
Ted Cruz Surge Built on Policy, Old Fashioned Campaigning
The latest Des Moines Register poll shows Texas Senator Ted Cruz surging to a 10 point lead over his nearest rival, Donald Trump, among caucus goers in Iowa.

The latest Des Moines Register poll shows Texas Senator Ted Cruz surging to a 10 point lead over his nearest rival, Donald Trump, among caucus goers in Iowa.

The final $1.1 trillion spending bill being negotiated in Congress will be a massive 1,000+ page of legislation that few people will read. In addition to funding government through next year, the must-pass bill is likely to contain dozens of provisions that would otherwise be difficult to pass.

A new Rasmussen Poll finds 70 percent of Republican voters saying they believe Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for President.

A new poll of New Hampshire Republicans finds Donald Trump still leading the crowded field, but by only 1 point.

Trump leads the Republican field with 38.6 percent support, followed closely by Cruz, who had the support of 32.9 percent of poll respondents. Together, the two outsider candidates command more than 70 percent support from Citizens United grass roots activists.

As Congress rushes to complete its work for the year, Capitol Hill is locked up with negotiations over a final spending bill and legislation to renew a host of tax credits and subsidies.

Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the country has elicited widespread condemnations from the media, Democrats and most establishment Republicans. The most recent Pew survey of Muslim attitudes around the world, however, suggests that heightened scrutiny of Muslim immigrants is warranted.

A June poll of Muslims living in the United States found a significant minority supporting the use of violence against those who “offend” Islam. Frank Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy, which commissioned the poll, appeared on CNN Tuesday to discuss the survey and recent proposals to curtail Muslim immigration to the U.S.

Stephen Koff, Washington Bureau Chief for the Cleveland Plain Dealer has been trying to interview Democrat Senate candidate Ted Strickland about his views on gun control in light of the terrorist attack in San Bernardino.

A report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concludes that ObamaCare will reduce the labor supply by 2 million workers below what it would have been without the health care overhaul.

This latest CNN poll, obviously, is a snapshot of the current standings in the Presidential race. More interesting is the dramatic drop in Hillary Clinton’s support over the fall. In some cases, she has lost more than 20 points relative to her Republican challengers.

The economy added a modest 211,000 jobs in November, in line with economists’ expectations. The jobs report, released Friday, clears the final hurdle before the Federal Reserve takes its expected step to gradually increase interest rates at its next meeting on December 16.

The bill provides just over $200 billion over 5 years for highway and road construction. The legislation also diverts $48 billion out of the highway trust fund to spend on mass transit. The majority of the funding for the bill comes from revenue from the federal gas tax. In recent years, however, Congress’ spending needs have outpaced revenues from the gas tax. Compromise on spending is considerably easier when more money is added.

House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republican leaders in Congress are putting the final touches on a massive omnibus spending bill that will fund the federal government until after the presidential election.

The GOP could broaden its appeal among black and Hispanic voters if it embraced legislation to counter “climate change,” says a writer published by the Washington Post.

The Institute of Supply Management’s PMI Index, a composite of several economic indicators, showed manufacturing slipped to 48.6 in November, well below October’s 50.1 reading. A reading below 50 indicates contraction within the manufacturing sector.

Left out of most news reports is the fact that carbon emissions and greenhouse gas emissions have been falling in the United States. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, carbon emissions in the U.S. have fallen 10.2 percent in the last decade. This fact flies against oceans of rhetoric about the U.S. continuing to pump carbon into the atmosphere absent government action.

The latest Reuters tracking poll shows neurosurgeon Ben Carson jumping back into 2nd place in the race for the GOP nomination.

Consumer spending is always driven by a certain amount of hype, but the barrage of Black Friday events, sales and deals belongs in its own alternate reality. Sales can only be as good as the underlying economy. On that fundamental, this year’s retail sales picture looks bleak. For at least the past six years, the actual economy has almost always turned out to be weaker than the markets, analysts or the Fed have believed.

Pundits expected the terrorist attacks in Paris to shove the GOP’s primary race towards national-security debates and to boost the experienced pols, including Sen. Marco Rubio.

Under the new estimate, the economy grew by 2.1 percent in the July-September period, slightly higher than the 1.5 percent growth originally reported. The increase, though, was driven by a build up in business inventories, suggesting potentially weaker growth to end the year.

In the 2016 presidential election, the Democrat Party’s fortunes, and those of frontrunner Hillary Clinton, are inexorably tied to President Obama’s handling of the growing crisis in the Middle East. The contest for the Republican nomination, meanwhile, is going through a major reshuffling that will likely winnow the currently crowded field.

Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton loses outright against six possible Republican candidates. Clinton and a seventh possible GOP candidate, businesswoman Carly Fiorina, split the vote with 42 percent each. Clinton trails all other candidates, never receiving more than 43 percent of the vote in the survey,

It is not unheard of for news organizations to make mistakes in their reporting. It is unusual, though, for a news organization to hire a PR flack whose specialty is beating back unflattering stories or pushing attacks on his opposition. Most news organizations don’t aspire to need a staffer permanently assigned to defend its reporting. Politico apparently thinks it does.

Officials with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were in regular contact with progressive activists over proposed regulations targeting the payday lending industry, recently released emails reveal.