Donald Trump's Penis Signals The Destruction of the GOP

I think I was the only one not shocked when Donald Trump assured debate watchers that his penis was not as small as hands. When your party's base is filled with adolescents, penis size matters. But apparently there were many others who were shocked and most of them are conservatives.

“The spectacle made me ill,” writes the conservative Free Beacon’s Matthew Continetti. “On screen I watched decades of work by conservative institutions, activists, and elected officials being lit aflame not only by the New York demagogue but by his enablers who waited until the last possible moment to try and stop him.”

Mitt Romney is trying to stop him and gave this speech hour before the debate.



Aside from the obvious problem that Romney sought and received Trump's endorsement in 2012, Romney's points about Trump (which are all dead on accurate) completely fail to note the conservative base admire all these traits in Trump. Why?

Because they are just like that too!

Predictably, the adolescents that support Trump are pissed that adults are trying to talk them down but they want none of it.

"I want to see Trump go up there and do damage to the Republican Party" said Jeff Walls, 53, of Flowood, MS.

Kathy, from Sun City, Ariz., told Mr. Limbaugh she was “absolutely livid by the Romney speech. He’s condescending,” she said, adding that he sounded like a “Democrat the whole time.” Steve from Temecula, Calif., said he had a message for Mr. Romney: “The Republican electorate is not a bunch of completely ignorant fools.”

“We know who Donald Trump is,” he added, “and we’re going to use Donald Trump to either take over the G.O.P. or blow it up.”

Ah, rebellious teenagers:)

Frank Luntz declared Hillary the biggest winner of the night and said that 22 out of his 25 focus groups said that this debate will hurt the GOP in the fall election.

Jamie Johnson, senior adviser to Rick Perry, said, "My party is committing suicide on national television.

Kristen Anderson, millenial pollster, said, "We may as well cancel the rest of the debate bc we are now in a Mike Judge film and nobody's going to talk about anything but Trump hands."  That's not the first time I've hear an Idiocracy reference.

The National Review's Alexis Levinson called for a safe word during future debates.

I think the best reaction, though, came from the Hilz..

Sorta reminds me of my 8th graders...

-- Here’s a sampling of how conservative media outlets are covering the debate:

• National Review: “GOP Implosion Accelerates in Motor City Wreck.”
• FoxNews.com, “GOP breaks down in Motor City”: “Much of the fight on the Republican side is centered on who can beat Clinton,” Chris Stirewalt, the digital politics editor, writes. “The growing fear among GOP voters is that the answer might be: ‘None of them.’”
• Christian Broadcasting Network, “All That Was Missing Was Jerry Springer”: “The Grand Old Party didn’t look grand at all. Instead, they looked gross,” writes CBN political correspondent David Brody. “Reince Priebus is faced with a crucial decision now: does he go with Tylenol or Excedrin? Which medication will take away this big fat headache?”

Trump's Dupes Just Don't Care

The Republican establishment has belatedly begun attacking Donald Trump for being a con man and a liar. The problem is, Trump supporters don't care:

On the issue of the now-defunct Trump University—which offered real estate seminars that cost students up to $35,000, and which is the subject of three lawsuits that allege Trump defrauded students by misrepresenting what the "university" was—Travino admitted it was a "black mark" on Trump's record. "But I don't care," he added. And he doesn't think Trump's supporters will care either.

And:

Matthew Higgens, a Trump supporter from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, felt the same way about Trump University. "To be honest with you, I don't care," he said. Higgens said other Republicans hadn't gone after predatory for-profit colleges that get students to take out loans for degrees and jobs that don't pan out. "How can you point the finger at one guy?" he asked. "It's ridiculous." 

No, it's not ridiculous. The crooks running those other phony for-profit "universities" aren't running for president. Why do Trump's dupes think that a man under indictment for fraud is going to fulfill any of his campaign promises?

Trump is suckering the his supporters exactly the same way that he suckered those idiots who blew $60,000 on worthless Trump University degrees.

The main reason people say they support Trump is that "he tells it like it is." They hate "establishment" politicians because they say whatever they need to say to get elected, and they never deliver on their promises.

The thing is, Trump is doing exactly the same thing: he's making promises he will never keep, and is at this very moment doing the exact opposite of what he promises. Trump is promising to stop immigrants from entering the country, yet Trump hires foreigners by the thousands to work at his casinos, hotels and construction sites (and even married two foreigners). Trump talks about slapping huge tariffs on Chinese goods, yet his Trump-brand merchandise is made in China and Asia.

But, yeah, I know. Trump supporters don't care. They just want to stick it to the politicians they hate, without really getting that Trump will be even worse than the guys they're trying to stick it to.

Trump has made a big deal about how he's funding his own campaign, and isn't beholden to campaign contributors because he hasn't taken their money. Okay. Like many Americans, he cynically thinks if you give a candidate money, you own the candidate.

But the corollary to that is: if you don't give a candidate money he owes you nothing. That means Trump believes he owes the people who simply voted for him even less than nothing. Trump is going to do whatever's good for Trump, not those broke and angry losers who put him in office. And the people who send $50 or $100 checks to Trump without ever meeting him and extracting a promise from him? They're the biggest losers ever, giving away money with no promise of any return whatsoever....

When Trump said, "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters," he was bragging about himself, implying that his supporters are duped losers following a shiny object.


Trump is repeating the prejudices of white people -- saying what he thinks they want to hear -- in order to get elected, dressing it up as "telling it like it is." He's making insane proposals about walls and tax breaks to set out an initial negotiating position, fully intent on dialing down the crazy when he comes to the negotiating table after he's elected.

That's not just my take on it, that's Trump's standard negotiating tactic: ask for the moon when what you really want is the lot on the corner. Throw your negotiating partner off balance with your daring and bravado, and he'll think he's getting a great deal when you screw him over. It's also what Trump told the New York Times editorial board in the "off-the-record" part of a January interview, according to a story on Buzzfeed.

Trump constantly carps about "political correctness," but he has already said that as president he'll be the most politically correct person in the world.

Trump is exactly the kind of wheeler-dealer politician that all his followers claim to despise. He's promising concentration camps for illegal immigrants. He's promising to lock certain Americans up en masse the way Japanese Americans were during WWII. He's promising to torture Muslims and murder their wives and children in cold blood.

He will never do any of that because these acts are violations of the Constitution and war crimes, and most of the FBI and the American military will disobey such illegal orders, and Trump doesn't want to be impeached or sent to the Hague to face a war crimes tribunal.

Trump is blustering hate to get primary votes from whites who feel downtrodden and left behind: just like the people who got suckered at Trump University. After he gets the Republican nomination, he'll back off on most of this crap for the general election, telling people that they misunderstood what he said, that he was just exaggerating for effect. He didn't really mean it, he'll say, it was just the heat of the moment. Or he'll say he was just repeating what he heard someone else say, and wasn't really sure it was true and he didn't mean it in any case.

But Trump's dupes will remain faithful. They'll rationalize that he's lying to to get win the general election, but that once he's in office he'll do what he promised in the primary.

In other words, he'll be acting just like any other politician. Because he is like any other politician, except that he's even less honest than most.


If you listen to the way Trump talks, it's obvious that he's being intentionally misleading -- or senile. He will repeat something three times, then say the opposite, then ask it as a question, then make a joke, then talk about how popular he is, what a loser his opponents are, and how well he's doing in the polls, and how much we're going to win, and how much money we're going to make by suing everyone for libel (yeah, he said that). It's all bullshit


Once he's in office, Trump will do whatever it takes to make him look good to himself. That will probably mean making tons of deals, and throwing away every campaign promise he ever made. Trump will blame Congress and the Democrats for stymieing him, and he'll sue a bunch of newspapers and websites for insulting him, and he'll swear a couple of times and the dupes who elected Trump will still fall for the act and think he's great. Even though he will have swindled them in the biggest con in history.

The truth is, there's no way to know what Trump will do as president. Everything he says is pie-in-the-sky crap. He's taking his supporters for a ride, and it'll cost this country a lot more than one of those worthless Trump University degrees.

Yes We Klan!

Post-Mortem on Super Tuesday

Super Tuesday showed that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the front runners for the respective parties.

The Hilz is in a far better position than the Donald with a 1052 to 427 lead over Bernie. At this point, she's halfway to the 2382 needed to win and will likely win the nomination. Bernie fans can take heart that his ideas will live on in this year's party platform.

Donald's front runner status is not quite as solid as of yet. He's got 319 to Cruz's 226 and Rubio's 110. Kasich has 25. The three of them together beat Trump which I find highly amusing for several reasons. More people don't want Trump to be the nominee than want him to be the nominee. Mitt Romney is making a speech today to try to rally the troops against Trump. Many Republicans are calling for a third party option. They may as well just support Hillary if they are going to take this tack. Of course, this is what you get when you have 89 people running for president in your party. You get a disaster as your nominee.

The best the "stop Trump" folks can hope for is that he does not get to the magic number of 1237 in order to win and they can have a contested convention. That will do wonders for voter turnout in the fall. But a Trump candidacy will have the same effect as many GOPers don't support him. They are kind of fucked any way you cut it.

I've said it many times and will continue to say it. When you spend the better part of a decade conditioning your supporters to believe lies through hate, anger and fear, you get Donald Trump as your nominee.

Conservatives only have themselves to blame.

Donald Drumpf?

Trump: Then and Now

Yesterday the Daily Show did a send up of Trump's "Fascist Week" antics. Trevor Noah ridiculed him for unknowingly retweeting a Mussolini quote, even though it was originated by "ilduce2016." ("Il duce" is the Italian equivalent of Hitler's "Der Führer.").

The episode also looked at the interview in which Trump refused to disavow an endorsement from white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke. Afterwards Trump claimed he couldn't understand the question because of a faulty earpiece. Seriously? He repeated the name "David Duke" and variations on the phrase "white supremacist" several times, so he clearly heard the words, but he just didn't seem to get it.

I have no doubt Trump had problems understanding the question. He hasn't aged well, so he's probably suffering from significant hearing loss. He may have been repeating the words to make sure that he had heard them properly.

The problem I have with Trump isn't so much the lack of disavowal (because we know Trump is intentionally courting -- nay, inciting -- the racist vote), but the physical and mental deficits Trump is clearly displaying in the clip from Sunday, which starts at about 8:30 in the video.

Notice how confused and pinched Trump's expression is. Notice how frequently he blinks. High blink rates are associated with several things: dry eyes, schizophrenia, stress, and lying. I'm guessing Trump is suffering from three out of four of these -- your guess as to which. (As a bonus, notice how bloated and orange his face is, and how white his skin is around the small, beady eyes, and how silly his hair looks. I wouldn't normally point this out, but since Trump is constantly deriding other people for their appearance -- making light of Rosie O'Donnell's weight, or insisting that Heidi Klum is no longer a 10 -- it's only fair to point out that Trump himself is a pasty, dumpy three and was never more than a five.)

Now look at time index 9:50 in the video, which is an interview Trump gave in 2000. He mentions Duke by name as the reason he's getting out of the presidential race. Trump sounds relatively coherent and reasoned.

Comparing the two Trumps side by side, it is clear that Trump's mental and physical state have greatly deteriorated in the last 16 years. Comparing him to other politicians of a similar age -- Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton -- and even older politicians like Bernie Sanders and Jimmy Carter, Trump has not aged well at all.

In recent days Republicans like Marco Rubio have stooped to Trump's level, hurling all kinds of inane insults at the billionaire. Yet they have not yet touched on what is a completely legitimate concern: Trump's rapidly advancing senile dementia.

This is a serious concern. What will the Republicans do if  Trump strokes out from a Viagra overdose having sex with his mistress a month before the election?

Super Tuesday Predictions

As voters in several states around the country head to the polls today, it's become very clear that Hillary Clinton will likely capture the Democratic nomination.She will win Alabama, American Samoa, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. With all of these states and the super delegates she already has, that will put her around the half way point towards the nomination. Bernie Sanders will win Colorado, Minnesota, and Vermont which will clearly not be enough to climb out of the deep hole he is already in.

On the Republican side, Donald Trump will win Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Vermont and Virginia. Marco Rubio will win Minnesota and Tennessee. Ted Cruz will win Texas. With all the victories Trump will pile up, it seems now that he is the likely nominee however it's just a tad too soon to tell. The winner take all states of Florida, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio on March 15th will probably be the day when we see how the rest of the primary season will go.

If Trump wins 2 of these states, it's over. If he wins Florida, Rubio is done. Republicans have been alternately pooping themselves and wringing their hands at the prospect of a Trump nomination. Some have even called for an independent run for one of the candidates that don't win. All of this really says one thing to me.

The GOP as we know it is officially dead.

I've been saying that it was coming for years. The writing was on the wall. Spend time lying to your supporters, stoking fear, anger and hatred-all of which are steeped in xenophobia and racism?

You get Donald Trump as the leader of your party.

The Trump Chant

I wonder if political candidates truly understand what happens when you poke the darker parts of nationalism in a country.

Because you get shit like this.

In Iowa, students chant 'Trump! Trump!' after basketball loss to more racially diverse high school

At least something has come out of it...



Trump's recent David Duke and KKK comments come as no shock to me whatsoever. His base is composed entirely of rabid racists who want the Antebellum South to rise again.

Donald Trump With A Gay Voice

Is Trump Going Senile?

Donald Trump has received some endorsements recently. Some are relatively benign, though hypocritical, like Chris Christie's. Some, like Paul LePage's, the kookie governor of Maine that everyone in the legislature hates -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- are of limited utility.

Other endorsements are completely toxic for the general public, such as the various hate groups that have been running phone banks supporting Trump's candidacy. And then there's David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

When asked if he would refuse endorsements from Duke and other white supremacist organizations, Trump acted confused, repeating himself over and over like some doddering old man:

"I don't know anything about David Duke. I don't know what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacist. I don't know. I don't know, did he endorse me, or what's going on?" he said. That prompted a back-and-forth that went, in part:

Trump: I don't know what group you're talking about. You wouldn't want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about. ... If you would send me a list of the groups, I will do research on them and certainly I would disavow them if I thought there was something wrong.

Tapper: The Ku Klux Klan?

Trump: You may have groups in there that are totally fine and it would be very unfair. So give me a list of the groups and I'll let you know.

Tapper: I'm just talking about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan here.

Trump: Honestly, I don't know David Duke.

Trump is either confused here, or has lost his memory, or is lying. He should know exactly who David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan are:

In 2000, when he ended his presidential campaign, Trump cited Duke's participation in the Reform Party as one reason he no longer wanted the party's nomination.

"The Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. [Pat] Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. [Lenora] Fulani. This is not company I wish to keep," he wrote in his statement.

I'm going to engage in some armchair neurology here. Donald Trump is 70 years old. If elected he would be the oldest man ever elected president, beating Reagan by several months.

As Timothy Egan noted, Trump has suffered from sleep deprivation for decades:

Sleep deprivation, we know, can make you cranky and temperamental, and throw off judgment. The severely sleep-deprived are more impulsive, less adaptable and prone to snappish decisions, and they have trouble listening to others. They miss out on essential REM time, which allows people to process emotions and events in their lives. Smaller things set them off.

“You know, I’m not a big sleeper,” Trump said last November. “I like three hours, four hours, I toss, I turn, I beep-de-beep, I want to find out what’s going on.”

Sleep is essential for good health. As I've written about previously, during sleep the brain cleans out toxic protein buildup. Those proteins are the same plaque tangles that cause Alzheimers. Lack of sleep can cause Alzheimers.

Now, some people are able to function with little sleep. Bill Clinton is cited as an example, and he's the same age as Trump. But comparing Bill Clinton's manner and Trump's, Clinton's mind is clearly still sharp, while Trump is quite evidently suffering from significant personality, memory and cognitive deficits.

The reason Trump sounds like your crazy old uncle, is that -- like your crazy old uncle -- he's getting senile.

When Trump is viewed in this light, everything becomes clear. He thinks he can build a wall and make Mexico pay for it because he's going senile. He is prone to bouts of bile, vulgar tempers and frenetic excitement because he's suffering from Alzheimers. He talks at a third grade level not because of a grand strategy to condescend to his poorly educated audience, but because that's all he can manage. He constantly repeats himself  because he can't remember what he just said.

He runs his presidential campaign from Twitter like some 13-year-old mean middle-school over-privileged princess, not because he's some brilliant media savant, but because mental deficits have regressed his intellect to that of a teen-aged girl.

Last year Trump released a bullshit letter from his doctor claiming that Trump was in the best shape any president ever was. It was written just like a Donald Trump press release, and was obviously penned by Trump's PR flaks. Hilariously, Trump tweeted that the letter had been written by a doctor who had been dead for five years. Trump is in such bad shape he can't even remember who his doctor is.

Clearly, Trump is in a constant state of angry befuddlement.

This suggests an entirely new avenue of attack on Trump: the rest of the Republican field should demand that he submit to a real physical and mental examination by a qualified neurologist or gerontologist, instead of Trump's fart doctor.

I'm sure Ben Carson, brain surgeon, can recommend someone as a parting gift as he drops out of the race.

Mass Mass Shootings

Food Fight!!

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 12 year olds that are conservatives today.



What a fucking embarrassment. As I have said for many, many years...adolescents.

Was Scalia on the Take?

In the Republican debate last night all the candidates said that Antonin Scalia was the kind of justice they would appoint. But what kind of judge was Scalia? 

A judge who accepted hundreds of free trips from private individuals, universities and corporations between 2004 and 2014. The question must therefore be asked: did Scalia clearly separate these private gifts from his court decisions? Or did Scalia receive quid pro quos for the decisions he made?

If Scalia hadn't been gallivanting around the country with elitist wanna-be Knights Templar, and had instead been at home in his own bed, would he be alive today?

The ranch where Scalia died may hold some answers.

The owner of that ranch, John Poindexter, had a case before the Supreme Court just last year. It involved an age discrimination lawsuit at the MIC Group, in which the Supreme Court rejected the plaintiff's petition.

That wasn't Scalia's only connection to Poindexter. Poindexter is an officer in an elite secretive religious organization called the International Order of St. Hubertus. The order is also linked to other secret societies:

The society’s U.S. chapter launched in 1966 at the famous Bohemian Club in San Francisco, which is associated with the all-male Bohemian Grove — one of the most well-known secret societies in the country.

It's not certain what Scalia's relationship was to the Order, but Scalia obviously liked to pal around with wealthy, titled and entitled European nobility. The group’s Grand Master is “His Imperial Highness Istvan von Habsburg-Lothringen, Archduke of Austria.” There were also persistent rumors that Scalia was a member of Opus Dei, another secretive religious organization.

Members of the judiciary are supposed to recuse themselves in cases where there are conflicts of interest or any appearance of impropriety. But the conservative wing of the court has taken hundreds of trips paid for by private groups, corporations and individuals, many of who have cases before the court.

Now, not every trip the justices take is suspicious. Many of them are on the up and up: it's completely reasonable for a university to pay for a justice to make speeches before a conference of legal scholars and allow law students to directly interact with a justice of the Supreme Court. But is it right for conservative "think tanks" and foreign entities to give Supreme Court judges free junkets to Hawaii, Hong Kong and Singapore?

This is particularly important, because one of the court's most controversial decisions in recent years was Citizen's United. In that decision the conservative majority threw out most campaign finance laws, removing almost all limits on corporations trying to influence elections. The conservatives completely rejected the idea that there would be corruption when corporations can give infinite amounts of cash to politicians. Indeed, the first thing Clarence Thomas's wife did after the decision was to go out and start a Tea Party group so she could cash in on the decision.

The vast majority of Americans know Scalia was full of crap in Citizen's United. Democrats and independents certainly do, and the popularity of Donald Trump -- whose big claim is that he's so rich he can't be bought -- shows that most Republicans also believe that unlimited campaign contributions corrupt the political process.

Now, despite rumblings from morons like Trump that Scalia was murdered, all indications are that Scalia died of "natural causes," perhaps because he forgot to use his CPAP machine at the ranch. Yes, Scalia snored himself to death.

But here's the question that conservatives should ask themselves: if Scalia hadn't been gallivanting around the country with elitist wanna-be Knights Templar, and had instead been at home in his own bed, would he be alive today?

Moby Trump

Good Words

From a question on Quora...

The question isn't to amend or abolish the second amendment, it is to properly apply it.  If the President, Congress and the Courts would focus more fully on what a "well regulated militia" is, I think we'd find compromise.

For example, I would propose:

1. In order to own anything that is not a hunting-purpose long gun (Shotguns without tactical attachments, centerfire/rimfire rifles without tactical attachments) you must be: a) willing to serve in some sort of reserve unit of the Armed Forces or b) some sort of police / sherrif / state trooper auxillary unit
2. In order to serve in this well regulated militia, you must a) complete a series of psychological evaluations and b) complete comprehensive training with firearms and other aspects of your job.
3. This would effectively get you into the VA (or state equivalent systems) regarding mental health.

If you are serving in a militia in good standing (including retired), then you can have whatever guns you wish.

Much like in Australia, you'd have to do some sort gun buyback which would probably go over like a lead balloon.

I'm not sure people have a problem with sensible gun ownership, but instead on whether the mentally unfit / untrained people are using them. 

At least that's my take.

And a great take it is! The Gun Cult chides continually that gun safety advocates have no real plan and or idea what new laws should look like. This is a great example of exactly what it should look like and something I firmly support. I would add that the mental health evaluations be at least three times a year and one hundred hours a year minimum training.

War Zones Are Safe!

What Drives The Gun Cult

I was recently asked to answer a question on Quora about gun rights activists. Here was my response.

There are several reasons why gun rights activists ignore gun control success in other countries and they all revolve around the reasons why they are passionate about their guns in the first place.

First, like any hobby, people love their toys. If there is a chance that they might be taken away, it's only natural that people would get upset. Seeing that the rest of the civilized world functions just fine with stricter gun control translates into the possibility that their toys will be taken away hence the emotion, temper tantrums, and willful ignorance of functional societies.

Second, gun rights activists are generally a very insecure lot who draw empowerment from their guns. It would be interesting to see a peer reviewed study on how many of them were bullied as kids because they've always struck me as having inferiority complexes. Seeing other people "disarmed" in other countries strikes deep to their biggest fear: being powerless. Ironic, for two main reasons. One, owning a gun makes it more likely that they will injure/kill themselves or others as opposed to protecting them against bad guys.

Two, having a few guns against a federal government who has drones/tanks/planes/battleships and thinking that somehow they are a force to be reckoned with is pure fantasy. Speaking of governments...

Third, gun rights activists believe that they are guarding against a possible, future totalitarian government. This is a very powerful belief that overcomes any positive news about countries with successful gun control. They disseminate propaganda that "proves" that countries with stricter gun control are subjugating their people. Here is an example...



Fourth, gun rights activists, like most conservatives, experience cognitive dissonance when confronted with objective reality. When they see how successful gun control has been in reducing violent crime in every other civilized country in the world, their brains react in such a way that the feel like they are under physical attack. Several peer reviewed neurological studies have shown this to be valid and are detailed in the following book.

Amazon.com: The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science- and Reality (9781118094518): Chris Mooney: 

Books In many ways, this is the most direct and scientific reason why they ignore the precedent set by other countries. It makes them feel physically uncomfortable and this is due to the previous three reasons mentioned above.

So Long, Jeb

After yesterday's 4th place finish in South Carolina, Jeb Bush suspended his presidential campaign. I suppose no one should really be surprised given the nature of the GOP base these days. Ad in the fact that Bush came off every single day like your awkward dad and it simply spelled doom for him.

I was pretty surprised myself. I thought the boost from his brother and mom would at least put him in third place. This was not the case as Rubio eeked out a 2nd place win with Cruz in third. Kasich and Carson came in 5th and 6th as I originally predicted. Rubio's finish surprised me as well but it does help to have endorsements. It appears that we now have a 3 man race and the hopes of GOP leaders are now pinned on a guy who panics when the spotlight is on him.

So, now the question becomes...is Trump inevitable? The answer is no. Politico's Ben Shcreckinger points out that it's going to be a long ride.

Despite Trump’s polling lead, there are significant obstacles to his running away with the nomination in the coming weeks. With Rubio buoyed by momentum, Nevada’s organizing-heavy caucuses set for Tuesday, and the first half of March weighted toward states where Cruz is poised to finish strongly, there is little space for Trump to translate that lead into a certain nomination in the coming weeks. 

Agreed. Rubio is a very imperfect candidate but he polls better against Hillary Clinton than Trump or Cruz. Speaking of the Hilz, as I predicted, she won the Nevada caucuses yesterday and more or less put Bernie Sanders' bid for the presidency to rest. Bernie will be a significant factor, however, in shaping the 2016 Democratic platform which I think is a very, very good thing.

The Pope V The Donald

Nevada and South Carolina Prognostications

I was all set to predict Bernie Sanders for the Nevada win but some recent polling and Nate Silver's model has led me to change my mind. Hillary will win Nevada 52-46 and the talk about Bernie being a truly national candidate will begin. Does he really have appeal coast to coast? I''m not sure he does.

On the GOP side, Donald Trump will pick up another primary with Ted Cruz coming in 2nd, Bush 3rd, Rubio 4th, Kasich 5th and Ben Carson 6th. Bush's 3rd place showing will keep him around long enough until Super Tuesday. Rubio's camp is going to have to start answering the tough questions starting with a the big one. Why is someone who has finished 3rd place or worse still in the campaign? Kasich sill be around until Super Tuesday as well. Carson needs to give it up. He has just enough of that wacky, ideological nonsense to appeal to the right wing blogger but they are a pretty small part of the electorate.

I hope the GOP continues to enjoy their top two candidates. They certainly deserve them:)