Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the GOP Presidential Primary Leader:

Added: And, the runner-up:

Happy Halloween!

 

And, for something truly terrifying, there's this:

Ted Cruz's Father Suggested His Son Is 'Anointed' to Bring About 'End Time Transfer of Wealth'

(Does that come with zombies?)

The Trib Covers A Source.

Yes, they're still at it.

From today's Tribune-Review editorial page:

The left and “progressives” love to blame wage stagnation on greedy businesses wanting to gobble a larger share of the pie. But it's actually a product of businesses' uncertainty about taxes, regulations and employee-benefit costs — which the Obama administration has exacerbated.

Merrill Matthews, resident scholar at the nonpartisan, free-market Institute for Policy Innovation (ipi.org), notes...

Regardless of what Mr Matthews actually said regarding wages, take a look at how Scaife's braintrust characterizes the IPI -  "nonpartisan" and "free-market."

Really?  Nonpartisan? Let's go take a look.

Back in October, 2012, American Enterprise Institute scholar J. D. Kleinke published a piece in the New York Times called "The Conservative Case for Obamacare" and for that he was, according to Forbes.com "pilloried" by what they call "Conservative policy experts."

Among them:

Merrill Matthews, resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation: “The fundamental philosophical difference is that liberals do not think the free market can work in health care and so the government must make it work. Conservatives think the free market has never been tried. Kleinke is clearly in the former camp and is thus making the liberal, not the conservative, case for ObamaCare.” [Bolding in original.]

In 2002 the Capital Research Center, a conservative think-tank that is itself the beneficiary of almost $5.3 million of Scaife foundation money over the years rated the Institute for Policy Innovation as an "8" on a "1 to 8"/"Left to Right"scale.

And since we mentioned the Scaife money, how much has this "nonpartisan" think tank received from foundations controlled by my good friend Richard Mellon Scaife?

Of the $2 million or so it's received from various foundations, the IPI got about a quarter of that ($470,000) from The Sarah Scaife and Carthage Foundations.

Finally, if the place were so "nonpartisan" why would TeaParty Senator Ted Cruz be a part of its 25th Anniversary gala?

Nonpartisan?  Not even close.

Tracking Teh Crazie - Cruz And The Birthers!

Over at Talkingpointsmemo, Josh Marshall has been spending some time on Senator Ted Cruz' presidential eligibility (given that the Senator was born in Canada to an American mother).

For the record Marshall writes:

I can tell you Ted Cruz’s politics are awful. And having had significant life overlap with him I can tell you that at virtually every point in his life - at least from his late teens through mid-thirties (after that I have less evidence) - he’s quickly developed a reputation as a raging a-hole. His new workplace - the Senate of the United States - just continues the pattern. But he’s definitely a ‘natural born’ citizen and thus constitutionally qualified to serve as President of the United States.

And for the record I am total agreement with Marshall on this.

That's not to say that that it's not great fun to watch Cruz squirm on his own eligibility question.  If there's no issue about his eligibility then why did he feel it necessary to release his birth certificate?  Or renounce his Canadian citizenship?

This is why.  From World Net Daily (aka birther central):

Conservative icon, radio host and author of the No. 1 book in the country right now, Mark Levin said he’s sick of “birthers” after encountering a particularly “obnoxious” one at a hot, crowded book-signing event.

The man, whom Levin described as “disrespectful” toward him and the other fans, reportedly pointed at Levin and told him he was wrong in concluding that Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is eligible to be president.

The issue of constitutional eligibility, which reached the U.S. Supreme Court multiple times during Barack Obama’s runup to the White House, now is surging again, only the target this time is Cruz, who was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father.

But you'll note the attack is not coming from the left (see Josh Marshall, above) but from the birthers now confronting other conservatives (like Levin) using the same "logic" that they used to prop up their previous Obama-birther frenzy.

For example, let's look at the "dual citizenship" part of the story - from the flawed camera obscura that is Jerome Corsi:

The State Department is maintaining a “counter-misinformation” page on an America.gov blog that attempts to “debunk a conspiracy theory” that President Obama was not born in the United States, as if the topic were equivalent to believing space aliens visit Earth in flying saucers.

However, in the attempt to debunk the Obama birth-certificate controversy, the State Department author confirmed Obama was a dual citizen of the U.K. and the U.S. from 1961 to 1963 and a dual citizen of Kenya and the U.S. from 1963 to 1982, because his father was a Kenyan citizen when Obama was born in 1961.

In a number of court cases challenging Obama’s eligibility, dual citizenship has been raised as a factor that could compromise his “natural born” status under Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution. The cases argue dual citizenship would make Obama ineligible even if documentary evidence were shown the public, such as the hospital-issued long-form birth certificate that indicates the place of his birth and the name of the attending physician. [Emphasis added.]

It's the same for the "American mother gives birth abroad" side.  If it didn't work for Obama then how can a true American (like the one who confronted Levin) think it's OK for anyone else?

This has been the birther discourse for years.  We shouldn't be surprised that they're going after one of their own.

Funny how that works out, eh?