Facing the reality of diminished usefulness as a South Carolina splitter, Senator Lindsey Graham has announced he is “suspending” (ie. dropping out) his campaign to run for President.  He is the fourth candidate to exit the race. (Perry, Walker and Jindal prior)

Unfortunately this disrupts our previously unblemished record of successfully naming the drop-outs before they occur, RATTS!! (We thought Rand Paul was going to be next). Here’s Senator Grahams’ announcement:

With Donald Trump and Ted Cruz/Marco Rubio holding such severe polling majority positions in South Carolina the usefulness of Lindsey was essentially nil. Lindsey quitting now allows candidates Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush a little more space to gobble up some South Carolina voters. (more…)

A new poll from Illinois shows candidate Donald Trump retaining a sizable lead amid the top tier candidates.  2,104 voters polled (margin of error 2.5%):

(Chicago Sun Times) Trump, at 30 percent, is the top GOP presidential candidate in Illinois, according to a new poll, with double the points of Sens. Ted Cruz at 15 percent and Marco Rubio at 13 percent. (more…)

Donald Trump interviewed by Howard Kurtz on Media Buzz:

Someone found something interesting on U-Tube.  Last night Hillary Clinton claimed ISIS was using propaganda videos containing Donald Trump.

First, here is Clinton’s claim – along with CNN quickly trying to divert attention away from it: “we’ll leave that aside”:

No-one has been able to substantiate Hillary Clinton, leading to many anticipating Team Clinton working furiously today to create a video they could point to and claim was the one she mentioned.

However, Perhaps this is the video Hillary was referencing; and if so, it would appear she misinterpreted the message (that’s typical of a Clinton though): (more…)

.@JebBush: "To get praise from Vladimir Putin is not going to help Donald Trump" https://t.co/6OZtrfIwim https://t.co/6T57DyWj5G

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) December 18, 2015

“Here’s the thing, when you’re dealing with a world leader, you wonder whether or not he’s telling the truth,” Bush told reporters Monday. “I’ve never had to worry about that with Vladimir Putin. Sometimes he says things I don’t want to hear, but I know he’s always telling me the truth.”

~ George Bush 2007

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CBS coordinated with YouGov to present three “battleground state” panel polls today.  The polling methodology is rather peculiar because it’s not random sample polling, but rather targeted specifically to prior respondents of same, albeit earlier, YouGov polling.  They fill in the non-repeat respondents from other prior contacted buckets.

The downside to this panel-approach is it’s essentially like taking a focus group and tracking their trend over-time, filling in those who don’t show up for the next interview by reaching out to other focus groups to fill the void.  This type of on-line polling is not scientific and prone to flaws and/or manipulation by the interpreter of the data.

The pollster is reaching out to a specific data-set, and in order to achieve the needed total number they need to reach out to ‘known sub-sets‘ within their data-base.  In order for this approach to be useful – the integrity of the people gathering the data has to be beyond reproach.  (more…)

Chuck Todd has a ‘splodey because Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are in agreement to deal with ISIS first, then focus on Syria’s leader Bashir Assad after ISIS is removed from influence.

The worst moment for Chuck Todd was anticipating Trump to walk away from Democrat Sanders, just because Bernie’s a Democrat, but Trump stood firm – “sometimes even a Democrat can be right once in a while”….

No political candidate has ever pushed-back against Clinton’s primary media acolyte George Stephanopoulos like this.  George was gobsmacked and incredulous with the common sense responses from candidate Donald Trump. Epic ‘splodey head.

There are many people prone to concern whenever the “corporate media”, “professional political class” or “Park Row” attack their preferred candidate.  By allowing the MSM to generate your anxiety you are essentially allowing them to “gaslight”, and to succeed.

Most people don’t recognize they are victims of Stockholm Syndrome and/or Gaslighting when it occurs; it is such a frequent state of affairs it just seems like a normal disposition – It is not.   Politics are  downstream from popular culture.

In part, the elimination of corporate media influence is one of the reasons for the The Last Refuge to exist.   Think about how widely disconnected was the media narrative from the true events surrounding the Arab Spring, or the Trayvon Martin Case, or the Mike Brown shooting, or, well, you get the picture.

There are actually historical examples for populations that “awaken”, and realize their reference points were all manufactured control by State and State Sponsored Media apparatus – See the Polish Solidarity Movement. (more…)

Live video and replay of Donald Trump’s speech at the rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Saturday, December 19, 2015. See it in real time via live stream video below starting at 2 p.m. CT local time (3 p.m. ET). Thereafter check back for the full replay video:

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