Clinton’s attacks on Sanders signal worries

The Democratic party establishment and the head of the Democratic National Committee Debbie Wasserman-Schultz have been totally in the tank for Hillary Clinton and have tried as much as possible to ensure her a smooth path to her nomination by having as few debates as possible and scheduling them at times with low viewership, such as weekend evenings and during the holiday season, so that her opponents do not get much visibility. In fact today’s debate is not only on a Sunday, it is scheduled at the same time as an NFL playoff game and the popular PBS soap opera Downton Abbey.
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Christie’s pants catch fire

As I said before, facts don’t seem to matter anymore in the Republican primary race and fact-checkers must feel that they are crying in the wind because the candidates now just flat out lie, not bothering to provide even a veneer of plausibility. But even within that fog of lies, Chris Christie stands out for his brazenness, giving even Carly Fiorina, whose supreme disregard for facts was a wonder to behold, a run for her money.
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The unlikelihood of a brokered Republican convention

Given the large number of candidates for the Republican nomination and the fact that even the top candidate Donald Trump is currently only scoring around 30%, there has been considerable speculation that the convention might arrive with no candidate getting a majority of the delegates necessary to win on the first ballot. The media in particular have been salivating at this prospect of a brokered convention full of wheeling and dealing and knock-down, drag-out, slugfests because usually these conventions are boring, tightly-staged, ceremonial affairs.
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Republican debate: The clown cavalcade continues

Yesterday was the 174th Republican primary debate (or so it seemed though it was just the 6th) and going into the expectations were clear. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz would slug it out for primacy among the anti-party establishment wing, with Trump issuing his patented passive-aggressive attacks along the lines of “Ted Cruz is a very nice guy and I like him a lot but he really needs to clear up doubts about his citizenship by going to the courts and getting a ruling.” How Cruz would respond was the main interest.
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Stakes rise in Oregon standoff

The stakes are rising in the standoff in the Oregon wildlife refuge. Seemingly emboldened by the lack of response by the authorities, the militants have used heavy equipment belonging to the federal government to remove fences, no doubt to free the land from the tyranny of government, and even though such removal is against the wishes of the ranchers who actually live in the area. They are also using government computers in the offices to create websites promoting their cause. These are clearly violations of the law.
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Four snippets of political humor

I: As Ed Pilkington reported after attending Donald Trump’s rallies, his main weapon is humor. Trump gets the crowd laughing before setting them afire with his incendiary statements. But comedy is hard and as any stand up comic on tour can attest, you have to keep generating new material to keep the fans coming.

And so it was with one Trump fan who complained that his rallies were becoming boring because his jokes were getting a little old. He said that Trump needed to create new material but was booted out of the rally for his helpful comments.

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