Ron's Gone Wrong, Con't

Ahh, but we can't have an Israel-Palestine conflict without Florida coming in and reminding everyone that the fascist authoritarians running the place like GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis want to make sure that Palestinians have no voice in the Sunshine State.

 

Florida’s university system chancellor, responding to a push by Gov. Ron DeSantis, directed state universities Tuesday to disband campus groups with ties to the national Students for Justice in Palestine organization, marking the first punishments handed down to colleges here amid the Israel-Hamas war.

In a memo to school leaders, the state ordered a “crack down” on campus events led by the pro-Palestinian organization that the DeSantis administration claims amount to “harmful support for terrorist groups” like Hamas, which attacked Israel in early October. Florida, under Republican presidential candidate DeSantis, has staunchly supported Israel during the ongoing war and was monitoring college protests that have since ignited.

“Based on the National SJP’s support of terrorism, in consultation with Governor DeSantis, the student chapters must be deactivated,” state university system Chancellor Ray Rodrigues wrote Tuesday.

There are at least two Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at Florida universities facing cancellation through ties to the national organization, according to Rodrigues, who did not specify where the groups were located in the memo. The University of Florida and University of South Florida, though, both appear to have active SJP chapters.

 

Free speech is not something Florida Republicans believe in, you see. If you thought they only wanted to get rid of SJP, well, they want Black Lives Matter gone too, starting with both Florida GOP senators, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio.

Some Republican lawmakers are calling on Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser to rename the two-block area in front of the White House that was dubbed “Black Lives Matter Plaza” three years ago amid a wave of racial justice protests.

Groups affiliated with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement have faces a backlash after messages sent out following the grisly Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel appeared to support terrorists and express anti-Israel sentiment.

“BLM chapters across the nation have circulated disturbing anti-Semitic rhetoric and images on social media, encouraging the spread of pro-Hamas propaganda,” the group of more than 20 House and Senate members, all Republicans, wrote in a statement accompanying their letter.

“Continuing to honor terrorist sympathizers with a plaza in our nation’s capital is a slap in the face to all Americans, especially Jewish and Israeli Americans.”

Among Republicans signing the letter: Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Rick Scott (Fla.), Josh Hawley (Mo.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Bill Cassidy (La.); and Reps. Elisa Stefanik (N.Y.), Jim Banks (Ind.) and Jeff Duncan (S.C.).

The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment on the letter or plans for the plaza.

Immediately after Hamas’s deadly blitz on Israel, which included attacks on multiple kibbutzim and an outdoor music festival, some BLM chapters expressed sympathy with Palestine and appeared to justify the aggression against Israel.

A BLM Chicago chapter posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, an image of a paraglider with the message “I stand with Palestine.” BLM Phoenix shared statements declaring that “Palestinian freedom fighters are not terrorists!,” and “The Palestinian attack was a revolution and attempt to reclaim their freedom.”

BLM chapters are run independently and can be unaffiliated with the broader Black Lives Matter organization, which hasn’t commented on the latest Israeli-Hamas conflict.

 

Sure seems like cancel culture to me. Free Speech only for approved groups is not how it works, gang.

 

And Black Lives Still Matter.

Last Call For Going Off The Rails, Con't

The massive chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio due to a Norfolk Southern train derailment has brought all sorts of ire from folks quick to blame Biden for every damn thing when Trump Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao rolled back train braking safety regulations and Republicans like Marco Rubio demanded that the regs be further rolled back in October 2021, but now the EPA has stepped in to make things right.

 

The Environmental Protection Agency announced a sweeping enforcement action against Norfolk Southern on Tuesday, compelling the rail company to conduct and pay for cleanup actions associated with the Feb. 3 derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio.

“The Norfolk Southern train derailment has upended the lives of East Palestine families, and EPA’s order will ensure the company is held accountable for jeopardizing the health and safety of this community,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan in remarks prepared for a news conference in East Palestine. “Let me be clear: Norfolk Southern will pay for cleaning up the mess they created and for the trauma they’ve inflicted on this community.”

If the company fails to complete any of the actions ordered by the EPA, the agency will “immediately” conduct the necessary work and then seek to compel Norfolk Southern to pay triple the cost. The order will require the company to identify and clean contaminated soil and water; pay any EPA costs, including reimbursing the agency for cleaning services that it will offer to residents and businesses; and participate in public meetings at EPA’s request and post information on-line.

The rail company already faces multiple class-action suits from members of the East Palestine community over the incident, which forced residents within roughly a mile radius to evacuate their homes.

 

Now, how quickly will Ohio GOP Gov. Mike DeWine find a federal judge friendly enough to block this order, saying the Environmental Protection Agency has no authority to actually protect the environment?

We're going to find out in short order.

Last Call For Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

Sure was nice of not one, but two GOP senators trying to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy killed by sharing pictures of a closed online address by the leader to Congress over social media, pictures that almost certainly gave his location right to the Russian hit squads hunting him and his family down.

Two Republican senators are facing criticism after tweeting photos of a video call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy even though participating lawmakers were told to not share pictures on social media while it was in progress.

Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Steve Daines of Montana posted pictures of Zelenskyy on their Twitter accounts during the Zoom meeting Saturday morning, writing that they were on a call with him.

Democratic Reps. Dean Phillips of Minnesota and Jason Crow of Colorado criticized the senators on Twitter.

Phillips noted that the "Ukrainian ambassador very intentionally asked each of us on the Zoom to NOT share anything on social media during the meeting to protect the security of President Zelenskyy."

"Appalling and reckless ignorance by two U.S. Senators," Phillips wrote.

"The lack of discipline in Congress is truly astounding," Crow wrote. "If an embattled wartime leader asks you to keep quiet about a meeting, you better keep quiet about the meeting. I’m not saying a damn thing. Lives are at stake."

Members were explicitly asked not to tweet or post pictures of the call while it was in progress, multiple aides told NBC News. The embassy coordinated this with the offices of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as well as the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, said a Democratic leadership aide.

In separate statements, representatives for Rubio and Daines defended the senators' decision to share the photos, calling those who make an issue out of their tweets a "partisan."

"There were over 160 members of Congress on a widely reported Zoom call. There was no identifying information of any kind," said a spokesperson for Rubio.

A spokesperson for Daines said his tweet, which was posted about 23 minutes after the meeting started, was "shared well into the call ... before it was requested not to" and contained "no identifying information."

They were told not to do it, they did it anyway, they don't apologize for it, and they don't care one whit that they potentially put Zelenskyy's life and family at risk, but sure. Rubio is an attention-starved toddler, but Daines should know better, having worked for Proctor & Gamble in China for more than five years. Guy should know something about operational security.

 

The larger point is they don't care about keeping information safe. That's a running theme with these jagoffs.

NASA Gets The Full Nelson

Longtime NASA proponent and former Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson is reportedly being tapped to fill the space agency's head honcho position by the Biden administration.

President Biden has tapped former Democratic Senator Bill Nelson for NASA administrator, according to three people familiar with the decision. Nelson, a politically experienced ally of the administration, would command the space agency as it races to return humans to the Moon, bolsters climate research, and expands its reliance on a flourishing commercial space industry.

A former congressman and three-term US senator from Florida, Nelson would succeed former President Trump’s NASA chief, Jim Bridenstine, whose past experience in Congress proved key in rallying support for the Artemis program, an ambitious campaign to use the Moon as a stepping stone for future astronaut missions to Mars.

Senate and NASA staffers who were informally briefed this week on Biden’s decision were told that a formal announcement on Nelson’s nomination would come later this week, three sources said, speaking under anonymity to discuss private conversations before the announcement is made. Former astronaut Pam Melroy is being considered for Nelson’s deputy, one of the sources said.

Rumors that Biden was considering Nelson to lead NASA had been swirling openly among space industry circles for roughly a month, but it wasn’t until this week that the White House and NASA cemented the choice. The decision comes nearly two months after Biden took office and as the White House remains silent on rolling out any space policy agenda while it focuses instead on more pressing issues, like vaccinating Americans from the coronavirus. In the past, new presidents have spent several months mulling their NASA nomination.

Nelson represented Florida’s Space Coast as a state legislator in the 1970s and championed NASA through his time in Congress. In 1986, he became the second sitting member of Congress to fly to space, riding aboard Space Shuttle Columbia as a payload specialist. The centrist Democrat served three terms in the Senate until losing his bid for reelection in 2018 to former Florida Gov. Rick Scott.

As a member of the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees NASA, Nelson laid into then-nominee Bridenstine during his confirmation hearings, criticizing his record on climate change and stressing that a politician shouldn’t run NASA. “This committee has heard me say many times: NASA is not political,” Nelson said. “The leader of NASA should not be political.” Bridenstine was eventually confirmed on a party-line vote, and he used his political savvy to win bipartisan support for the Artemis program.

Biden’s choice to tap Nelson has prompted mixed reactions in the space industry, with both optimism and dismay over the former senator’s past space policy stances. Some had hoped Biden would pick a woman to lead NASA, which has only been led by men in the past. Other people considered for the role included Melroy and Ellen Stofan, the director of the National Air and Space Museum, two people familiar with internal personnel discussions said. Stofan accepted a different position earlier this month as the Smithsonian’s Under Secretary for Science and Research.

Sen. Marco Rubio, who was Nelson’s Republican colleague from Florida, was pleased to hear Biden’s decision for NASA administrator, saying in a statement “I cannot think of anyone better to lead NASA than Bill Nelson.”

“His nomination gives me confidence that the Biden Administration finally understands the importance of the Artemis program, and the necessity of winning the 21st century space race. I look forward to supporting Bill’s swift confirmation, and working with him in the years to come,” Sen. Rubio said.

 

Not even Rubio is going to try to clown show Bill Nelson. 

I expect this nomination will sail through.

 

The Road To Gilead, Con't

Two Bible Belt Republicans laid out their plans for what a post-Trump GOP will look like this weekend, and it looks like current GOP plans only without Trump's personal baggage weighing things down, making things much easier for them. Alabama Sen. Tom Cotton is all in on the police fascism angle and the slavery was 100% necessary evil angle, and now Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley is laying his marker down on ending abortion.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that he would not support any future nominee for the Supreme Court unless they had publicly stated before their nomination that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established federal protection for abortion, was “wrongly decided.”

“I will vote only for those Supreme Court nominees who have explicitly acknowledged that Roe v. Wade is wrongly decided,” Hawley said in an interview with The Washington Post. “By explicitly acknowledged, I mean on the record and before they were nominated.”

Hawley added: “I don’t want private assurances from candidates. I don’t want to hear about their personal views, one way or another. I’m not looking for forecasts about how they may vote in the future or predications. I don’t want any of that. I want to see on the record, as part of their record, that they have acknowledged in some forum that Roe v. Wade, as a legal matter, is wrongly decided.”

Hawley’s new marker comes as Republicans are preparing for the possibility that President Trump could name a third member of the court later this year, should there be a vacancy.

And it comes as conservatives nationally are pushing to overhaul the court’s jurisprudence supporting the right of a woman to choose the procedure. But they have recently been disappointed by the court’s rulings on this front — and particularly by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Last month, the Supreme Court struck down a restrictive Louisiana abortion law. It was a dramatic victory for abortion rights activists and a bitter disappointment to conservatives in the first showdown on the issue since Trump’s remake of the court.

This is a win-win for Hawley, if Trump does win he's made his play for why he should be the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary as opposed to Huckleberry Graham, and if Trump loses, he has an instant 2024 platform to run against Biden on.

Meanwhile, Marco Rubio just got some bad news for 2022.

Former U.S. Rep. David Jolly may have some bigger moves in his future.

Jolly, the U.S. Rep. for Florida’s 13th Congressional District from 2014 to 2017, indicated on Twitter Sunday morning that he’s considering a run for Florida Governor or the U.S. Senate in 2022.

A tweet from TV personality Lea Black kicked off the idea. Black, a member of the cast of The Real Housewives of Miami, tweeted that she thought Jolly should run for Governor.

And Jolly, about five hours later, replied to her tweet.

“Thank you Lea. Very kind,” he tweeted at 7:05 a.m. “Haven’t ruled it out, but strongly considering the U.S. Senate seat in ’22. Will consider whether either is the right decision and decide about this time next year. For now, I’m loving the time at home with our little one! Many thanks.”

Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio will be on the ballot in 2022.

Jolly, a former Republican, switched to be an Independent in 2018, and he indicated elsewhere on Twitter Sunday that he is not likely to return to his old party.

He replied to a comment critical of the GOP by saying, “Fully agree. Not going back.”

Ron DeSantis probably isn't going to be too popular in 2022 the way things are going on the COVID-19 front in the state right now, so that means Jolly can be a real nuisance for the Florida GOP in two years with either a run at Rubio or a run at DeSantis.

We'll see which one the GOP wants more.

Last Call For Lowering The Barr, Con't

Two weeks ago the FBI opened an FBI insider trading investigation into GOP Sen. Richard Burr of NC, the Senate Intelligence Committee chair who investigated the Trump regime's Russia ties. The FBI showed up at Burr's house and took his cell phone. If there was still any doubt that Burr is being investigated and replaced as committee chair by Sen. Marco Rubio at the direct order of a corrupt Trump regime, those doubts, minuscule as they may be, died screaming on Tuesday.

Three senators under Department of Justice scrutiny for stock trades after coronavirus briefings had their matters closed by the agency Tuesday, but a fourth lawmaker — Sen. Richard M. Burr, R-N.C. — remains under investigation.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a Georgia Republican and Sen. James M. Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, were all notified by DOJ prosecutors through their defense attorneys, the Wall Street Journal first reported.

The senators all sold significant amounts of stock before the coronavirus pandemic decimated the financial markets. The market plunge began in late February and after the Senate received briefings on the coming pandemic.

Although the DOJ investigations have run their course for the trio of senators, that does not necessarily mean the Securities and Exchange Commission’s inquiries are halted, according to Jacob S. Frenkel, a former senior counsel in the SEC’s enforcement division.

“The closing of the DOJ investigations does not mean that the SEC’s investigations are closed, because the burden of proof for the Government is much higher in a criminal case — reasonable doubt — than in a civil enforcement action — preponderance of the evidence,” Frenkel said.

Frenkel added that he expects the SEC investigations into Feinstein, Loeffler and Inhofe will also come to a close based on the evidence.

Judith Burns, an SEC spokesperson, declined to comment on whether the SEC is investigating any of the senators.

On May 14, the day Burr stepped aside as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kerry Rom, a spokesperson for Loeffler said she “forwarded documents and information to DOJ, the SEC, and the Senate Ethics Committee.”

Burr had his phone seized by federal agents and relinquished his post as Intelligence Committee chairman pending the investigation. He sold between $628,000 and $1.7 million in his securities holdings on Feb. 13, after his panel began receiving daily coronavirus briefings, ProPublica first reported.

Caitlin Carroll, a spokesperson for Burr, declined comment.

Four senators, including powerful Democrat Dianne Feinstein, faced possible investigation.  Only Burr is actually being investigated.  The other three are off the hook essentially.

Trump got what he wanted though, Rubio is now the chair of the Senate intel committee and we'll never see the full evidence against Trump from the committee's investigation, evidence that Burr wanted to make public.

This is as corrupt as it gets, folks.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

Republicans are now admitting that Russia was able to access the voter rolls of "at least one Florida county" in the 2016 election, something confirmed in the Mueller report.  They're calling everything a hoax and a lie but not this.  The question is why.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told The New York Times on Friday that hackers penetrated a Florida county’s elections system in 2016.
Rubio's comments come a week after special counsel Robert Mueller’s report revealed that Russians sent malicious software to Florida county government officials overseeing the 2016 election.

Rubio, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told the Times that there was an intrusion into a county’s elections system but that the target or targets were not notified.

He said national security officials opted to issue a blanket warning about hacking efforts as a way to protect intelligence methods.

"Everybody has been told what it is they need to do to protect themselves from the intrusion," Rubio said. "I don’t believe the specific victims of the intrusion have been notified. The concern was that in a number of counties across the country, there are a couple of people with the attitude of: 'We’ve got this; we don’t need your help. We don’t think we need to do what you are telling us we need to do.'"

Rubio told the newspaper that the hackers were "in a position" to change voter roll data, but it does not appear they did so.
"My biggest concern is that on Election Day you go vote and have mass confusion because voter registration information has been deleted from the systems," he said.

Rubio and former Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) wrote a letter to Florida’s top elections official last year calling on him to seek federal assistance in securing the state’s elections systems.

A spokesperson for Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) told The Hill on Friday that "the FBI has reached out and is working on scheduling a briefing with Senator Scott in the next few weeks" to brief him and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) about the hacking detailed in Mueller’s report.

The "why" appears to be Rubio's "did not appear to do so" caveat when it came to Russians changing voter rolls.  We haven't seen Mueller's counter-intelligence report, and if it turns out that Russians did interfere with voter rolls in order to say, disenfranchise black voters (more than Republicans already regularly did) in Florida and other states, then the call for Trump's resignation may very well become a tsunami.

Republicans are scrambling in other words to get out ahead of what appears to be lethal news for them.

Stay tuned.  This is going at the core of the collusion argument.

Last Call For Leave Them Alone

To say that women dislike Trump is an understatement.  White women, who preferred Trump by 9 points in November 2016, now prefer Democrats by more than double-digit margins.  To try to win them back, Ivanka Trump and Marco Rubio are going to make promises as empty as they come, bleating about family leave legislation that will never make it past the GOP House.

Marco Rubio is starting to strategize with Ivanka Trump to win over skeptical Republicans on a traditionally Democratic issue: paid family leave. 

Capitalizing on President Donald Trump’s endorsement of the idea in his State of the Union address, Rubio is trying to marshal Republicans behind a plan that would neither impose a mandate on employers nor raise taxes to pay for it — two hurdles that have long halted the GOP from embracing paid family leave. 

“We still have to work on members of my own party,” Rubio said in an extended interview with POLITICO about his effort. “I think there will be significant initial resistance to it, because it’s just not an issue that’s been identified with the Republican Party.”

No kidding.  But even this will come at at massive cost to America's parents. With Republicans, there's always a cost, and it's always on the individual.

Rubio has barely started crafting a paid leave bill, much less a broader legislative strategy. But he envisions an idea that has recently gained traction in conservative circles: allowing people to draw Social Security benefits when they want to take time off for a new baby or other family-related matters, and then delay their checks when they hit retirement age.

Want to take time off to raise a kid?  It'll push back your retirement age for months, maybe years.  And trying to pay for a new baby or a family medical emergency on a couple hundred a month?  Good luck with that, especially since Republicans just gutted Medicare, Medicaid, and raised insurance premiums and wrecked maternity coverage on medical plans as part of their tax overhaul.

As is everything else with the GOP, it's a 100% scam designed to hurt American  workers.  Will white women fall for it again?

Who knows?  They already did with Trump before.

Collective Trumpunishment

The Narcissist-in-Chief's ego has gotten so swollen and infected that as Paul Krugman points out, Americans are going to die as a direct result of this kakistocratic administration.

When Hurricane Maria struck, more than a week ago, it knocked out power to the whole of Puerto Rico, and it will be months before the electricity comes back. Lack of power can be deadly in itself, but what’s even worse is that, thanks largely to the blackout, much of the population still lacks access to drinkable water. How many will die because hospitals can’t function, or because of diseases spread by unsafe water? Nobody knows. 

But the situation is terrible, and time is not on Puerto Rico’s side: The longer this goes on, the worse the humanitarian crisis will get. Surely, then, you’d expect bringing in and distributing aid to be the U.S. government’s top priority. After all, we’re talking about the lives of three and a half million of our fellow citizens — more than the population of Iowa or metro San Diego. 

So have we seen the kind of full-court, all-out relief effort such a catastrophe demands? No. 

Admittedly, it’s hard to quantify the federal response. But none of the extraordinary measures you’d expect to see have materialized. 

The deployment of military resources seems to have been smaller and slower than it was in Texas after Harvey or Florida after Irma, even though Puerto Rico’s condition is far more dire. Until Thursday the Trump administration had refused to lift restrictions on foreign shipping to Puerto Rico, even though it had waived those rules for Texas and Florida. 

Why? According to the president, “people who work in the shipping industry” don’t like the idea.

And as Krugman adds, it's not just Puerto Rico, it's healthcare too.

Obamacare repeal has failed again, for the simple reason that Graham-Cassidy, like all the other G.O.P. proposals, was a piece of meanspirited junk. But while the Affordable Care Act survives, the Trump administration is openly trying to sabotage the law’s functioning. 

This sabotage is taking place on multiple levels. The administration has refused to confirm whether it will pay crucial subsidies to insurers that cover low-income customers. It has refused to clarify whether the requirement that healthy people buy insurance will be enforced. It has canceled or suspended outreach designed to get more people to sign up. 

These actions translate directly into much higher premiums: Insurers don’t know if they’ll be compensated for major costs, and they have every reason to expect a smaller, sicker risk pool than before. And it’s too late to reverse the damage: Insurers are finalizing their 2018 rates as you read this. 

Why are the Trumpists doing this? Is it a cynical calculation — make the A.C.A. fail, then claim that it was already doomed? I doubt it. For one thing, we’re not talking about people known for deep strategic calculations. For another, the A.C.A. won’t actually collapse; it will just become a program more focused on sicker, poorer Americans — and the political opposition to repeal won’t go away. Finally, when the bad news comes in, everyone will know whom to blame.

No, A.C.A. sabotage is best seen not as a strategy, but as a tantrum. We can’t repeal Obamacare? Well, then, we’ll screw it up. It’s not about achieving any clear goal, but about salving the president’s damaged self-esteem. 

It's worse than that.  It's collective punishment of the people who dared to vote against Trump in 2016.  He lost the GOP primary there to Marco Rubio, remember?  As a result, he is trying to cause as much suffering to those who, as far as Trump is concerned, no longer matter as Americans and therefore no longer deserve anything from the country other than the coercive power of the state at point-blank range.

This is about Trump making sure his regime hurts anyone and everyone who stands up to him in any way.  And if thousands of American citizens in Puerto Rico have to be sickened or even die from neglect in order to make that point, if millions have to lose their health care coverage and some will die as a result?

So be it.  Dear Leader Trump has spoken.

He is a monster, full stop.

Team Never Trump Folds Immediately

Once again, if you thought Senate Republicans were going to ever really oppose the Trump Regime, you're too stupid to be allowed to vote.

After weeks of agonizing over Rex Tillerson’s ties to Russia, Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham said Sunday that they will vote for President Donald Trump’s secretary of state nominee, essentially clinching approval for Tillerson. 

Though Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is still holding out on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Graham and McCain’s support will allow Trump to breathe easier, knowing that Tillerson will likely be confirmed later on the Senate floor. Tillerson needs just a bare majority of votes to win approval, and it appears highly unlikely now that Tillerson will lose the three or more Republican votes that could have scuttled his nomination.

McCain said he was “very cautious” about voting for Tillerson, the former ExxonMobil CEO who once received an Order of Friendship award from Russian President Vladimir Putin. But the Arizona senator said that his deference to a new president combined with several private conversations with Tillerson sealed the deal. 

“He talked to me a lot about his views with Russia, a lot about the events that have taken place, about … what his duties were as a head of one of the world’s largest corporations,” McCain said on ABC’s “This Week.” “Listen, this wasn’t an easy call, but I also believe that when there’s doubt, the incoming president gets the benefit of doubt, and that’s the way I’ve treated every president.” 

The Foreign Relations panel will vote on Tillerson’s nomination Monday, and Rubio still hasn’t decided whether to vote for Tillerson. The Florida senator said Friday that Tillerson has addressed “some” of his concerns that were brought to light at a brutal inquisition during Tillerson’s confirmation hearing, where Rubio criticized Tillerson for not coming down harder on Putin, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte and Saudi Arabia.

Oh, and Marco Rubio?  He folded this morning.  Tillerson will easily be confirmed by the Senate.

BREAKING: Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida says he'll support Rex Tillerson's nomination for secretary of state.

— The Associated Press (@AP) January 23, 2017

So many suckers, so little time.

Graham, McCain and Rubio folded within days of Trump assuming power.  Don't expect anything other than capitulation from them in the future.  Tillerson, Sessions, Perry, all will be slam dunks.

There's a reason for that.

Down The Ballot, Down The Hole

The Trump Effect is blasting its way through the ranks of the GOP House and Senate candidates, and what were largely considered safe seats, like Sen. Marco Rubio's in Florida, are now toss-ups as Trump's collapse spread through the rest of the party like the disease he is.

Just months ago, Senator Marco Rubio was seen by the Republican establishment as one of its best hopes for taking back the White House. Now, Representative Patrick Murphy, a second-term congressman, iswithin striking distance of defeating Mr. Rubio in the senator’s race to keep his seat.

The race is the most consequential among several in Florida in which Republican incumbents find themselves in unexpectedly tough fights. The plight of Florida Republicans — who seem largely resigned to a Clinton victory, given Hillary Clinton’s four percentage point lead in the polls — is in large measure a result of the name at the top of the ballot. But Donald Trump’s candidacy has only accelerated trends that have changed Florida’s political landscape in ways that Democrats have been more adept at seizing.

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the dean of Florida’s congressional delegation, is fighting more vigorously than she ever has to fend off a Democratic challenger, Scott Fuhrman, a businessman who has little name recognition and is campaigning against Ms. Ros-Lehtinen’s rigid defense of the Cuban embargo. President Obama won the district by a tiny margin in 2008 and by nearly seven percentage points in 2012. This year, Mrs. Clinton is leading Mr. Trump by 17 to 23 percentage points in the district, according to polling commissioned by Mr. Fuhrman.

The changing Latino electorate is the key factor, with Cuban-Americans, who once swung reliably Republican, increasingly up for grabs, particularly younger voters who are more socially liberal than their parents and less dogmatic about the Cuban embargo. Some 58 percent of Latino voters in Florida back Mrs. Clinton, while 28 percent support Mr. Trump, according to a recent poll commissioned by Univision.

This pains Rudy Fernández, one of the architects of the Republican Party’s efforts to earn Latino votes during the 2000 and 2004 campaigns, which were instrumental in George W. Bush’s Florida victories. “It was a very inclusive message, a positive message, Reaganesque,” Mr. Fernández said. In November, he said, he will unenthusiastically vote for Mrs. Clinton and hope that Mr. Trump’s defeat forces a reckoning that reboots the party’s approach toward Latinos.

What this has meant for Mr. Rubio is that he can no longer rely on Cuban-Americans as a stalwart base in a state where many voters have become alienated by his hard-line conservative positions on issues such as gay rights, reproductive rights, gun control and the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and by his shifting stance on immigration reform. Of course, the Trump factor is substantial, too. Mr. Rubio, who once called Mr. Trump a “con artist” wholly unfit to be president, now backs him. Many former Rubio supporters find that galling and indefensible.

For these reasons, Florida voters should support Mr. Murphy. But defeating Mr. Rubio, who earned a reputation on Capitol Hill as a disengaged lawmaker who skipped scores of key votes and hearings, shouldn’t be the only motive.

Mr. Murphy’s positions on climate change — an issue that Mr. Rubio seems deeply ignorant about — gay rights, gun control and comprehensive immigration reform make him by far a superior representative for Floridians. Mr. Murphy has also challenged Mr. Rubio’s obstinate support for the failed embargo on Cuba, which puts him on the right side of history and, increasingly, public opinion in Florida.

So the question is will the Latino turnout be high enough to send Little Marco packing? We'll find out in a couple of weeks.  I certainly hope so.  And he'll have Donald Trump to thank.

Last Call For The Upper Chamber Going Down

Time to check in with the Senate election forecast for November with Nate Silver, and as you can imagine, the odds of the GOP holding their 54-46 control of the chamber is running directly into the orange buzzsaw that is Donald Trump.  Democrats are taking aim at picking up eight GOP seats or more this year, and they are well on their way.

Democrats need to gain a net of four or five seats to win control of the Senate, depending on whether Hillary Clinton or Trump wins the presidency.¹ Before the conventions, polling in the 10 states whose Senate seats were most likely to flip between parties this November showed a pretty close race. Democratic candidates led in Illinois and Wisconsin, both of which would be pickups for their party. The Republican candidate was leading in Nevada (a seat that Democrats currently control). I didn’t include Indiana in my pre-convention analysis because of Democrat Evan Bayh’s late entrance into the race — we had just one partisan poll that included Bayh — but Democratic chances seemed good there (it would be another Democratic pickup). And Republicans led in the other competitive Senate races, all seats the GOP currently holds, so Democrats looked like they could pick up a net of two seats if everything stayed as it was and the polling leader in each state went on to win. 

Since the conventions, however, Trump’s polling has worsened — overall and in states with key Senate races. In the eight states with competitive Senate races and both pre- and post-conventions polling,² Trump had previously been down an average of about 6 percentage points; he’s now down an average of 9 points.³ And while Republican Senate candidates had been up by an average of a little more than 1 percentage point before the conventions in these eight states, they are now down by a little more than 1 point. That is, Republican Senate candidates in key states are still running ahead of Trump, but that cushion may no longer be enough to win now that Trump’s fortunes have worsened.

Just how bad is it for the Senate GOP?  This bad.

Six of the eight Republican candidates for Senate are polling worse than they were before the conventions. Nothing has changed in Florida, according to the polls. And Sen. Rob Portman in Ohio is the only Republican whose fortunes have improved. (That may be partially because he has a massive fundraising edge over his Democratic opponent, Ted Strickland.) The biggest shifts have been in Illinois, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, and in the latter two, the leader flipped. 

Among the eight states, the most precipitous drop for both Trump and the GOP Senate candidate happened in New Hampshire, where Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte had led in most polls before the conventions. Since then, she has trailed in all four polls of the state that have been released. MassINC pollster Steve Koczela, who conducted one of the surveys in the New Hampshire average, had told me that Ayotte’s troubles are at least partially because of “how closely tied the Ayotte and Trump vote are” and that he saw that “as evidence that Trump is hurting her.” 

Republicans have also seen their prospects worsen in Pennsylvania. Trump is now down 10 percentage points in the state, a headwind that may be too much for Republican Sen. Pat Toomey to overcome. Toomey, like Ayotte, had been leading in most polls before the conventions. But he has trailed in four of the five polls conducted since the conventions. Toomey’s slide, in particular, should worry Republicans. He has made it clear that he is not a Trump fan and has avoided appearing with Trump when he visits the Keystone State. And yet, their fates still seem tied. It may be that down-ballot Republicans can only do so much to keep themselves from getting swept up in an anti-Trump tide. 

Democrats now lead in enough states to take back the Senate — so long as Clinton holds on to her large lead. If the favorites in the polls win, the Democrats would flip and pick up the seats in Illinois, Indiana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Republicans would pick up Nevada and hold onto Florida, North Carolina and Ohio. Of course, many of these races are close, and there’s plenty of time before Election Day. The fight for the Senate isn’t over by a long shot. Republicans and Trump — or Republicans without Trump — could rebound.

So, right now, the Dems pick up 5 seats, and the GOP picks up Harry Reid's seat in Nevada, giving the Dems a 50-50 tie, where a Clinton White House win would mean Tim Kaine would serve as VP and Senate tiebreaker.

North Carolina, Ohio, and Florida aren't out of reach, either.  Marco Rubio, Rob Portman, and Richard Burr are all in real trouble at this point, and this was before Trump went the full Breitbart this week.

It would be nice to see the Dems have a decent cushion in the Senate, but right now I'll take the 50-50 tie if it means kicking Mitch the Turtle's ass out of the Senate majority leader's office.

Rubio In The Gray Zone

The Republican party wants to somehow avoid wresting defeat from the jaws of victory in Florida's Senate race, but now that Marco "Private Citizen" Rubio is back in the contest, the focus is now on which Democrat he will face: resume-challenged Patrick Murphy or ethics-challenged Alan Grayson.

In one dramatic day this month, the entire race — one of roughly a half-dozen on which control of the Senate rests — was turned on its head. First, GOP Sen. Marco Rubio dropped his retirement plans and announced plans to run for reelection. Within hours, the CBS affiliate in Miami aired a bombshell investigative story accusing the Democratic establishment's chosen candidate, 33-year-old Rep. Patrick Murphy, of rampant résumé inflation.

Now, Republicans smell blood in the water, and they're looking to damage Murphy so badly that Democrats are forced to spend heavily on his behalf ahead of the state's Aug. 30 primary — or abandon the race altogether. The GOP is adopting a strategy that's been used against it repeatedly in recent election cycles: Propping up a politically toxic, outside-the-mainstream candidate in the other party's primary, in this case firebrand liberal Rep. Alan Grayson. 

"I think anybody would rather run against Grayson” in the general election, said Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada, a vice chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
The reversal of fortunes in Florida could hardly have come at a better time for Republicans, after weeks of negative headlines about their presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump, and increasing concerns about a down-ballot disaster for the party. If Republicans can put the Sunshine State race out of reach, it would substantially boost their hopes of retaining the Senate. The party is clinging to a four-seat advantage, but faces an electoral map tilted decidedly in Democrats' favor. 

Florida was seen as a better-than-even Democratic pickup before Rubio changed his mind, given Trump’s lousy poll numbers in the diverse state and a slate of underfunded and little-known Republican candidates. Now, Republicans have not only a top-tier incumbent, but a major TV takedown of the leading Democrat: The CBS story, which Murphy's campaign has aggressively sought to refute, questioned his stated credentials as a CPA and other business experience. Republicans promptly launched an ad off it, backed by $45,000. It's running on cable in the D.C. area, to sow doubt among donors and operatives about whether Murphy is worth their investment.

The Murphy story is bad.  The comically stupid Rubio flip-flop mess is definitely worse, and given Trump's disastrous albatross status, it should be enough to offset Rubio's incumbency and make it an even race, which the polls show.

But Alan Grayson's ethics problems are lethal, and Republicans are hoping to pick their opponent, one so bad even Rubio can win.  The optimal answer is for Grayson to drop out, but we all know that's not going to happen.

Hillary Clinton can relate, you know?

Last Call For Crossing The Rubio Con, Con't

It's official, Sen. Marco Rubio really is going to run for re-election after his disastrous presidential run.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will seek reelection to a second term, sources familiar with the decision said Wednesday, a complete reversal from his earlier plans that gives the GOP a significant boost in its efforts to block a Democratic takeover of the Senate. 

Rubio becomes the immediate frontrunner in a battleground race that Democrats had been slightly favored to win, though he faces a primary and a potentially tough general election to secure a second term.

Indeed, the first Quinnipiac poll measuring Rubio getting back in the race after his heavily rumored return last week finds Rubio coasting to an easy win over both his potential Democratic opponents.

In Florida, Sen. Rubio leads U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy 47 - 40 percent and tops U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson 48 - 40 percent. Murphy and Grayson are ahead of several largely unknown Republican contenders.

That's somewhat surprising, but we'll see how long this lasts once Rubio comes under attack.

"With Republican national leaders worried about keeping control of the U.S. Senate, Sen. Marco Rubio might ride to their rescue if he decides to reverse field and seek re-election," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

"This Quinnipiac University poll finds Sen. Marco Rubio in good shape when matched against his two potential Democratic opponents," Brown added.

"None of the other Republican candidates for Sen. Rubio's seat has a lead over either of the two Democrats, Congressmen Patrick Murphy and Alan Grayson. But if Rubio's last-minute decision is to seek re-election, he could be in the driver's seat."

Until he crashes the car.  We'll see.

Recrossing The Rubio Con

Don't look now, but in the wake of the Orlando massacre, opportunist and failed GOP presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio might very well flip flop again and run to keep his Senate seat after all. WaPo's James Hohmann takes him to task:

Marco Rubio said yesterday that he is rethinking his decision not to seek another term in the Senate and that he may jump into the race before next Friday’s filing deadline in Florida. 

“I enjoy my service here a lot,” the senator earnestly told reporters at the Capitol. 

For anyone who has watched Rubio over the past five-and-a-half years, that statement – and the straight face with which he said it – is farcical. 

The 45-year-old has heretofore made no secret of his distaste for the world’s greatest deliberative body. His friends have said he “hates” the job. Rubio himself was unapologetic about missing more votes than any other senator during his failed presidential campaign, often complaining about how “frustrating” it is to serve as a member of Congress. 

Rubio is congenitally impatient, an unhelpful personality trait in a chamber that was designed to move slowly. James Madison’s idea when he drafted the Constitution was that the Senate would “cool” House legislation, just as a saucer cools hot tea.

Indeed, the GOP is watching control of the Senate implode in real time. GOP senators like Mark Kirk, Kelly Ayotte, Rob Portman and Ron Johnson are losing in rough races, and losing all of those plus Rubio's seat would mean the Dems would take back the Senate.  It's bad enough for the GOP right now that second-tier races are up for grabs and senators like Richard Burr, Pat Toomey, and even Roy Blunt are in trouble.

So yes, the obvious gamble of pushing Rubio to run is something the GOP is now willing to try, but his biggest problem is the anvil around his neck that's at the top of the 2016 GOP ticket: Trump.

Rubio called his party’s presumptive nominee a con artist and said he shouldn’t be able to have the nuclear launch codes. He also might have said something about the size of his hands. 

More recently, he’s said he’ll vote for Trump because he’s not as bad as Hillary Clinton. 

Trump will spend lots of time in the perennial battleground this fall. He may even wind up picking Florida Gov. Rick Scott as his running mate. It will be awkward for Rubio to avoid all of his big rallies, and with less and less split-ticket voting, their fortunes may be inextricably tied. 

Though there is not a sizable Mexican population in Florida, Trump will probably still galvanize record Latino turnout across the board. And Rubio’s Cuban heritage does not mean he can count on others in the Hispanic diaspora, such as the huge Puerto Rican population around Orlando, to vote for him. 

Remember too that Trump whipped Rubio in the Florida GOP primary. The senator risks alienating The Donald’s many supporters every time he speaks out against the nominee’s divisive rhetoric.

Rubio can't run away from Trump and win in a battleground state like Florida, and yet he can't win by running with The Donald either.  And a November loss now would almost certainly end his national ambitions for good.  Republicans don't like losers, folks.

We'll see if Marco runs. Frankly, I hope he does and that Democrat Patrick Murphy stomps him flat.

Trump Cards, Con't

The most awful moment of last night's GOP debate was how none of the four candidates condemned the beating of a black protester at a Trump rally in NC this week. When given the opportunity by CNN's Jake Tapper to condemn the attack, nobody had the courage to call what happened wrong, not even Trump's opponents.

"I think for every one of us, we need to show respect to the people. We need to remember who it is we're working for," said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). "You know, we've seen for seven years a president who believes he's above the law, who behaves like an emperor, who it is all about him and he forgot that he's working for the American people. And let me — let me ask, turn the camera our here. How many of y'all feel disrespected by Washington?" 

When some audience members cheered, Cruz said confidently that "the frustration that is boiling over" came from people feeling disrespected.

Cruz blamed Obama but at no point said that the violence was wrong.

But John McGraw, the man arrested for assault in North Carolina, did not give reporters the impression of a man driven to temporarily over-reaction by big government. Interviewed by Inside Edition, he expressed no remorse. 

"Yes, he deserved it," McGraw said. "The next time we see him, we might have to kill him. We don't know who he is. He might be with a terrorist organization." 

None of Trump's rivals opted to condemn that action — or condemn Trump for anything he'd done to incite it. 

"I worry about the violence at a rally period," said Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio). "I mean, it's — you know, elections are important but the unity of this country really matters. Jake, here's what I think is happening. There are people out there who are worried about their jobs."

Kasich blamed Obama and unemployment.  He's worried, but that's as far as he's willing to go.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) ran even further away from the context, opting — like Trump — to immediately change the subject from vigilante violence at a rally to how law enforcement officers "deserve our respect" every day. 

"On the issue of anger: Yes, people are angry," said Rubio. "Of course they're angry. Every institution in America has been failing us for the better part of 20 years or 30 years." 

The "violence" round of the debate was in sync with the rest of the night, as candidates passed on chance after chance to criticize Trump. (Cruz was often the exception, but he said little that was not recycled from stump speeches.) The debate ended with none of Trump's rivals criticizing him for incitement, or for expressly criticizing the violence that had swallowed a day of news — and more directly, injured a peaceful protester.

Nobody on that stage gave a damn about a black man getting his face punched in for the crime of being a black man at a Trump rally.  Nobody who supports these monsters cares,  Nobody who enables these monsters cares. Nobody who created these monsters cares.

Here's Trump's response this morning to the assault:

Let me just tell you, we’ve had some violent people as protestors. You know, they are not just people saying, ‘Oh’ — these are people that punch. These are people that are violent people. I get the biggest crowds, by far, not even a contest and — you know, you people don’t like to report it, but actually the one thing good about protestors is you have to go and go into these stadiums, these massive stadiums with 25,000 and 30,000 people and you have to — [indecipherable] because the cameras never turn. I bet the cameras never, ever turn and show the stadium. I always say turn and show the — they don’t. But when is a protestors up in the corner it’s great, because the camera is all there [indecipherable]. Because, you know it’s a negative as opposed to a positive so they turn.

But we’ve had a couple that were really violent. And the particular one when I said, like to bang him. That was — a very vicious — you know, he is a guy who was swinging very loud and then started swinging at the audience. And you know what? The audience swung back. And I thought it was very, very appropriate. He was swinging, he was hitting people and the audience hit back. And that’s what we need a little bit more of. Now, I’m not talking about just a protesters. This was a guy who was — should not have been allowed to do what he did. And frankly, if you want to know the truth, the police were very, very restrained. The police have been amazing. But the police were very, very restrained.”

What rough beast, indeed.

The Vote In Bevinstan

Donald Trump won the Kentucky GOP Caucus last night, the one put together for Rand Paul (no longer in the race) at taxpayer expense, and the entire process was a gigantic mess in more ways that one.

About 1.28 million Republicans in the state were eligible to vote on a damp, cool Saturday in the Bluegrass State from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. local time. In Kentucky’s 2012 GOP presidential primary, about 15.7 percent of the party’s voters went to the polls.

The Republican Party of Kentucky issued a statement Saturday afternoon declaring the caucus a success, but only two-thirds of the vote had been reported to the public more than 6 hours after polls closed.

Trump and Cruz split the vote in the state’s most populous counties, with Trump claiming wins in Jefferson and Pulaski and Cruz taking Fayette, Kenton and Warren. In all, Trump won 78 of Kentucky’s 120 counties.

Leading up to the state caucus, some conservative elites in the state were working to stop Trump’s national momentum.

Several, including former U.S. Rep. Anne Northup of Louisville, state House Republican Leader Jeff Hoover of Jamestown, and state Senate Republican Leader Damon Thayer of Georgetown, publicly backed U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and spoke of stopping Trump. Rubio, however, trailed Trump and Cruz badly.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Louisville never said who would get his vote Saturday but the New York Times recently reported that McConnell told vulnerable U.S. senators up for election this year that they could run ads against Trump even if he wins the nomination.

FoxNews.com reported Saturday that a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Bowling Green said the senator will not say for whom he has cast a ballot and noted he has yet to endorse a candidate since dropping out after the Iowa GOP Caucus in early February. Warren County, where Paul lives, chose Cruz over Trump by a 6.53-point margin.

Rubio came in a distant third, with John Kasich just behind.  All four will receive delegates for the convention.  However, Cruz won Kansas and Maine.  It's now looking like a Cruz vs. Trump fight to the finish for the GOP, the two least-electable Republicans in the general, and I couldn't be happier.  Marco Rubio has fallen to also-ran.

Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan and Mississippi vote on Tuesday, Wyoming voets on Saturday, and then on March 15 the big, big battle: Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina.  With Cruz now holding his own against The Donald at least for the moment, this could turn into a real fight soon.

But Cruz and Trump are the most hated by the GOP establishment, and at least in Kentucky, and in three other states, Republican voters simply don't give a damn about Rubio or Kasich anymore to stop Trump.  The pressure on the two of them to drop out will be massive, but Rubio's home state is Florida and Kasich's is Ohio, so they will still be in through the 15th.

After that is anyone's guess.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article64360982.html#storylink=cpy

The Pucker Factor Is Setting In

Republicans, the ones that actually see Trump as an unelectable albatross anyway, are deep into the "oh God we're screwed" stage of the race after Trump's SC win, and indications that there's no good way out.

Mainstream Republicans arose on Sunday reeling from Donald J. Trump’s sweeping victory in South Carolina, with some refusing to accept that he could be the eventual nominee and others acknowledging that his insurgent candidacy might soon be unstoppable.

With their sights set on upcoming caucuses in Nevada on Tuesday and “Super Tuesday” a week later, the Republican candidates scattered across the country to regroup and prepare to take their messages to a wider audience.

The magnitude of the implications of the results in South Carolina for Republicans had only just begun to set in on Sunday morning, as the party firmly closed the door on 25 years of Bush family primacy and turned toward a New York real estate mogul as its plurality victor.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton appeared relieved that she had won in Nevada, fending off Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and dealing a blow to his momentum with their own South Carolina showdown coming on Saturday.

But the biggest questions remain in a reshuffled Republican race that saw Jeb Bush suddenly drop out and left Mr. Trump’s remaining rivals struggling to gain momentum.  

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who finished nearly tied behind Mr. Trump in South Carolina, urged the rest of the party to coalesce around their campaigns on Sunday and tried to make the case that the nominating fight was still at an early stage.

“Last night was truly the beginning of the real Republican primary,” Mr. Rubio said on CNN. “I think the race last night was reset.”

Last night the GOP party was reset, forever set on the course of racist bigots and hate-filled rhetoric. That's always good enough for 45% of the vote and they know it, but they're unable to hide it anymore.  The beast is truly loose, and there's no way to contain it any longer. Unless you think Rubio is going to save the party.

In the coming week, the campaign plans to start rolling out a parade of new endorsements as Republican leaders make a show of coalescing around the fresh-faced Florida senator.

The backstage maneuvering to boost Rubio was described to BuzzFeed News by half a dozen GOP sources — some with official ties to the candidate, others without — who requested anonymity to discuss internal strategy.

A Rubio spokesman declined to comment Saturday night on these efforts, and the sources interviewed stressed that no one expects Rubio to become the frontrunner overnight. Last week, Rubio’s campaign manager began openly discussing the possibility that they would have to fight all the way to a brokered convention in Cleveland.

But already, Rubio’s path to the mantle of establishment savior is remarkable for its lack of modern precedent. This is a candidate who placed third in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire; who lags a mile behind the the leading candidate, and has yet to win a single primary. In fact, the closest Rubio has come so far to winning a contest was here in South Carolina, where he beat out Ted Cruz for second place by a microscopic margin — and proceed to celebrate this triumph with perhaps the loftiest victory speech ever given by a non-victor.

“If it is God’s will that we should win this election, then history will say that on this night in South Carolina,” Rubio told supporters on Saturday night.

But while he has been mocked lately for his habit of unearned end-zone dancing, Rubio had a real accomplishment to celebrate Saturday night. In an historically crowded and competitive field of contenders, he has outlasted every other viable candidate deemed acceptable by the Republican establishment. He may have gotten this far by process of elimination — but when the process is as brutal as it’s been in this race, Rubio’s team counts survival as a win.

They also know, however, that Washington Republicans’ rush to crown an establishment champion now is a direct response to Donald Trump, whose double-digit domination of the primary field in South Carolina inflamed the growing sense of panic among party elders. After two blowout victories in a row, the billionaire has revealed frighteningly few electoral vulnerabilities — winning moderates in New Hampshire, and evangelicals in South Carolina — and unless something dramatically changes soon, Trump appears poised to coast to the nomination. Impatient party leaders have determined they can’t wait for Rubio to fully prove himself, or for John Kasich and Ben Carson to drop out — they need an anti-Trump gladiator now.

Terror is setting in with Jeb out.  Absolute terror.  And their only hope is a guy who literally can't win.

Last Call For The Shot Heard Round The GOP

Trump wins, Jeb loses in the Palmetto State.

Jeb Bush is suspending his campaign for the Republican nomination, he announced Saturday night.

Bush struggled for months to make inroads against Donald Trump, who constantly mocked the former Florida governor's "low energy" and for spending tens of millions of dollars on his campaign.

But it was Bush's disappointing finish in South Carolina, where his brother, former President George W. Bush, and mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, campaigned for him, that was the final straw.

"The people of Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina have spoken and I really respect their decision, so tonight I am suspending my campaign," Bush said, before being overtaken by emotion.

I figured Jeb would stay in until at least Florida, he couldn't even manage that.  It's all Trump, Cruz, and Rubio now.

Big takeaway from the exit polls: 73% of SC GOP primary voters are 45 or older, and 96% were white.  Trump won older voters by 11 points, where Cruz actually won people under 45 by 3 points.

Among the 46% of SC GOP primary voters who don't have a college degree, Trump won overwhelmingly, by 14 points over Cruz for High School or less, and by 12 points for those with some college.  But Trump also won college graduates, edging out Rubio by 3.

Trump won Republicans by 5 points over Cruz, but won the 22% of independent voters by 12 points over Rubio.

Finally, Trump beat Cruz by 4 points among evangelicals.  If you don't believe "prosperity gospel" is Trump's secret weapon, SC proves it beyond a doubt.

Last thing, and you'll hear this a lot: No Republican has ever won both NH and SC and has not been the nominee.  At this point, Trump should be considered the presumptive GOP candidate in November.

And the Republican party deserves every minute of it.

Last Call For Like A Kansas Tornado, Con't

What better way for the worst senator in the GOP to show he's all for deep austerity cuts than with the endorsement of the most despised governor in America?

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has become the first sitting governor to endorse Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida for president. 

The Rubio campaign announced the endorsement Monday. “Just like Governor Brownback, Marco has consistently defended life, small government and free enterprise throughout his career in public service,” Rubio midwest spokesman Jeremy Adler said in a statement. 

Kansas Republicans will caucus Mar. 5. 

Brownback, a Republican who once ran for president, endorsed then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry in 2011. Perry was a candidate for the 2016 GOP nomination but withdrew. 

“Marco Rubio has a proven track record of protecting life, defending religious liberty, and undoing Obamacare,” Brownback’s statement said. “He will be a wonderful president, and I am proud to offer him my full support.” 

Brownback’s decision is a mild surprise. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is a favorite of many religious conservatives like Brownback. Jeff Roe is the campaign manager for Cruz, and he has had some influence in Kansas. Kansas is a caucus state, like Iowa, where Cruz prevailed. 

He might have also endorsed fellow Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, or former Gov. Jeb Bush. Bush has appeared in Kansas with Brownback. 

It’s possible Brownback may consider Rubio the most electable Republican in the GOP field. Brownback will be looking for work after the 2018 election, and may have an interest in a position with the federal government. A Republican in the White House would be a prerequisite for a federal job.

Quite the job resume there, especially the part where Brownback drove Kansas into a hole. And Marco Rubio thinks that's going to help him in Kansas next month?

Sure thing, Marco.  Keep telling yourself that.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/the-buzz/article60470866.html#storylink=cpy