no organization by the mogul’s campaign last week when Republicans in all 93 Nebraska counties held local conventions. Those county conventions picked 800 delegates to May’s Nebraska state convention, where 33 delegates to the national convention in Cleveland will be selected,” Politico reports. “Because there was little resistance, many county conventions became Cruz pep rallies, according to interviews with party insiders and convention attendees.” “I didn’t see any Trump supporters,” said...

The conventional wisdom is that though Ted Cruz can excite the conservative-activist base of the Republican party, he can’t beat Hillary Clinton in a general election. But the recent head-to-head polling tells a different story. Unless your name is George W. Bush, it’s tough to win 270 electoral votes without winning the popular vote. And Cruz is hanging in there against the Democratic front-runner. The RealClearPolitics average puts Clinton at 46.4 percent and Cruz at 43.9 percent; the most recent McClatchy-Marist survey has it a tie. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, the current Republican front-runner, hasn’t led Clinton in any national poll...

Senator Ted Cruz went off on Donald Trump during an interview Tuesday with host, Glenn Beck. Cruz called the New York businessman a "Cosa Nostra" mobster...insulting all Italian-America with his contiuing, hate lie telling!!! First Cruz insults all New Yorkers, now, he, insults all Italian-Americans. Who is next, Irish-Americans, Jewish-Americans, African-Americans, etc. My....what a low life bigot...Mr. Ted Cruz is. Certainly not POTUS caliber material. I might remind the ignorant bigot, Cruz that New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, California have vast numbers of Italian-Americans...who will not take kindly to his hateful remarks. I think Cruz...

YOU WON’T BELIEVE THIS! CRUZ SUPPORTERS ATTEMPT COUP AT EAGLE FORUM! Conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly has been a national leader of the conservative movement since the publication of her best-selling 1964 book, A Choice Not An Echo. She has been a leader of the pro-family movement since 1972 when she led the fight to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. Phyllis Schlafly is 91 years-old. On March 11, 2016 conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly endorsed Donald Trump for President at his St. Louis rally. But not everyone in her organization, Eagle Forum – or her family – agreed with Phyllis Schlafly’s...

Donald Trump has repeatedly labeled his political opponents liars. He dubbed Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) Lyin' Ted when it became clear that Cruz was a serious rival for his nomination; he called Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) an "even bigger liar" than Cruz. He dubbed Dr. Ben Carson a "pathological liar" and said former Florida Governor Jeb Bush's lies were almost as bad as Cruz's. Trump has termed virtually every mildly adversarial media member a liar, too. But there's only one truly massive liar in this race: Donald Trump. When Politico attempted to measure how many lies Trump told over the...

Sen. Ted Cruz claims that Roger Stone, The Daily Caller Men’s Fashion editor, “decides” what Matt Drudge posts on his website Drudge Report.In an interview with Mike Slater on “The Mike Slater Show” Monday, Cruz said, “If people want to get on the “Trump train,” they can. I actually think we need real and meaningful solutions to the problems in this country, and as president my focus is going to be on three things: jobs, freedom and security.”Slater asked Cruz what he thought of the Drudge Report and the Texas senator replied, “Look, Drudge Report over the years has done a good...

Donald Trump’s organizational problems have gone from bad to worse to flat-out embarrassing. Here’s Politico with the play-by-play from this weekend’s Colorado GOP convention, the latest scene of Trump’s delegate-securing failure: Trump’s last-minute organizing effort did not go well. The leaflet his campaign handed out listed a slate of 26 delegates. But in many cases the numbers indicating their ballot position — more than 600 delegates [were] running for 13 slots — were off, meaning that Trump’s team was mistakenly directing votes toward other candidates’ delegates. When the balloting results were announced Saturday evening, [Ted] Cruz picked up the 13...

Those in the know are now spreading the word. Read it here first! Earlier I had a different Note, and different stuff written. Now I can tell you that Ted Cruz is the winner, I can prove it for most people. Yes read it again, Ted Cruz has won the nomination. Trump is letting people go as we all know. Florida, Ohio, and other battleground States have seen most positions slashed. Staff in his Headquarters have been let go as well even when they were performing critical roles. Trump did not even have a New York Team until last week....

On the way into the Colorado Republican Party's state convention in Colorado Springs Saturday morning, a Ted Cruz supporter waved a big broom with the letters "CRUZ" fastened to the top. The convention took place in a hockey arena, and the prop is probably familiar to most sports fans. The Cruz supporter was looking for a sweep, and a sweep was what he got. Cruz picked up all 34 Republican National Convention delegates that Colorado Republicans awarded this week. Delegates backing Cruz won all three spots in each of the state's seven congressional districts, as well as 13 statewide slots....