http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/paul-ryan-mega-donors-donald-trump-220948

PALM BEACH, Fla. ― House Speaker Paul Ryan met Thursday night at a pricey French restaurant here with some of the Party’s biggest donors to assess a political landscape dominated by one vexing question: what to do about Donald Trump.
The dinner was a highlight of a secretive two-day conclave, convened under heavy security by a donor group headed by New York hedge fund manager Paul Singer, that is being viewed as a pivotal moment for the big-money effort to block Trump from the Republican presidential nomination.
Sources familiar with the gathering said it was not intended to rally a last-ditch anti-Trump cabal, and that, in fact, there was a diverse array of opinion represented among the donors in attendance. Some seemed open to supporting Trump if he wins the nomination, while others are backing his remaining rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich.
But many of the two dozen or so donors in attendance ― including Singer and Chicago Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts ― have given millions to super PACs devoted to attacking Trump or supporting his now-vanquished rivals, including Marco Rubio, Scott Walker and Jeb Bush. Now, however, it’s becoming increasingly likely that efforts to derail Trump by defeating him in primaries and caucuses are futile.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has condemned Donald Trump’s outrageous comments twice now — once after the real estate mogul called for a Muslim ban and once after he failed to adequately distance himself from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. But the Wisconsin Republican said on Thursday that he doesn’t think he’ll have to denounce Trump’s entire candidacy.

“I do not believe I’ll have to do that,” Ryan told reporters at his weekly press conference. The speaker didn’t clarify whether he thinks he won’t have to disavow Trump because the would-be nominee will be on his best behavior, or because he doesn’t think Trump will be the nominee.

When a reporter pressed Ryan, saying he has already “denounced Donald Trump for xenophobia and Islamaphobia,” Ryan playfully shrugged as if to say, “Well, yes and no.”

Ryan has yet to use Trump’s name in one of his condemnations, opting instead for nebulous statements about what conservatism really is and what it is not. But it’s clear that Ryan has been referring to the GOP front-runner, even if Trump himself doesn’t seem to be getting the message.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paul-ryan-donald-trump_us_56ead521e4b084c6721f8c05

Ted Cruz Announced He’s Suspending His Campaign To Tend To His Thousands Of Glistening Eggs

http://www.clickhole.com/article/tough-call-ted-cruz-announced-hes-suspending-his-c-4127?utm_campaign=default&utm_medium=ShareTools&utm_source=twitter



Well, this is an absolutely massive presidential campaign shakeup. Despite a relatively strong showing so far in the Republican primary elections, Ted Cruz announced this morning that he has decided to suspend his campaign for president in order to tend to his thousands of glistening eggs.

“I believe that I could have served the American people admirably as president, but at the end of the day, my throbbing, glistening eggs come first,” a visibly emotional Cruz said at a press conference in St. Louis this morning. “I need to keep my eggs wet with Sprite soda, and that’s incredibly time-consuming. I cannot in good conscience continue my bid for the presidency when I know that twice every hour I need to go into my garage, where my thousands of throbbing eggs shimmer in the dim headlights of the minivan I keep idling at all times, and I need to moisten them with Sprite soda from a spray bottle. My eggs have got to be wet with Sprite soda. I’m sorry.”

Cruz held a brief Q&A session following his announcement, and when a crestfallen supporter asked the Texas senator why he couldn’t get somebody else to care for his mountain of eggs until the election was over, Cruz responded firmly and pragmatically:

“I need to sing hymns to my eggs, I need to keep my eggs safe from cockroaches and other predators, I need to count my eggs, and I need to keep my eggs wet with Sprite soda. Most importantly, when the eggs hatch, I need to be there so that the hatchlings can devour my body. It has to be me. Thank you to all my supporters, and may God continue to bless this great country.”

GOP Leaders Assure Sobbing Rubio It Not His Fault Party Splitting Up

http://www.theonion.com/article/gop-leaders-assure-sobbing-rubio-it-not-his-fault--52582



WASHINGTON—In an effort to comfort the distraught former presidential candidate, top GOP leaders reportedly sat down next to a sobbing Marco Rubio Thursday and assured him that it wasn’t his fault the Republican Party was splitting up. “Marco, trust me, this isn’t about you—we’ve been having problems for years,” said RNC chairman Reince Priebus, who consoled the weeping Florida senator by repeatedly telling him that the party’s breakup had nothing to do with anything he had said or done. “The fact is, we tried our best to work through our issues, but we just fought all the time. There’s nothing you or any of the other establishment candidates could have done about it. Okay, buddy?” At press time, Rubio had started blubbering even louder when Priebus admitted the party would probably never reconcile.

Hey Hillary, Here's Why People Don't Trust You

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cody-cain/hey-hillary-heres-why-peo_b_9206424.html

If Hillary is going to confront and address this issue, she must look within herself. Time and again, she does not appear to be motivated by the truth, but instead, she behaves like a political attack machine motivated by an insatiable drive to win for herself at any cost.

This aspect of Hillary was on full display in the recent outburst over which of the two Democratic candidates is more "progressive." The truth is obvious. Of course Bernie is more progressive. This has been his political posture for his entire career, even being a Socialist for goodness sake.

But Hillary pulled her switchblade and began fighting. In this political climate, she wants to be viewed as the progressive regardless of the truth. So she cherry-picked a few of Bernie's past votes in the Senate and tried to paint him as not being progressive.

Hillary's motivation here was not truth, but politics. She is all too willing to manipulate, distort, and deceive to try to score political points for herself.

To Take out Trump, Hillary Clinton Must First Dispense With Her Inner Politician

The most important question of the 2016 presidential campaign was asked by an Indian-American doctor and poet named Amit Majmudar in a Democratic forum on March 13. It was so important that the moderator, Jake Tapper, had Dr. Majmudar repeat it to both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. The doctor said his family was afraid of Donald Trump. “I am going to have one mission heading to the ballot box, which is to keep him out of office,” he announced. “Leaving aside the negative rhetoric and attack ads, none of which have worked so far, can you share with us three specific points of your anti-Trump game plan?”

Sanders’ response was very Bernie: Trump was a pathological liar and a billionaire. But Clinton’s was borderline weird, and now that she has reinforced her status as the likely Democratic nominee, it bears some scrutiny. She began with the spurious argument that she’d received 600,000 more votes than Trump in the primaries. Then she tried the victim-martyr route: “The Republicans have been after me for 25 years,” she said to applause from the faithful. “And there isn’t anything they haven’t already said about me. And in the course of dealing with all of this incoming fire from them, I have developed a pretty thick skin.” Then she made an oblique threat: that there were other arguments against Trump–the product of opposition research, she implied–that she was holding in reserve. “I’m not going to spill the beans right now,” she said.

Her final Trump card was foreign policy experience. She said that leaders of other countries had contacted her privately to say they hoped she’d win–an argument with less than zero impact on most American voters. She concluded, more relevantly, by contrasting her knowledge of the world with Trump’s bombast and inexperience.

***

Clinton seems particularly ill equipped for the task. She is our very own quinoa and kale salad, nutritious but bland. Worse, she’s the human embodiment of the Establishment that Trump has been running against. “I am not a natural politician,” she has admitted, and Tapper asked her what she means by that. She said she couldn’t speak “in poetry” the way her husband and Barack Obama can. True dat, but poetry is only the beginning of Clinton’s deficiencies. Indeed, her real problem is that she’s too much of a politician. She still speaks like politicians did 20 years ago, when her husband was President. This year, the candidates who have seemed the most appealing–Trump, Sanders, John Kasich–don’t use the oratorical switchbacks that have been beaten to death since John F. Kennedy: “We need a uniter, not a divider.” They also, sadly, don’t take carefully nuanced positions. Asked about fracking in her Flint, Mich., debate with Sanders, Clinton split hairs with a microlaser, leaving everyone confused. Sanders simply said, “I do not support fracking.”

http://time.com/4262504/to-take-out-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-must-first-stop-acting-like-a-politician/

It doesn’t take much more than an internet connection and an idea to start a movement these days, and for our latest example, look no further than the recently launched petition urging Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to change the national anthem of the United States to Black Sabbath‘s “War Pigs.”

“The current national anthem has served America proudly for many a year now. However … it’s time that we retire that old standard and choose a song that better reflects America and its policies and practices,” writes organizer Shannon Madden. “I nominate ‘War Pigs’ by Black Sabbath. I’m open to suggestions, but I’m hard pressed to think of a more honest assessment of where we are in 2016 America.”

As of this writing, Madden’s petition has gathered roughly 1,400 online signatures, with responses ranging from the bitterly sarcastic to the personal — like the comment from petitioner Jose Gerard, who complains that the current national anthem is “played out” and adds, “I’m sick of hearing the opening line, ‘Oh say can you see’ … It sounds too much like ‘Jose can you see.'”



http://ultimateclassicrock.com/war-pigs-national-anthem-petition/

More people voted for Trump than for Clinton in two states Tuesday night -- Missouri and Ohio. In Florida, Clinton edged Trump by a nose -- less than 2 percent. Clinton had only one other candidate splitting the Democratic vote in a contested election, while Trump was embroiled in a four-way contest that factionalized Republican voters. In Ohio, Trump bested Clinton by about 50,000 votes despite coming in second in the GOP contest to John Kasich, the state's current governor. In Missouri, both Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) bested Clinton's vote total by nearly 20 percent.

Enthusiasm for Clinton appears to have plummeted from the levels she enjoyed in 2008, when she defeated Barack Obama in both the Florida and Ohio primaries. Clinton had 44 percent fewer supporters in Ohio this time around than she did eight years ago. Combine Clinton and Sanders' Ohio numbers from Tuesday night and they still do not eclipse Clinton's showing in the state from 2008.

Since Florida, Missouri and Ohio are traditionally swing states in the general election, these results should be causing some worry at the Democratic National Committee -- Ohio most of all. Democrats are simply performing poorly in the Rust Belt this year. And the only way Democrats will blow a November matchup against Trump is by getting beaten in the upper Midwest.

Trump has been running a flagrantly racist campaign. Given the vitriol he has directed at Latinos, it's hard to imagine him winning swing states like New Mexico or Colorado (although as Tuesday's results show, Florida may not be out of reach). But Trump doesn't need those states to take the presidency. All he has to do is turn the Rust Belt red.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/clinton-trump-ohio_us_56e9a0b8e4b065e2e3d8314c