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Posted on June 19, 2016 by Saul Anuzis
www.saulsnewsstand.com
Check out my new venture…all the latest political news in one, convenient spot!
Posted on May 15, 2016 by Saul Anuzis
Days until the 2016 election: 180…
Here's How a Trump Presidency Could Actually Happen
Elections are always clearer in retrospect than they appeared in prospect. So I thought it might be interesting to imagine the column a pundit like me might write next year, to explain an upset victory by Donald Trump. It's not a prediction, nor even the most plausible scenario—but it might illuminate the strengths and weaknesses of these candidates as they embark on their general-election campaigns.
As always, the election turned on basic arithmetic. Hillary Clinton's campaign message aimed at the aspirations of women and girls cost her more votes among Latino males under 40 than it gained her among suburban married white women. It was Donald Trump's surprising over-performance among the first group—and Clinton's under-performance with the second—that tipped this election's battleground states into his column, and with them, the election.
Yet as political observers review the most unexpected election outcome since Truman beat Dewey in 1948, they see a deeper story behind the arithmetic: a series of miscalculations by Hillary Clinton and shrewd moves by Donald Trump that enabled the New York businessman to eke out the narrowest Electoral College victory since George W. Bush's 271 in the year 2000.
To defeat Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary contests, Hillary Clinton executed a series of policy left turns—and when she tried to pivot back in the general election, found voters cool to her latest efforts at reinvention.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-path-to-a-trump-presidency/482796/
The 12 Signs That Trump Will Win the White House
Unless the #NeverTrump people have been hiding a mad scientist with a DeLorean in a warehouse somewhere and haven't gotten around to telling anybody, Donald J. Trump is now the certain Republican nominee for president of the United States. True to form, having learned nothing from their yearlong string of overconfident and embarrassingly wrong predictions about voter behavior and preferences, the D.C. pundit class has already proclaimed him a general election loser.
Not so fast. For the handful of polls that have Trump losing by double digits, there's one or two that foretell a much closer race. And if enough major chips fall the tangerine billionaire's way, he may get his shot at repainting the White House metallic gold. Want to know if you should join Lena Dunham on a house-hunting trip in Canada? Here's a month-by-month guide of the signs of a looming Trump victory.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-signs-he-will-win-213870#ixzz48dT6zdp6
Mr. Trump Goes to Washington
What is needed among Republicans in Washington now is patience, soberness of thought, and a kind of heroic fairness. Reflection and humility wouldn't hurt either.
One of our two great parties is either shattering or reconstituting itself. It is not united and has not been since the George W. Bush era. As the pollster Kellyanne Conway noted this week, if it were, there wouldn't have been 17 candidates for president, and Donald Trump wouldn't be the presumptive nominee.
The optimistic thought is that it is reconstituting itself. The past year the base of the party has been kicking away from its elected and established leaders in Washington and, simultaneously, broadening itself, with new members coming in. That suggests a certain dynamism: Maybe something's busy being born, not busy dying. We'll see.
But almost every conservative and Republican in Washington—in politics, think tanks and journalism—backed a candidate other than Mr. Trump. Every one of those candidates lost, and Mr. Trump won. After November, think tanks and journals will begin holding symposia in which smart people explain How We Lost The Base.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/mr-trump-goes-to-washington-1463096019
Inside the GOP effort to draft an independent candidate to derail Trump
A band of exasperated Republicans — including 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney, a handful of veteran consultants and members of the conservative intelligentsia — is actively plotting to draft an independent presidential candidate who could keep Donald Trump from the White House.
These GOP figures are commissioning private polling, lining up major funding sources and courting potential contenders, according to interviews with more than a dozen Republicans involved in the discussions. The effort has been sporadic all spring but has intensified significantly in the 10 days since Trump effectively locked up the Republican nomination.
Those involved concede that an independent campaign at this late stage is probably futile, and they think they have only a couple of weeks to launch a credible bid. But these Republicans — including commentators William Kristol and Erick Erickson and strategists Mike Murphy, Stuart Stevens and Rick Wilson — are so repulsed by the prospect of Trump as commander in chief that they are desperate to take action.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-gop-effort-to-draft-an-independent-candidate-to-derail-trump/2016/05/14/1b04682e-1877-11e6-924d-838753295f9a_story.html
Five Ways the Republican Convention Could Still Be Contentious
There will be no contested convention this year. But that doesn't mean it won't get contentious.
And while there is little doubt that Donald J. Trump will emerge from the Republican National Convention in Cleveland as the party's presidential nominee, there is still some uncertainty about what could unfold there starting July 18.
Over the course of four days, Mr. Trump will have to navigate potential hazards, like hostile delegates suspicious of his conservatism and determined to thwart his candidacy. Complicating matters further, many of those delegates possess an intricate knowledge of the parliamentary process that establishes the convention's rules and program. Any of them looking to make trouble certainly could try.
Recent political conventions have grown so scripted and choreographed that moments of true spontaneity are rare. This year, when history seems to be providing little guiding precedent, could be the one that shatters the calm. Here are some of the wild cards that could roil the event in Cleveland:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/us/politics/five-ways-the-republican-convention-could-still-be-contentious.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytpolitics&smtyp=cur&_r=0
Republican Delegates Do Not Have To Go Through With Their Suicide Pact
Donald Trump is going to fundamentally alter the party and still lose to Hillary Clinton. With his loss will come recriminations. The party will cripple itself while the Democrats themselves do very little — very little except win.
All of this can be avoided. The delegates themselves can stop the madness and halt the party's suicide. They can do it by unbinding themselves. The delegates have that power. They can take that vote. The delegates can save the Republican Party from those outside forces who have launched a coup of the party.
If the delegates refuse, the suicide of the Republican Party is on them.
http://theresurgent.com/republican-delegates-do-not-have-to-go-through-with-their-suicide-pact/
6 convention fights for the GOP's future
Ted Cruz has given up on running as the Republican party's presidential nominee, but he hasn't given up on running the Republican party.
When Cruz heads to Republican National Convention this summer, he'll bring a list of ideas for changing the way the party governs itself and picks its presidential nominee. He'll also bring plenty of backup: hundreds of delegates who were handpicked by the Cruz campaign. The delegates were assembled as part of Cruz's now aborted bid to capture the party GOP nomination in Cleveland, but now they'll be key allies on the rules committees and other panels that will set the party's ground rules for the next four years.
Cruz is eyeing another presidential run in 2020, but it's about more than that. Along with setting the rules of the GOP primary, the party will also hash out its official policy platform — and even to determine how much power the Republican National Committee has to make new rules of its own.
But Cruz isn't the only one coming to the convention with an eye to the future. Donald Trump and his allies, fresh off a stunning primary run, have their own ideas about what's next for the party. As do the parts of the party responsible for the 2013 GOP autopsy, which called for Republicans to consider immigration reform and take a more inclusive tone in its interaction with women, Latinos and other minorities.
They're all coming to Cleveland, ready to rehash old fights and pick new ones — all against the backdrop of a party that has been turned on its head by the most unlikely of nominees. Here are the marquee battles.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/ted-cruz-republican-national-convention-rules-223175
How the GOP Can Stop Donald Trump With This One Weird Trick
For months, the GOP establishment has been mulling over what's worse: A Trump candidacy, which could spell doom for the party come November, or a last-minute coup by party elders to restore power to a candidate who may be more electable in a general election. It now seems that they've got the first, with some serious establishment GOP elements weighing how exactly they might peel off or at least sit out this election.
But is it possible that there is another option?
Unlikely as it may be as an actual solution this year, history tells us there is indeed another possibility for winning the general as a party and managing to dump Trump. The strategy involves running not one, but three candidates—this year, say Trump, Cruz and Kasich—in the general election in November.
It's farfetched, but it's a scenario that is allowed by the Constitution, and in theory could be done with a tweak to the party's bylaws. The goal is to block the Democratic nominee from winning an electoral majority by running the Republican candidate in each state most able to win there. If the Democratic candidate were held short of 270 electoral votes, the outright majority, then the House of Representatives would be asked to choose the president from the top three vote-getters, regardless of what party they are from. If the House stays under GOP control, it would almost certainly select a Republican as president.
Historically, it has been tried: The Whigs ran three candidates against Democrat Martin Van Buren in 1836—and although the scheme ultimately failed to secure an electoral majority, it saved the party, at least for two more decades. By embracing their regional differences and insisting that the Congress have a hand in selecting the president, the Whigs united around two core principles: fear of a dominant executive branch (which took power away from Congress) and a preference for localism over nationalism. Coincidentally, these are also two principles held dear by the many disparate branches of the modern conservative movement.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/stop-donald-trump-trick-whigs-1836-213890#ixzz48ZKt7Knf
Trump or Clinton — a Hobson's Choice?
What do conservatives do when there is no conservative candidate? I watched Donald Trump serially blast apart all my preferred candidates — Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz — as if for sport they were sent up in succession as clay pigeons. And now the November Rubicon — vote for Donald Trump, or stay home and de facto vote for Hillary Clinton — is uncomfortably close. Most of the arguments pro and con have been aired ad nauseam.
The choice is difficult for principled conservatives, because no sooner should they decide to vote for Trump than Trump will surely say something outrageous, cruel, or crude that would ostensibly now have their imprimatur on it. And note, this matters to conservatives much more than it does to liberals. Few Obama supporters at Harvard or the Ford Foundation or the New York Times worried much in 2008 that their candidate had dismissed his own generous grandmother as a "typical white person" or that he tried to get away with airbrushing out the obscene Reverend Wright and mythologized his close friendships with reprobates like Bill Ayers and Father Michael Pfleger. Aside from his dubious political loyalties, Trump persists in being mean-spirited. He seems uninformed on many of the issues, especially those in foreign policy; he changes positions, contradicts himself within a single speech, and uses little more than three adjectives (tremendous, great, and huge). But the problem with many of these complaints is that they apply equally to both the current president and the other would-be next president.
When Hillary Clinton, playing to the green vote, bragged that she would put miners out of work, and then, when confronted with an out-of-work miner, backtracked and lied about her earlier boast, we had a refined version of Trump's storytelling.
The Clinton Foundation's skullduggery and Hillary's e-mail shenanigans seem to trump the Trump University con — and involve greater harm to the nation. Her combination of greedy Wall Street, for-profit schmoozing and paint-by-the-numbers progressivism is repulsive. Trump's cluelessness about the nuclear triad is a lowbrow version of Barack Obama's ignorance, whether seeking to Hispanicize the Falklands into the Maldives (wrong exotic-sounding, politically correct foreign archipelago, Mr. President), or mispronouncing "corpsman," or riffing about those Austrian-speaking Austrians; or perhaps of Hillary Clinton's flat-out lie about the causes of Benghazi, hours after she had learned the truth. I don't think reset, Libya, Benghazi, red lines to Assad, step-over lines to Putin, and deadlines to Iran attest to Clinton's foreign-policy savvy. It is easy to be appalled by crude ignorance, but in some ways it is more appalling to hear ignorance layered and veneered with liberal pieties and snobbery.
The choice in 2016 is not just between Trump, the supposed foreign-policy dunce, and an untruthful former secretary of state, but is also a matter of how you prefer your obtuseness — raw or cooked? Who has done the greater damage to the nation: would-be novelist and Obama insider Ben Rhodes, who boasted about out-conning the "Blob" D.C. establishment, or bare-knuckles Trumpster Corey Lewandowski?
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435138/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-conservatives-never-trump-2016
The great Republican crackup has begun.
There is a growing group of Donald Trump partisans, including former House speaker Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Then there are Republican officials who publicly support Trump and privately hope he will lose in November — a group that could only be counted via lie detector, but I would test Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell first. And there are Trump opponents and skeptics, including the 41st president, the 43rd president, Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan. Ryan, in particular, is providing air cover for the unconvinced.
What common views or traits unite the most visible Trump partisans? A group including Limbaugh and Christie is not defined primarily by ideology. Rather, the Trumpians share a disdain for "country-club" Republicans (though former House speaker John Boehner apparently likes Trump because they were golfing buddies). They tend to be white and middle-aged. They are filled with resentment.
Above all, they detest weakness in themselves and others. The country, in their view, has grown soft and feeble. Their opponents are losers, lacking in energy. Rather than despising bullying — as Ryan, Romney and all the Bushes do — they elevate it. The strong must take power, defy political correctness, humiliate and defeat their opponents, and reverse the nation's slide toward mediocrity.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-victory-inspires-lunacy-in-high-places/2016/05/09/16048aa2-160b-11e6-9e16-2e5a123aac62_story.html?platform=hootsuite
The One Man Who Could Stop Donald Trump
Curly Haugland loves the rules. The stubborn 69-year-old pool-supply magnate is North Dakota's top Republican gadfly, its rule-mongering crank, its official state pain in the ass. On the national GOP's standing rules committee, he's been the pedantic curmudgeon, the stubborn speed bump who for years has raised points of order only to watch establishment Republicans stampede over him.
Yet now, as his party teeters on the edge of civil war, Haugland has become one of the most dangerous men in politics: He's the mainstream GOP's last hope to deny Donald Trump the Republican nomination in Cleveland. It would take a miracle—and almost certainly lead to a historic split in the party—but there is still a way, buried in the labyrinthine rulebook, that the party could free delegates from their obligation to vote for Trump. To get there, the convention's rules committee would need to travel a perilous road. But nobody knows the terrain better than Haugland, a self-taught maverick expert on the Republican convention rules, who has spent a decade pushing schemes to take power away from Republican primary voters and give it back to party insiders.
There is one article of faith in the Republican Party: On the convention's first ballot, bound delegates are required to vote for the candidate to whom they're bound. What you need to know about Haugland's radical vision is this: He insists that's not the case. Haugland has been trumpeting this nuclear option for months. In March, he blasted out a letter to fellow Republican National Committee members with the subject line: "NEWS FLASH: All Republican Delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention are Unbound!" He's on a mission to let all the delegates at the convention in Cleveland to vote however they'd like on the first ballot, no matter whom their state's voters chose
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/republican-convention-stop-donald-trump-curly-haugland-213879
This article drew the more comments & attention than anything I have every posted…so I decided to share it again for those who missed it…
Democracies end when they are too democratic.
As this dystopian election campaign has unfolded, my mind keeps being tugged by a passage in Plato's Republic. It has unsettled — even surprised — me from the moment I first read it in graduate school. The passage is from the part of the dialogue where Socrates and his friends are talking about the nature of different political systems, how they change over time, and how one can slowly evolve into another. And Socrates seemed pretty clear on one sobering point: that "tyranny is probably established out of no other regime than democracy." What did Plato mean by that? Democracy, for him, I discovered, was a political system of maximal freedom and equality, where every lifestyle is allowed and public offices are filled by a lottery. And the longer a democracy lasted, Plato argued, the more democratic it would become. Its freedoms would multiply; its equality spread. Deference to any sort of authority would wither; tolerance of any kind of inequality would come under intense threat; and multiculturalism and sexual freedom would create a city or a country like "a many-colored cloak decorated in all hues."
This rainbow-flag polity, Plato argues, is, for many people, the fairest of regimes. The freedom in that democracy has to be experienced to be believed — with shame and privilege in particular emerging over time as anathema. But it is inherently unstable. As the authority of elites fades, as Establishment values cede to popular ones, views and identities can become so magnificently diverse as to be mutually uncomprehending. And when all the barriers to equality, formal and informal, have been removed; when everyone is equal; when elites are despised and full license is established to do "whatever one wants," you arrive at what might be called late-stage democracy. There is no kowtowing to authority here, let alone to political experience or expertise.
The very rich come under attack, as inequality becomes increasingly intolerable. Patriarchy is also dismantled: "We almost forgot to mention the extent of the law of equality and of freedom in the relations of women with men and men with women." Family hierarchies are inverted: "A father habituates himself to be like his child and fear his sons, and a son habituates himself to be like his father and to have no shame before or fear of his parents." In classrooms, "as the teacher … is frightened of the pupils and fawns on them, so the students make light of their teachers." Animals are regarded as equal to humans; the rich mingle freely with the poor in the streets and try to blend in. The foreigner is equal to the citizen.
And it is when a democracy has ripened as fully as this, Plato argues, that a would-be tyrant will often seize his moment.
He is usually of the elite but has a nature in tune with the time — given over to random pleasures and whims, feasting on plenty of food and sex, and reveling in the nonjudgment that is democracy's civil religion. He makes his move by "taking over a particularly obedient mob" and attacking his wealthy peers as corrupt. If not stopped quickly, his appetite for attacking the rich on behalf of the people swells further. He is a traitor to his class — and soon, his elite enemies, shorn of popular legitimacy, find a way to appease him or are forced to flee. Eventually, he stands alone, promising to cut through the paralysis of democratic incoherence. It's as if he were offering the addled, distracted, and self-indulgent citizens a kind of relief from democracy's endless choices and insecurities. He rides a backlash to excess—"too much freedom seems to change into nothing but too much slavery" — and offers himself as the personified answer to the internal conflicts of the democratic mess. He pledges, above all, to take on the increasingly despised elites. And as the people thrill to him as a kind of solution, a democracy willingly, even impetuously, repeals itself.
And so, as I chitchatted over cocktails at a Washington office Christmas party in December, and saw, looming above our heads, the pulsating, angry televised face of Donald Trump on Fox News, I couldn't help but feel a little nausea permeate my stomach. And as I watched frenzied Trump rallies on C-SPAN in the spring, and saw him lay waste to far more qualified political peers in the debates by simply calling them names, the nausea turned to dread. And when he seemed to condone physical violence as a response to political disagreement, alarm bells started to ring in my head. Plato had planted a gnawing worry in my mind a few decades ago about the intrinsic danger of late-democratic life. It was increasingly hard not to see in Plato's vision a murky reflection of our own hyperdemocratic times and in Trump a demagogic, tyrannical character plucked directly out of one of the first books about politics ever written.
Could it be that the Donald has emerged from the populist circuses of pro wrestling and New York City tabloids, via reality television and Twitter, to prove not just Plato but also James Madison right, that democracies "have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention … and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths"? Is he testing democracy's singular weakness — its susceptibility to the demagogue — by blasting through the firewalls we once had in place to prevent such a person from seizing power? Or am I overreacting?
Perhaps. The nausea comes and goes, and there have been days when the news algorithm has actually reassured me that "peak Trump" has arrived. But it hasn't gone away, and neither has Trump. In the wake of his most recent primary triumphs, at a time when he is perilously close to winning enough delegates to grab the Republican nomination outright, I think we must confront this dread and be clear about what this election has already revealed about the fragility of our way of life and the threat late-stage democracy is beginning to pose to itself.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/america-tyranny-donald-trump.html?
Report: China has reclaimed 3,200 acres in South China Sea
China has reclaimed more than 3,200 acres of land in the southeastern South China Sea. But the country's focus has shifted to developing and weaponizing those man-made islands so it will have greater control over the maritime region without resorting to armed conflict, according to a new Pentagon report.
In its most detailed assessment to date of China's island-building program, the Defense Department said three of the land features in the Spratly Islands now have nearly 10,000-foot runways and large ports in various stages of construction.
And it has excavated deep channels, created and dredged harbors, and constructed communications, logistics and intelligence gathering facilities.
The report argues that the accelerated building effort doesn't give China any new territorial rights. But it says the airfields, ship facilities, surveillance and weapons equipment will allow China to significantly enhance its long-term presence in the South China Sea.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/report-china-has-reclaimed-3200-acres-in-south-china-sea/ar-BBt1ccE?ocid=spartandhp
The 10 Oldest Languages Still Spoken In The World Today
Language evolution is like biological evolution – it happens minutely, generation by generation, so there's no distinct breaking point between one language and the next language that develops from it. Therefore, it's impossible to say that one language is really older than any other one; they're all as old as humanity itself. That said, each of the languages below has a little something special—something ancient—to differentiate it from the masses.
The language family that most European languages belong to is Indo-European, but they started splitting apart from each other probably around 3500 BCE. They developed into dozens of other languages like German, Italian, and English, gradually losing the features that they had all shared. One language, however, up in the Baltic language branch of the Indo-European family, retained more of the feature of what linguists call Proto-Indo-European (PIE), which is the language that they postulate was spoken around 3500 BCE. For whatever reason, Lithuanian has kept more of the sounds and grammar rules from PIE than any of its linguistic cousins, and can therefore be called one of the oldest languages in the world.
http://theculturetrip.com/asia/india/articles/the-10-oldest-languages-still-spoken-in-the-world-today/
NEW Mobile App for Parties & Candidates
We launched it…finally a new mobile app to help parties and candidates keep in touch with their members.
Our apps are native meaning they use the full power of smart mobile devices to provide rich features such as video, navigation, customized alerts linked to specific content, events calendaring, conventions, ballot registration and voting, breaking news, donations, blogs, instant polls and surveys and more.
And they are fully customizable. So check out one of the apps that is currently live. Just go to your app store on either an Apple, Android or Windows phone and search for:
New York GOP (New York State Republican Party)
TN GOP (Tennessee Republican Party)
Michigan Republican Party
WSRP (Washington State Republican Party)
Republican Party of Louisiana
Republican Liberty Caucus
Tea Party Nation
NYS Conservative Party
USVI GOP (Virgin Islands Republican Party)
Lisa Posthumus Lyons (State Representative-MI)
Triston Cole (State Representative-MI)
Gowan for Arizona (Gowan for Congress)
Follow the progress of Right Mobile and the various new parties and candidates that launch their own apps on Facebook at; https://www.facebook.com/rightmobileUS//
If any party or candidate is interested in getting an app of their own, please contact me at: sanuzis@rightmobile.us
www.rightmobile.us
Stay In Touch…Feel Free to Share
My goal is for this to be a weekly political update…sharing political news and analysis that should be of interest to most activists.
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http://thatssaulfolks.com/
Thanks again for all you do!
Posted on April 3, 2016 by Saul Anuzis
Obamanomics…93,482,000 Americans Out of Labor Force in March
The number of Americans not participating in the workforce in March dipped again compared to the previous month but was still higher than it was a year ago, according to Labor Department data released Friday.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/04/01/93482000-americans-workforce-march/?platform=hootsuite
Ted Cruz is having a moment to shine.
The Texas senator has become the favorite to win Tuesday's primary in Wisconsin, which would be huge for his presidential campaign.
He's seen a GOP establishment that despised him warm to his presidential campaign and showed off his policy chops and a sense of humor during a Wednesday night appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live."
At a CNN town hall earlier in the week, Cruz had a well-received moment when he opened up about losing his sister to heroin addiction.
Sweeter still is that Cruz's shining moments have come amidst a rocky stretch for GOP front-runner Donald Trump who this week saw his campaign manager charged with simple battery and who then stumbled badly in an MSNBC interview over abortion.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/274854-ted-cruzs-moment-to-shine?platform=hootsuite
Establishment Pitch – NOPE! Karl Rove: 'Fresh face' might be best GOP nominee
One thing that unites many supporters of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz is the suspicion that party elders might try to hand the Republican presidential nomination to another candidate if neither Trump nor Cruz arrives in Cleveland with the 1,237 delegates required to win.
Important voices in the conservative world have voiced such concerns. Rush Limbaugh, for one, has speculated that the Republican establishment will try to "install whoever they want" at a contested convention. (Limbaugh guessed such a final choice might be Jeb Bush or Paul Ryan.)
Now Karl Rove, a man many view as the physical embodiment of the establishment, has poured gallons of fuel on the Republican fire. Appearing on Hugh Hewitt's radio show Thursday evening, Rove said a "fresh face" chosen at the convention might turn the GOP's fortunes around and win in November.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/rove-fresh-face-might-be-best-for-gop/article/2587383?platform=hootsuite
Delegates ready to flee Trump at contested convention
The reality of a contested convention has become more real than ever, with Donald Trump facing the risk of losing Wisconsin next week, meaning he'd have to win roughly 60 percent of the remaining delegates to win the Republican presidential nomination outright.
If Trump heads into the convention without the magic number of 1,237, already more than a hundred delegates are poised to break with him on a second ballot, according to interviews with dozens of delegates, delegate candidates, operatives and party leaders.
In one of the starkest examples of Trump's lack of support, out of the 168 Republican National Committee members — each of whom doubles as a convention delegate — only one publicly supports Trump, and she knows of only a handful of others who support him privately.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/trumps-uphill-delegate-scramble-221443?platform=hootsuite
Cameron Warns ISIS Plans to Use Drones Armed With Dirty Bombs to Attack the West
British Prime Minister David Cameron has warned that ISIS terrorists are planning to use drones to spray nuclear material over cities in the West. That's what the Daily Telegraph reports:
World leaders are concerned that jihadists want to buy basic drones that are widely available online to transport radioactive material into the heart of major cities in a strike that could kill thousands.
The Prime Minister warned that the dangers of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) [red.: or ISIS] getting hold of nuclear material was "only too real".
According to the British daily, footage has already surfaced of ISIS testing drones for such a dirty bomb attack. The threat is taken so seriously that Western leaders were asked to participate in war games to plan for a response to it. A British official explains:
We have already seen Daesh [another name for ISIS] trying to look at whether they can they get their hands on low-level crop-using-type drones.
And that's precisely why it's so hard to understand why the anti-ISIS coalition is still not taking the war on the terrorist group seriously. Sure, ISIS positions are attacked every now and then — yesterday, for instance, by the U.S.-led coalition and today by the Turkish military — but that won't even almost suffice to wipe them out.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/04/02/cameron-warns-isis-plans-to-use-drones-armed-with-dirty-bombs-to-attack-the-west/
Pew Research Study…
Some very interesting numbers on voters values and perception.
http://www.people-press.org/files/2016/03/3-31-16-March-Political-release-1.pdf
Impressive Conservative Congressional Endorsements for Cruz
Posted on March 12, 2016 by Saul Anuzis
Senator Mike Lee – UT
Congressman Justin Amash – MI
Congressman Brian Babin – TX
Congressman Jim Bridenstine – OK
Congressman Mo Brooks – AL
Congressman Ken Buck – CO
Congressman Mike Burgess – TX
Congressman John Culberson – TX
Congressman Jeff Duncan – SC
Congressman Trent Franks – AZ
Congressman Louie Gohmert – TX
Congressman Paul Gosar – AZ
Congressman Sam Graves – MO
Congressman Glenn Grothman – WI
Congressman Jeb Hensarling – TX
Congresswoman Jody Hice – GA
Congressman Tim Huelskamp – KS
Congressman Sam Johnson – TX
Congressman Steve King – IA
Congressman Raul Labrador – ID
Congressman Tom McClintock – CA
Congressman Mark Meadows – NC
Congressman Alex Mooney – WV
Congressman John Ratcliffe – TX
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher – CA
Congressman Mark Sanford – SC
Congressman David Schweikert – AZ
Congresswoman Ann Wagner – MO
Congressman Randy Weber – TX
Congressman Roger Williams – TX
Posted in Blog	| 1 Comment
Why Ted Cruz -Take #2
Posted on February 21, 2016 by Saul Anuzis
Over a year ago I wrote this article on my blog which was also published in Newsmax. The arguments for Ted Cruz still stands…and the philosophical reasons for backing a movement conservative who is not afraid to fight both parties if needed, is stronger now than ever.
See my original article here: https://thatssaulfolks.com/2014/12/30/why-ted-cruz/
After watching the early primaries and realizing the fear and willingness of folks who are really scared of the idea of Ted Cruz winning the presidency will do anything, say anything and get the backing of the media along the way…that just fires me up even more!
Talking heads, Republican pundits and the mainstream media are teaming up to "anoint" Marco Rubio while systematically tearing down Ted Cruz. The spin, the coordinated character assassination and shameless lies and distortions by "strange bedfellows" has had its toll. But only enough to give the establishment and Trump enough "tools" and distorted rhetoric to continue their narrative. There were NO dirty tricks, no lies…just spin that fit the establishment's narrative…so they went with it. I don't expect that to change…it's just an obstacle and political reality we will have to deal with.
So far, ONLY Cruz and Trump have won any of the early primaries. Cruz won Iowa and placed stronger than expected in New Hampshire and South Carolina. But you would NEVER know that from the news coverage. Conservatives traditionally do not run well in New Hampshire, Cruz placed exceptionally well. In South Carolina, the Governor, two U.S. Senators and one of the most popular Congressmen endorsed others…and Cruz missed coming in second by about 1,000 votes…with the establishment rallying behind Rubio.
Seriously, if Marco can't win in South Carolina, with everyone on his side, where can he win?
Carson & Kasich are no longer really running for President. Neither of them have any viable path to the nomination, so they continue to "play" for some personal political agenda?
Trump is winning and polling in the low to mid 30's…those are not the numbers of an invincible candidacy. There is a long way to go…and Cruz has a 50 state organization, leaders and supporters in all 5 Territories and the District of Columbia. We prepared for the "long game" and no one else seems to be worried about much more than perceived momentum. I think they call it "smoke and mirrors".
So why Ted Cruz…
– The only courageous conservative that has a committed base
– A large and growing number or small donors
– Strong Super PAC support (all philosophical)
– He's a constitutionalist – grounded philosophically as a "movement conservative"
– Can attract traditional conservative, evangelicals, Tea Party, liberty and Reagan Democrats
– He has consistently outperformed every other candidate with the youth vote in early states
– A consistent, disciplined and articulate conservative message
– He has more money than any other candidate left in the race
With Jeb Bush out of the race, he has raised more money than any other candidate in the race, Super PACs supporting him have more money than other and as of the last filing, he had more cash on hand than any other candidate in the race!
– Appears to have hit a ceiling with about a third of the Republican primary vote
– He is NOT a conservative…a populist, but NOT a conservative
– Government funded healthcare, but not Obamacare? How is Trumpcare different?
– On Obamacare he said this week "I like the mandates"!?! Really???
– Supports eminent domain taking for private deals
– Supports targeted censorship of the internet
– Neutral on the "Israel v Palestinian" issue
– Supports "parts" of Planned Parenthood
– Saving grace…better than Hillary.
– Rubio's "big wins" are that he came in 3-5-2 instead of his projected and touted 3-2-1 –hence, victory redefined
– His "amnesty" recorded contradictory statements will continue to haunt him
– His willingness to deal with the "Gang of 8" worries many conservatives
– More likely to compromise than fight
– Susceptible to "robo-talk" moments because he uses/needs his talking points too much
– The establishment REALLY likes him – too much outside influence?
Ted Cruz is the ONLY candidate who has beat Donald Trump. He is the ONLY candidate with a strong base of supporters that can effectively battle Trump on the issues…with credibility.
Marco Rubio is the establishments darling. But he hasn't won ANYWHERE. He had EVERY thing going for him in South Carolina and he squeaked by Cruz by barely 1,000 votes out of 800,000+ cast?!? He came in 3rd in Iowa, 5th in New Hampshire and barely made 2nd in South Carolina. And yet the establishment and mainstream media "redefines" this as "win-ability"?!?
There is a strong army of courageous conservatives across this country ready to fight. We have the best national ground game with 200K+ volunteers which is using of cutting-edge micro-targeting analytical and data technology to reach voters. We have a huge donor base of small contributors giving EVERY month to support that fight. We have philosophically grounded Super PACs supporting his candidacy for all the right reasons.
And most importantly, we have the right candidate, with the right message in Ted Cruz to make America great again…and I mean in the real sense!
Stand tall, shoulder to shoulder and double our efforts – because it's a long way to the nomination and we're ready for the fight – and win!
Posted in Blog	| 2 Comments
Cruz Consolidates and Unites Conservatives Nationwide
Once again Ted Cruz took on the entire political establishment and withstood millions of dollars in misleading attack ads.
Think about it – Cruz took on a popular Governor, both United States Senators, a popular Upstate Congressman and the state's entire political establishment.
History shows that you have to win one of the first three primary states to become the nominee, and we've done that – along with two other strong showings.
We've successfully united conservatives and now we're going to do the exact same thing in Nevada and then in the March 1st states.
Going forward there's a clear distinction between Cruz and the other candidates – if you want to keep things the same, you can vote for Donald Trump or Marco Rubio, but if you want to bring real conservative change Washington, and wipe out the influence of the lobbyists and career politicians, then Ted Cruz is your only choice.
The only two candidates who have won an early primary state are Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, and history shows that you have to win one of the three early states to win the nomination. Marco still has to win a state, and if he can't win here in South Carolina with the entire political establishment supporting him, where does he win?
Trump appears to have peaked…
Sabotaging Cruz…Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows
"Lies", "say anything", "distorting the record" and more "lies" for political expediency seems to have united three unlikely, strange bedfellows…Ben Carson, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio.
It is in ALL of these candidate's best interest to sabotage the effort of conservatives to coalesce around the strongest, most consistent, courageous conservative in the race.
The Carson affair is completely blown out of proportion…most believe it had little to no real effect on the results. Rubio and Trump's claims of "lies" have backfired as video proof…in their own words…belie their self-righteous indignation.
This is a clever, well-orchestrated, coordinated effort by three campaigns to take cheap shots at the candidate they believe is their biggest threat. If Ted Cruz unites the conservative movement…they lose.
So consider the source, understand the politics, watch the videos – in their own words…whether it's Trump, Rubio or CNN…these campaigns and operative have engaged in some of the most unfair, misleading and self-serving political mudslinging I have ever witnessed…and the mainstream media has gleefully played along to attempt to derailed Cruz's surge amongst conservatives.
The facts…not the political rhetoric…speak for themselves.
https://thatssaulfolks.com/2016/02/17/sabotaging-cruzpolitics-makes-strange-bedfellows/
5 numbers that explain why Trump won South Carolina
Donald Trump's South Carolina coalition was comprised of downscale voters who want a candidate who "tells it like it is" to bring change to Washington.
That's according to voters surveyed by exit pollsters as they left precincts throughout the state on Saturday — giving Trump a resounding victory over Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.
Rubio was boosted by Gov. Nikki Haley, whose final-week endorsement carried the Florida senator into an apparent second-place ahead of Cruz.
Cruz, meanwhile, was buoyed by the most conservative voters, but he failed to lock down evangelicals, who carried him in Iowa and made up a majority of voters on Saturday.
Here are five key numbers (plus a bonus number) from the South Carolina exit poll:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/5-political-numbers-to-watch/2016/02/donald-trump-south-carolina-numbers-219573#ixzz40lvT8mcf
Inside Jeb Bush's $150 Million Failure
Jeb Bush, the Republican establishment's last, best hope, began his 2016 campaign rationally enough, with a painstakingly collated operational blueprint his team called, with NFL swagger, "The Playbook."
On page after page kept safe in a binder, the playbook laid out a strategy for a race his advisors were certain would be played on Bush's terms – an updated, if familiar version of previous Bush family campaigns where cash, organization and a Republican electorate ultimately committed to an electable center-right candidate would prevail.
The playbook, hatched by Sally Bradshaw, Mike Murphy and a handful of other Bush confidants in dozens of meetings during the first half of 2015 and described to POLITICO by some of Bush's closest and most influential supporters, appealed to the Bush family penchant for shock-and-awe strategy. The campaign would commence with six months of fundraising for the "Right to Rise" super PAC and enough muscle to push aside Mitt Romney. There would be a massive, broad-based organizational effort to plant roots in March states at a time when other campaigns were mired in Iowa and New Hampshire. The plan outlined Bush's positive, future-focused message with an emphasis on his decade-old record of accomplishment as Florida governor.
And it included several pages about the former Florida governor's case to prosecute against top rivals – dire political threats such as Wisconsin's Scott Walker.
The plan roundly underestimated threats: Bradshaw, his closest advisor and long-time defender, for example, told at least one campaign aide that Marco Rubio wouldn't challenge Bush. Besides, Bradshaw and other top advisers believed, it would be next to impossible for someone with so little experience to beat him. "They thought there was going to be much more reverence and respect for the fact that Jeb Bush, a Bush, was getting into the race," said one Florida-based supporter, an alumnus of Jeb Bush's gubernatorial campaigns and former staffer. "When they got Romney to step aside, they figured everyone else would too."
Most critically, the playbook, people who have read it tell POLITICO, contained nothing about Donald Trump, who would spend the next excruciating year turning Bush into his personal patrician piñata.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/jeb-bush-dropping-out-set-up-to-fail-213662
Democrats try to politicize a disaster – Rahm at work? Flint Crisis Could Help Dems With Key Voters
Saul Anuzis, the former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, asserted that Clinton is advocating strongly in Flint out of desperation in her primary race and a desire to motivate minority voters. But, he added, this is a stretch for her to "make it a political issue against Republicans."
"It was basically a Democratic city council and the Democratic city that made a decision to change the water supply that then got into a disagreement with another Democratic city with another Democratic political machine controlling it that turned off their water," he said.
…Anuzis said that "anything above trying to fix the issue is just politicizing it."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/02/17/flint_crisis_could_help_dems_with_key_voters_129681.html
Flint Is Not a Republican Scandal
Flint is a mess made by Democrats, made worse by the Democrats in Detroit, and ignored by the Democrats in the White House. The worst that can be said of the Republican on the scene is that he failed to save the local Democrats from the worst effects of their own excesses.
But that is the Democrats' approach to calculating the chain of responsibility: Go up the ladder or down, as needed, until a Republican is located, or a private firm, in which case capitalism can be blamed. The Democratic monopolies in Flint, Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Newark? Somehow, somewhere, there's a Republican responsible for that, even if he has to be brought in on an overnight flight from Oklahoma.
Flint is nothing more than a miniature Detroit. And Detroit is what Democrats do.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430072/flint-lead-water-scandal?d0vggTOKLymcbMcJ.01
Putin's Next Land Grab: The Suwalki Gap
The Pentagon's decision to quadruple its 2017 budget for European defense, due to the perceived threat of Russian aggression and the recent RAND report noting the difficulties NATO would have defending the Baltic States, is once again bringing to the forefront the risks on Europe's frontier states.
The top brass of U.S. military forces, like the U.S. Army Europe commander, Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, have also already noted that a narrow piece of land connecting NATO member states Poland and Lithuania—the Suwalki Gap—could potentially be a target of Russian military aggression.
The capture by hostile forces of the Suwalki Gap or bordering Lithuanian territory would cut off the three Baltic States from other NATO countries. Analysts have likened Suwalki to the Cold War era's Fulda Gap in Germany, where NATO planned and prepared for hypothetical Soviet attacks.
In addition to the region's problematic geography and militarized environment due to neighboring Kaliningrad and Belarus, the Suwalki Gap is different and potentially an even more vulnerable target because the Kremlin could exploit the region's historic ethnic tensions.
http://www.newsweek.com/putin-russia-suwalki-gap-426155
Europe's Convinced U.S. Won't Solve Its Problems
Europe is facing a convergence of the worst crises since World War II, and the overwhelming consensus among officials and experts here is that the U.S. no longer has the will or the ability to play an influential role in solving them.
At the Munich Security Conference, the prime topics are the refugee crisis, the Syrian conflict, Russian aggression and the potential dissolution of the European Union's very structure. Top European leaders repeatedly lamented that 2015 saw all of Europe's problems deepen, and unanimously predicted that in 2016 they would get even worse.
"The question of war and peace has returned to the continent," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the audience, indirectly referring to Russian military interventions. "We had thought that peace had returned to Europe for good."
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-02-13/europe-s-convinced-u-s-won-t-solve-its-problems
Agema NOT Running of Re-Election to the RNC
Although I often disagreed with his tone, rhetoric, strategy and tactics, I believe he participated with a servant's heart. Thanks for his willingness to serve.
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/02/20/agema-rnc-election-michigan/80669024/
Tentative Democrat 2016 Convention Schedule Released
11:15 AM Free lunch, medical marijuana, and bus ride to the Convention. Forms distributed for Food Stamp enrollment.
2:30 PM Group Voter Registration for Undocumented Immigrants.
4:00 PM Opening Flag Burning Ceremony, Sponsored by CNN
4:15 PM Address on "Being the Real You" Rachel Dolezal, former Head of the Seattle NAACP and Caitlyn Jenner
4:30 PM "How to Bank $200 Million as a public Servant and claim to be broke" Hillary Clinton
4:45 PM "How to have a successful career without ever having a job, and still avoid paying taxes!j
A Seminar Moderated by Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson
5:00 PM Medals of Freedom presentation to Army deserter Bo Berghdal Baltimore Looters
5:30 PM Invitation-only Autograph Session Souvenir photographs of Hillary and Chelsea dodging Sniper Fire in Bosnia
5:45 PM Tribute to All of the 57 States Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi
6:00 PM General vote on praising Baltimore rioters, and on using the terminology "Alternative Shoppers" instead of "Looters"
7:30 PM Announcement of VP Nominee Chris Stevens, with a quick rebuttal and withdrawal when Hillary realizes he's someone she got killed in Benghazi
8:30 PM The White House "Semantics Committee" Meeting General vote on re-branding "Muslim Terrorism" as "Random Acts of Islamic Over-Exuberance"
9:00 PM "Liberal Bias in Media – How we can make it work for you" Tutorial sponsored by CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, PBS, the Washington Post and the New York Times with Guest Speaker, Brian Williams
9:15 PM Tribute Film to the Brave Freedom Fighters still incarcerated at GITMO Michael Moore
9:45 PM Personal Finance Seminar – "Businesses Don't Create Jobs" Hillary Clinton
10:00 PM Group Condemnation of Bitter Gun Owners.
10:30 PM Ceremonial "We Surrender" Waving of the White Flag to Afghanistan, Russia, and ISIS.
11:00 PM Short film, "Setting Up Your Own Illegal Email Server While Serving in A Cabinet Post and How to Pretend It's No Big Deal" Hosted by Hillary Clinton
11:30 PM Official Nomination of Hillary, Bill Maher and Chris Matthews
Yeh, I thought it was kind of funny…if there wasn't so much potential truth to itJ
The Carson affair is completely blown out of proportion…most believe it had little to no real effect on the results. And Cruz apologize for the staff's zeal. Rubio and Trump's claims of "lies" have backfired as video proof…in their own words…belie their self-righteous indignation.
Trump and Rubio Cannot Simply Scream Liar When Someone Points Out Their Actual Positions | Ted Cruz
Ted Cruz Didn't Lie: The Entire Carson/Cruz Fight Timeline
http://constitution.com/ted-cruz-didnt-lie-entire-carsoncruz-fight-timeline/
Interview Transcript Proves Rubio Promised Hispanics en Español He'd Keep Executive Amnesty in Place
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/14/interview-transcript-proves-rubio-promised-hispanics-en-espanol-hed-keep-executive-amnesty-place/?platform=hootsuite
If Rubio is Telling the Truth, These People Are Lying
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/02/if-rubio-is-telling-the-truth-these-people-are-lying
Trump on Trump…just watch:
Days until the 2016 election: 268…and Happy Valentine's Day to all!
There is a unique balance on the Supreme Court today, which is neither decidedly conservative or liberal.
I agree with Senator Ted Cruz when he said: "Justice Scalia was an American hero. We owe it to him & the Nation, for the Senate to ensure that the next President names his replacement."
There is just too much at stake to allow a lame duck, liberal activists President to make a politically motivated appointment on his way out the door. Allow the country time to ponder and debate this issue. It will have a lasting effect on our country and society.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dies at 79
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the intellectual cornerstone of the court's modern conservative wing, whose elegant and acidic opinions inspired a movement of legal thinkers and ignited liberal critics, died Feb. 13 on a ranch near San Antonio. He was 79.
The cause of death was not immediately known.
In a statement Saturday, Chief Justice John G. Roberts said: "On behalf of the Court and retired Justices, I am saddened to report that our colleague Justice Antonin Scalia has passed away. He was an extraordinary individual and jurist, admired and treasured by his colleagues. His passing is a great loss to the Court and the country he so loyally served. We extend our deepest condolences to his wife Maureen and his family."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-justice-antonin-scalia-dies-at-79/2016/02/13/effe8184-a62f-11e3-a5fa-55f0c77bf39c_story.html
McConnell: Don't replace Scalia until after election
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia should not be replaced until after the presidential election.
Since McConnell sets the Senate's schedule, his remarks signal the GOP's intent to not confirm any nominee offered by President Obama.
"The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice," he said in a statement. "Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President."
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/269389-mcconnell-dont-replace-scalia-until-after-election
A good discussion…
The Supreme Court as a 2016 Presidential campaign issue. A few months ago, before the death of Justice Scalia, I wrote the following at Talking Points Memo:
The future composition of the Supreme Court is the most important civil rights cause of our time. It is more important than racial justice, marriage equality, voting rights, money in politics, abortion rights, gun rights, or managing climate change. It matters more because the ability to move forward in these other civil rights struggles depends first and foremost upon control of the Court. And control for the next generation is about to be up for grabs, likely in the next presidential election, a point many on the right but few on the left seem to have recognized.
When the next President of the United States assumes office on January 20, 2017, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be nearly 84, Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy will be over 80, and Justice Stephen Breyer will be 78. Although many Justices have served on the Court into their 80s and beyond, the chances for all of these Justices remaining through the next 4 or 8 years of the 45th President are slim. Indeed, the next president will likely make multiple appointments to the Court.
The stakes are high. On non-controversial cases, or cases where the ideological stakes are low, the Justices often agree and are sometimes unanimous. In such cases, the Justices act much like lower court judges do, applying precedents, text, history, and a range of interpretative tools to decide cases. In the most controversial cases, however—those involving issues such as gun rights, affirmative action, abortion, money in politics, privacy, and federal power—the value judgments and ideology of the Supreme Court Justices, and increasingly the party affiliation of the president appointing them, are good predictors of each Justice's vote.
A conservative like Justice Scalia tends to vote to uphold abortion restrictions, strike down gun restrictions, and view the First Amendment as protecting the right to spend unlimited sums in elections. A liberal like Justice Ginsburg tends to vote the opposite way: to strike down abortion restrictions, uphold gun laws, and view the government's interest in stopping undue influence of money in elections as justifying some limits on money in politics. This to not to say it is just politics in these cases, or that these Justices are making crassly partisan decisions. They're not. It is that increasingly a Justice's ideology and jurisprudence line up with one political party's positions or another because Justices are chosen for that very reason.
Especially if Senate Republicans block a liberal appointee to the Supreme Court, this has the potential to inject this issue into the Presidential campaign. And it will work both ways. You can bet that Ted Cruz will be running on a platform to replace Scalia with more and more Scalias. This could finally be the election that brings the Supreme Court into national focus much more (it has not been mentioned so far in any of the presidential debates I've seen).
http://electionlawblog.org/?p=79915
Republican Debate Brims With Attacks on Immigration and Foreign Policy
And Senator Ted Cruz of Texas warned of what could happen if Mr. Obama were allowed to fill the vacancy.
"We are one justice away from a Supreme Court that would undermine the religious liberty of millions of Americans," Mr. Cruz said.
The agreement ended there.
The candidates debated furiously on foreign policy and who was most fit to be president. Mr. Trump and former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, who have sniped at each other for months, engaged in a particularly personal argument over Mr. Bush's brother, former President George W. Bush.
"George Bush made a mistake," Mr. Trump said of the war in Iraq. "People make mistakes. But that one was a beauty."
The audience booed Mr. Trump for criticizing the former president, who will be campaigning with his brother in South Carolina next week, but Mr. Trump continued to denounce his integrity.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/us/politics/republican-debate.html?smid=tw-nytpolitics&smtyp=cur&_r=0
Russia's Medvedev: We Are in 'a New Cold War'
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said his country is in a new Cold War with the U.S. and its allies, underscoring the tenuous level of trust that's putting a day-old plan for a truce in Syria at risk.
The clash, with echoes of superpower rhetoric during the 20th century, played out at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday even as Russia, Europe and the U.S. say they're seeking cooperation to end Syria's civil war, resolve the armed standoff in eastern Ukraine and make progress toward lifting European economic sanctions against Russia.
Fresh from helping craft the accord for Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested that the U.S. is reneging on the agreement and put the chances of success at less than 50 percent. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, addressing the meeting separately, demanded an end to Russian bombing of groups opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
"This is a hinge point," Kerry told the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. "We hope this week can be a week of change. It is critical for all of us to take advantage of this moment to make this cessation of hostilities work."
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-13/russia-sees-new-cold-war-as-nato-chief-criticizes-nuclear-threat
Very Powerful…The Soviet Story
Worth watching…devastating history.
Happy Valentine's Day to the love of my life!
Powerful..The Soviet Story
Posted on February 7, 2016 by Saul Anuzis
Days until the 2016 election: 275.
The FUNNIEST Political Commercial so far this Year!
…so if you ever decide to endorse someone, you better know why?!?
https://youtu.be/kdtNqnJdem8
On Point: Cruz vs. Rubio
If voters feel like the 2016 election is the last election to save the American experiment, Ted Cruz really is their only option. If voters feel like things are coming to an end in this country without drastic action, they really do not have a choice between Rubio and Cruz. They have only Cruz. Cruz is the disruptive candidate. A voter who feels like the end is near without drastic action has to take the gamble on Cruz, who still has a good chance to win.
Rubio, on the other hand, is the candidate for voters who think the best days are still ahead of us regardless of what happens in 2016. Democrats may fear Rubio as a candidate, but the base of the Democratic Party does not fear him like Ted Cruz. They think they could wait out Marco Rubio, even after eight years in power, and see few of their advances surrendered.
Washington's lobbyists think that Marco Rubio will not be a disruptive force to them. They know Washington will still be mostly the center of people's lives to a greater degree with Marco Rubio than with Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz will burn Washington to the ground and throw lobbyists on the street. Marco Rubio will strategically raze parts of Washington, putting fewer lobbyists in danger than Cruz. At least that is the thinking, and it is the thinking that is reflected in the attacks on both men.
For critics of Cruz, he cannot win. The reality is that Cruz can win, but if he wins those lobbyists and politicians attacking him will be out of a job. The Washington elite have every incentive to stop Cruz because he absolutely would be transformational, though his path to victory may be harder than Rubio's.
For critics of Rubio, he will not go far enough. The reality is that Rubio may have an easier time winning, but his critics do not believe he will go far enough and do as much to fix the problems in Washington.
Cruz and Rubio would both be conservative to varying degrees. What is at stake between the two is how easy their election would be and how transformational their presidency would be. Rubio backers are looking at the path to the White House. Cruz backers are willing to take a gamble on the slog of a general election campaign so they can see Washington rent asunder.
http://townhall.com/columnists/erickerickson/2016/02/05/cruz-vs-rubio-n2114989/page/full
How Ted Cruz Engineered His Iowa Triumph
A good read: A meticulous, technologically advanced, highly individualized groundgame—and legalized fireworks—trumped a certain outsider candidate.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-02-02/how-ted-cruz-engineered-his-iowa-triumph
What pundits are trying to sell you (and won't tell you) about the Iowa caucuses
And everyone seems to be bizarrely discounting Cruz, who's fresh off an upset win in Iowa. He already was tied for second place with Kasich in New Hampshire polling averages (Rubio was fourth). While the Granite State often favors establishment candidates, Trump certainly doesn't fit that bill. Teeming with momentum from Iowa, Cruz could become an acceptable vessel for GOP voters' anger and frustration, and cannibalize Trump's support.
In Iowa, the Texas senator proved his organization and analytics team are first-rate. He's playing the long game, and is well-positioned for the "SEC primary" on Super Tuesday, where a bundle of delegates are up for grabs. He's also been hustling in far-flung places from Guam to Michigan, which most campaigns have, thus far, neglected.
http://www.susanjdemas.com/analysis/2016/2/2/s53aqqzexyqtnx29tchrlyifqv4b5l
Ready for Rand?
Rand Paul's admirers, and more than a few of his enemies, believe the country is having a "libertarian moment"—from Tea Partiers in Topeka to Silicon Valley techno-separatists who dream of going Galt. We've had these moments before, but each time they come and go without the elevation of a libertarian to high office or the advancement of libertarian ideas. There's a reason for that, and Sen. Rand Paul is just learning why now.
The problem for libertarian politicians is that Americans hate libertarianism. They like Social Security and minimum-wage hikes, they are still somewhat wary of free trade and they resent that the world is full of conniving and frequently swarthy foreigners who are scheming to provide us with goods and services in exchange for little green pieces of paper. Four times as many Americans support pulling out of NAFTA or renegotiating it as support staying in. Paul, on the other hand, wants to make the whole world a free-trade zone: He scores 100 percent on the libertarian Cato Institute's free-trade index. Libertarian ideas might appeal to voters on principle—in a poll last fall, 22 percent of Americans said they identify as or "lean" libertarian. But in the voting booth Americans don't have principles; they have interests.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/03/rand-paul-america-hates-liberterians-104858#ixzz3z7UCeQDc
The rise of the Islamic State doomed Rand Paul's presidential chances
For much of 2014, I told anyone who would listen — so not that many people — that Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) was a strong dark horse to be the Republican presidential nominee and may even wind up in the top tier when the 2016 race actually started in earnest after the midterm elections.
Then the Islamic State emerged on the world stage. And Paul went from real contender to fringe player.
Paul formally ended his campaign for president Wednesday, saying in a statement that despite the fact that "thousands upon thousands of young people flocked to our message of limited government, privacy, criminal justice reform and a reasonable foreign policy," the time had come to step aside.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/03/how-the-rise-of-isis-killed-rand-pauls-presidential-chances/?06a54aa
Is America Ruled By Law or Ruled by Power?
Hillary Clinton is a felon many times over. Assuming the facts are as being reported – or that they are even a tenth of the severity of what has been reported – Hillary Clinton is guilty of multiple serious felonies stemming from her conscious choice to unlawfully hide her correspondence as Secretary of State on a "private" server that was kept in some dude's bathroom somewhere. I use the term "private" only in the sense that it was non-governmental; every foreign intelligence agency, friend or foe, was reading it. Only we American citizens can't see what was on it, and that's because much of it was highly classified material. So she is a felon many times over.
Understand that this is not open to debate. There is no "her side of the story." There is no excuse nor harmless explanation. To those of us who have worked with classified material in the military or other governmental agencies, the daily revelations of new OPSEC atrocities literally make us nauseous. And I understand what "literally" means. We pros read that someone consciously took classified material off a secure system, walked it out of a secure facility, and somehow (by scanning it then cutting and pasting from the PDF, or even by typing it in manually) put it in an unclassified system and emailed it off in the clear to Hillary and her toilet server, where it was stored in a machine that was hooked up to the world wide web. And we feel our stomachs turn even as we run out of fingers and toes counting the horde of individual security violations that process entails.
http://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2016/02/01/is-america-ruled-by-law-or-ruled-by-power-n2112522/page/full
The 2016 Presidential Primary Calendar
For all you political junkies…here is a spot to sync you smart phone to all the presidential primary states in the country!
http://frontloading.blogspot.com/p/2016-presidential-primary-calendar.html?platform=hootsuite&m=1
Demystifying The Primary Process
Ahead of the official kick-off to primary season, we plotted out a chart to demystify the delegate selection process. We also sat down with Ben Ginsberg, of Jones Day, to go behind the numbers and look the details of how and when the votes happen. March 19th marks this year's tipping point for the Republican nomination, or when the 68% of delegates typically needed to determine a nominee are selected.
This year's campaign has already upended conventional wisdom in politics. Now we get to see what happens when the voting actually starts.
http://www.hamiltonplacestrategies.com/news/demystifying-primary-process?utm_content=buffera91be&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Carson Controversy…so unfair and dishonestly pushed
Just your "average" Democrat…Clintons made $153 million off speeches
Bill and Hillary Clinton made a combined $153 million off of paid speeches from 2001 until Hillary launched her presidential bid in 2015, according to a CNN report.
During that time, the couple gave 729 speeches for an average payout of $210,795 each. Of those speeches, at least 39 were given to big banks, who paid the couple $7.7 million.
Hillary Clinton alone made at least $1.8 million for her eight speeches to Wall Street banks.
She has been repeatedly challenged by Democratic presidential rival Bernie Sanders for her ties to big banks and other special interests.
"What being part of the establishment is, last quarter, having a super-PAC that raised $15 million from Wall Street, that throughout one's life raised a whole lot of money from the drug companies and other special interests," Sanders said during Thursday's presidential debate.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/268478-report-clintons-made-153-million-off-of-speeches
If Russia Started a War in the Baltics, NATO Would Lose — Quickly
If Russian tanks and troops rolled into the Baltics tomorrow, outgunned and outnumbered NATO forces would be overrun in under three days. That's the sobering conclusion of war games carried out by a think tank with American military officers and civilian officials.
"The games' findings are unambiguous: As currently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members," said a report by the Rand Corp., which led the war gaming research.
In numerous tabletop war games played over several months between 2014-2015, Russian forces were knocking on the doors of the Estonian capital of Tallinn or the Latvian capital of Riga within 36 to 60 hours. U.S. and Baltic troops — and American airpower — proved unable to halt the advance of mechanized Russian units and suffered heavy casualties, the report said.
The study argues that NATO has been caught napping by a resurgent and unpredictable Russia, which has begun to boost defense spending after having seized the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine and intervened in support of pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine. In the event of a potential Russian incursion in the Baltics, the United States and its allies lack sufficient troop numbers, or tanks and armored vehicles, to slow the advance of Russian armor, said the report by Rand's David Shlapak and Michael Johnson.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/03/if-russia-started-a-war-in-the-baltics-nato-would-lose-quickly/
giam den giam can on Weekly Musing 12-28-14
Edukas on About Saul Anuzis
unilib01 on Impressive Conservative Congressional Endorsements for Cruz
www.slideshare.net on Weekly Musing 1-31-16
Donna Webster Childress on Why Ted Cruz -Take #2


text:
Lifeline Independent Baptist Church
Our Testimonies
Quick Biographies/Favorites
Support Address
Missionary Packet
Prayer Letters
Current Prayer Requests
Current Praises
About Grenada
Location: 96 miles north of Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea
Land area of main island: 21 x 12 miles, 133 sq. miles
Includes 3 inhabited islands: Grenada, Carriacou, and Petite Martinique
Type of government: Constitutional Monarchy
Official Language: English, Grenadian French patois
Currency: East Caribbean Dollar
Population: Approximately 110,000
75% of children are said to be born to a mother outside of wedlock.
National anthem: Hail Grenada
Nickname: Isle of Spice
Major sports: Cricket, soccer, track & field
Major Religions: Catholic and Anglican. There is a presence of Jehovah's Witness and Mormon populations. The fastest growing religions are Seventh Day Adventism (St. Andrew's) and Muslim (nation-wide).
Independent Baptist: Approximately 1/2 of 1%
The National Flag of Grenada represents the distillation of a national effort to produce an emblem of a nation that can stand for all time and which incorporates simplicity of form, a pleasing visual quality and is symbolic of the confidence, hope and aspirations of a courageous people accepting the challenge of nationhood.
Grenadians wear the colors of the flag proudly. Almost anywhere you go in Grenada, you will see red, yellow (or gold), and green up and down the streets.
The components of the flag have the following significance:
Red: represents the fervor of the people, their courage and vitality - their burning aspiration to be free.
Gold: the color representative of wisdom also holds significance for Grenadians - a representation of the sun, their islands in the sun, the warmth and friendliness to their people.
Green: symbolizes the fertility of the land, the lush vegetation and the island's agriculture.
Seven Gold Stars: represents the seven parishes and the hopes and aspirations and ideas upon which the nation was founded.
Nutmeg: represents the history as the Isle of Spice and its traditional link with the economy.
Faith Baptist Church | 1515 Wistar Rd. Fairless Hills | PA 19030 | (215) 946-7550 | BIMI, Acct. #1481 | P.O. Box 9 |Harrison, TN 37341

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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text:
package com.alibaba.dubbo.config.spring.context.annotation;

import com.alibaba.dubbo.config.spring.api.DemoService;
import com.alibaba.dubbo.config.spring.context.annotation.consumer.ConsumerConfiguration;
import com.alibaba.dubbo.config.spring.context.annotation.provider.DemoServiceImpl;
import com.alibaba.dubbo.config.spring.context.annotation.provider.ProviderConfiguration;
import org.junit.Assert;
import org.junit.Test;
import org.springframework.aop.support.AopUtils;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.AnnotationConfigApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.transaction.annotation.Transactional;

import static org.springframework.core.annotation.AnnotationUtils.findAnnotation;

/**
 * {@link DubboComponentScanRegistrar} Test
 *
 * @since 2.5.8
 */
public class DubboComponentScanRegistrarTest {

    @Test
    public void test() {

        AnnotationConfigApplicationContext providerContext = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext();

        providerContext.register(ProviderConfiguration.class);

        providerContext.refresh();

        DemoService demoService = providerContext.getBean(DemoService.class);

        String value = demoService.sayName("Mercy");

        Assert.assertEquals("Hello,Mercy", value);

        Class<?> beanClass = AopUtils.getTargetClass(demoService);

        // DemoServiceImpl with @Transactional
        Assert.assertEquals(DemoServiceImpl.class, beanClass);

        // Test @Transactional is present or not
        Assert.assertNotNull(findAnnotation(beanClass, Transactional.class));

        AnnotationConfigApplicationContext consumerContext = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext();

        consumerContext.register(ConsumerConfiguration.class);

        consumerContext.refresh();

        ConsumerConfiguration consumerConfiguration = consumerContext.getBean(ConsumerConfiguration.class);

        demoService = consumerConfiguration.getDemoService();

        value = demoService.sayName("Mercy");

        Assert.assertEquals("Hello,Mercy", value);

        ConsumerConfiguration.Child child = consumerContext.getBean(ConsumerConfiguration.Child.class);

        // From Child

        demoService = child.getDemoServiceFromChild();

        Assert.assertNotNull(demoService);

        value = demoService.sayName("Mercy");

        Assert.assertEquals("Hello,Mercy", value);

        // From Parent

        demoService = child.getDemoServiceFromParent();

        Assert.assertNotNull(demoService);

        value = demoService.sayName("Mercy");

        Assert.assertEquals("Hello,Mercy", value);

        // From Ancestor

        demoService = child.getDemoServiceFromAncestor();

        Assert.assertNotNull(demoService);

        value = demoService.sayName("Mercy");

        Assert.assertEquals("Hello,Mercy", value);

        providerContext.close();
        consumerContext.close();

    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Drea Talley is an occasionally charming woman with a writing problem. She's sought help for it, but her friends and family have accepted that it's never going to go away. As such, she attempts to indulge in this strange addiction at a moderate pace, trying her hardest not to fall into the dangerous, destructive spiral that is full-time writing. She also wrote this bio, and is convinced that she's funny.
The Cartographer's Guild wishes you all a Happy New Year.