Top Items:

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.
Discussion:
RedState, Washington Post, The Right Scoop, NBC News, Political Wire, The Daily Caller, Business Insider and Hot Air
RELATED:


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 …
Discussion:
CNN, USA Today, Washington Free Beacon, Business Insider, Bloomberg.com news, Mediaite, Raleigh News & Observer, FiveThirtyEight, Breitbart, The Week, SaintPetersBlog, Outside the Beltway, Hot Air, Weasel Zippers, Talking Points Memo, The American Conservative, PoliticusUSA and Washington Monthly


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 …
Discussion:
CNN, Business Insider, Hot Air, NBC News, Washington Post, Talking Points Memo, Politico, The Week, The Hill and Political Wire


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 …


Carson Threatens To Leave Party If GOP Officials Keep Plotting Over Convention — If Republican party bosses continue meeting to discuss how to derail Donald Trump at the convention, Trump won't be the only one to turn his back on the GOP. Now, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson says he'll leave too.
Discussion:
Daily Kos


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

House: Could Trump Lead to Apocalypse for Republicans?
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, Washington Monthly and Political Wire

Lindsey Graham: Trump Leading Because 40% Of GOP Voters Think Obama Is Kenyan Muslim
Discussion:
Political Wire

Poll: Solid opposition to ban on Muslims entering U.S.
Discussion:
Outside the Beltway, Daily Kos and Politico

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

Attacks on Trump just make these voters like him more
Discussion:
New York Times, Shakesville, BuzzFeed, Unfogged, Townhall.com and The Hill


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 …
Discussion:
Hot Air, neo-neocon, Weasel Zippers, Shakesville, John Hawkins' Right Wing News, KTLA, Daily Mail, Yahoo Politics, whorunsGov, CNN, Daily Wire, U.S. Uncut and Associated Press
RELATED:


Whistleblower Says He Could Have Prevented CA Attack If Gov't Didn't Cut DHS Funding
Discussion:
RedState, The Daily Caller, Betsy's Page, Infowars, Jammie Wearing Fools and The Last Tradition


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 …
Discussion:
Townhall.com, Daily Wire, RedState, John Hawkins' Right Wing News, Truth Revolt, Politico and Towleroad
RELATED:


Trump endorsed by police union after proposing Muslim ban — PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the endorsement of a New England union that represents police and corrections officers Thursday evening, and said that, as president …
Discussion:
ThinkProgress, Washington Post, The Daily Caller, SaintPetersBlog and The Week

Hillary Clinton on Donald Trump: 'I no longer think he's funny'
Discussion:
The Hill, Wall Street Journal and Washington Times

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


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.
Discussion:
Lawyers, Guns & Money and Foreign Policy
RELATED:

Voter Insecurities Feed Rise of Right-Leaning Populist Politicians
Discussion:
Political Wire and Vox

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 …
Discussion:
Salon and Vox Popoli


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 …
Discussion:
The American Conservative
RELATED:

Black lawmakers excoriate Scalia over ‘disgusting’ remarks
Discussion:
National Review and PoliticusUSA


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.


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 …
Discussion:
The Times of Israel, alicublog, Guardian, Althouse, Daily Wire, Refinery29, New York Magazine and Atlanta Buzz …


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 …
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Gothamist, Raw Story, Mediaite and Eater


America's Immigration Challenge — On Wednesday, FBI director James Comey alleged that the San Bernardino shooters were already plotting a mass-murder attack on the United States before Tafsheen Malik received the K-1 visa admitting her to the United States. Her husband-to-be, Syed Farook, was born a U.S. citizen.