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Ben Carson blasts RNC, threatens to leave Republican Party — Ben Carson on Friday blasted the Republican National Committee following a Washington Post report that nearly two-dozen establishment party figures were prepping for a potential brokered convention as Donald Trump continues to lead most polls.
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RedState, The Right Scoop, Political Wire, NBC News, Washington Post, The Daily Caller, Business Insider and Hot Air
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WBUR Poll: Trump's Call To Ban Muslims Not Hurting His Prospects In N.H. — Donald Trump's divisive plan for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S. sure isn't hurting his prospects in New Hampshire. — A new WBUR poll (topline, crosstabs) shows him with his strongest lead yet among likely …
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CNN, No More Mister Nice Blog, WWLP-TV, Business Insider, Hot Air, Washington Post, Politico, NBC News, Talking Points Memo, The Week, The Hill and Political Wire


GOP preparing for contested convention — Republican officials and leading figures in the party's establishment are now preparing for the possibility of a brokered convention as Donald Trump continues sit atop the polls and the presidential race. — More than 20 of them convened Monday …
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ThinkProgress, CNN, USA Today, Washington Free Beacon, Business Insider, Bloomberg.com news, Mediaite, Raleigh News & Observer, rubber hose, SaintPetersBlog, Outside the Beltway, Hot Air, FiveThirtyEight, Breitbart, The Week, Weasel Zippers, Talking Points Memo, PoliticusUSA, The American Conservative and Washington Monthly

House: Could Trump Lead to Apocalypse for Republicans? — To most Republican strategists, there's no bigger nightmare than Donald Trump as the GOP's presidential nominee in 2016. This week, just about every Democrat running for president, Senate, House, and their respective campaign committees sought …
Discussion:
Washington Examiner and Washington Monthly

AS TRUMP RISES, CLINTON PREACHES LOVE AND KINDNESS — URBANDALE, Iowa (AP) — Hillary Clinton had just finished detailing the dangers of terrorism, recalling tough calls in the White House situation room as secretary of state and lashing out at her Republican rivals for threatening the safety of Americans.
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NewsBusters, Instapundit, Infowars, Althouse, ABC News, abc7.com and Jammie Wearing Fools


The Secret Plan To Nominate Mitt Romney From The Convention Floor
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Daily Wire, Washington Post, No More Mister Nice Blog and Wall Street Journal

Carson Threatens To Leave Party If GOP Officials Keep Plotting Over Convention
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Daily Kos


San Bernardino shooters planned bigger attack, investigators believe — An FBI dive team on Thursday searches for electronic devices or other evidence possibly left in Seccombe Lake, about two miles north of the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino. — An examination of digital equipment recovered …
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Whistleblower Says He Could Have Prevented CA Attack If Gov't Didn't Cut DHS Funding — A former Homeland Security employee says he likely could have helped prevent the San Bernardino terror attack if the government had not pulled the plug on a surveillance program he was developing three years ago.
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RedState, The Daily Caller, Infowars, Betsy's Page, Jammie Wearing Fools and The Last Tradition


Blockbuster Allegation: DHS, State Halted Investigation Into Islamist Group Linked To San Bernardino Terrorists
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Breitbart, Allen B. West, Moonbattery and Daily Wire

A former Department of Homeland Security agent says that an investigation …
Discussion:
Daily Wire


Trump: I will mandate death penalty for killing police officers — Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Thursday vowed to issue an executive order to mandate the death penalty for anyone who kills a police officer. — “One of the first things I'd do in terms of executive order …
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Townhall.com, Hot Air, Washington Post, Daily Wire, RedState, John Hawkins' Right Wing News, Truth Revolt, Politico and Towleroad
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Trump endorsed by police union after proposing Muslim ban
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ThinkProgress, Washington Post, The Daily Caller, SaintPetersBlog and The Week

Hillary Clinton on Donald Trump: 'I no longer think he's funny'
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The Hill, Politico, WNCT-TV, Wall Street Journal and The Week


Lindsey Graham: Trump Leading Because 40% Of GOP Voters Think Obama Is Kenyan Muslim — “I can promise you that Hillary Clinton will clean his clock,” Graham added. — Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images — South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said his presidential opponent Donald Trump …
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Political Wire
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Fear of Terrorism Lifts Donald Trump in New York Times/CBS Poll — Americans are more fearful about the likelihood of another terrorist attack than at any other time since the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, a gnawing sense of dread that has helped lift Donald J. Trump to a new high among …

Ted Cruz Questions Donald Trump's ‘Judgment’ to Be President
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Politico, Trail Blazers Blog, Tales from the Trail, Hot Air, Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, Business Insider, Defense One, New Jersey Online, Slantpoint, NBC News, NewsBusters, No More Mister Nice Blog, Independent Journal, Washington Post, The Right Scoop, alan.com, Real Clear Politics, Bloomberg Business, Washington Free Beacon, Taylor Marsh, Political Insider blog and New York Magazine

Empowering the Ugliness — We live in an era of political news that is, all too often, shocking but not surprising. The rise of Donald Trump definitely falls into that category. And so does the electoral earthquake that struck France in Sunday's regional elections, with the right-wing …
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bradford-delong.com, Salon and Vox Popoli

Donald Trump Really Doesn't Want Me to Tell You This, But ... Over a long weekend on assignment for Playboy magazine, Mark Bowden found that behind the garish Trump façade lies only more ugliness. — I spent a long, awkward weekend with Donald Trump in November 1996 …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly


Is Affirmative Action Finished? — “If this Court rules that the University of Texas can't consider race, or if it rules that universities that consider race have to die a death of a thousand cuts for doing so, we know exactly what's going to happen,” Gregory Garre, the lawyer for the University of Texas …
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The American Conservative
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With Remarks in Affirmative Action Case, Scalia Steps Into ‘Mismatch’ Debate
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JustOneMinute, Politico, Common Dreams, Washington Post and reverbpress.com


Camille Paglia Takes on Taylor Swift, Hollywood's #GirlSquad Culture — Can group selfies advance women's goals? In an essay for The Hollywood Reporter, the famed feminist urges social media packs to skip the “tittering, tongues-out mugging of Taylor Swift” — whose “twinkly persona …
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The Times of Israel, Independent Journal, Guardian, Althouse, alicublog, Daily Wire, Refinery29, New York Magazine and Atlanta Buzz …


Colorado ACLU Board Member: Shoot Trump Voters ‘Before Election Day’ — Loring Wirbel, board member of the American Civil Liberties Union's Colorado chapter and co-chair of the ACLU's Colorado Springs chapter, called for supporters of GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump to be shot before they vote for the billionaire businessman.


Survey of Kentucky Residents on State Health Policy — Liz Hamel, Mira Norton, and Mollyann Brodie — Executive Summary — Kentucky has received national attention as the only Southern state to fully embrace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by creating its own state-based health insurance marketplace …
Discussion:
New York Times, Balloon Juice and Wonk Wire


EXCLUSIVE: Video shows customer hit worker, break glass in NYC restaurant as he rails against Muslims; man kicks woman, calls her ‘trash’ in separate crime — A customer at a Herald Square restaurant burst into an anti-Muslim tirade, slapping one worker than busting glass partitions with a chair …
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Talking Points Memo, Gothamist, Raw Story, Mediaite and Eater


The 13 Women Who Accused A Cop Of Sexual Assault, In Their Own Words — The alleged victims of former Oklahoma City Police Officer Daniel Holtzclaw told their stories publicly for the first time last year in court. Those testimonies have never been reported in full, until now.
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CNN, Associated Press, Hit & Run, Guardian, NBC News, KFOR-TV, addictinginfo.org, Washington Post, ThinkProgress, Shakesville, Boing Boing, U.S. Uncut and Refinery29


Priest paid his male ‘sex master’ from collection plate: lawsuit — A Catholic priest swiped collection-plate donations to pay for drug-fueled sex romps with a heavily muscled S&M “master,” a new lawsuit charges. — Parishioners claim the Rev. Peter Miqueli has stolen at least $1 million since 2003 …

Poll: Solid opposition to ban on Muslims entering U.S. — Nearly six-in-10 Americans say the United States should not temporarily bar Muslims from other countries from entering the U.S., and two-thirds say such a ban would go against the founding principles of this country, a CBS News poll shows.
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NBC News, Outside the Beltway, Hot Air, Daily Kos and Politico

Charles Barkley bashes CNN, Donald Trump — Basketball legend, Turner Sports commentator and “NBA on TNT” co-host Charles Barkley ripped into his employer's sister channel CNN for its coverage of the 2016 election. — Barkley's comments came on “Inside the NBA” when host Ernie Johnson asked Barkley …
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo


WATCH: Carly Fiorina snarls at CNN host after he confronts her over Planned Parenthood smears — DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY! — Aspiring 2016 GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina went from smiling to combative in a split-second during a contentious debate …
Discussion:
alan.com and LiberalAmerica.org


Donald Trump has gone too far for French far-right leader Marine Le Pen — Donald Trump has been frequently compared (including by me) to “far-right” populist movements in Europe. Indeed, scholarly experts on fascism say that this — rather than fascism — is the correct comparison to make about Trump.
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Talking Points Memo, Political Wire, New York Times and Lawyers, Guns & Money