Donald Trump won – again in Republican Debate #11 last night in Detroit, Michigan. As of 8 am, Trump led in all post-debate polls. Trump’s dominance befuddled his critics again because both Cruz and Rubio launched well rehearsed, blistering attacks against the front runner time and time again. The Drudge poll – typically the largest – gave Trump 58% of over 325 thousand votes cast –a 34% lead over second place Ted Cruz who got 24% of the vote. John Kasich was third with 13% and Marco Rubio dead last with less than 5%. Notable in the polling after this, the next-to-last Republican Presidential candidate debate, is that Marco Rubio finished dead last in every poll, Ted Cruz placed third in all but two polls, and John Kasich came out with his strongest debate yet, and finished in second place in the majority of polls. Even the most Cruz-friendly poll, Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, gave Trump 52% - a 17 point lead over Cruz who managed 35%, with Kasich third at 8% and Little Marco bringing up the rear again at only 5%. Since the debate was held in Detroit, let’s look at the hometown newspaper, the Detroit News: Trump 85%, followed by Kasich 10%, then Cruz at 4% and little Marco bringing up the rear again with his worst performance of the debates at less than 2%. New Jersey dot com shows Trump at 64%, Kasich second with 18, Cruz with 8, and little Marco at 6.5% The Right Scoop showed the same pattern: Trump 71, Cruz, 14, Kasich 11, and Rubio trailing with only 3% Heavy showed Trump at 66%, Kasich 20%, Cruz 8% and little Marco at 6%. The Wall Street Journal; Trump 58, Kasich 19, Cruz 13, and Rubio 10. Focus group guy Frank Luntz noted Rubio’s plummet and Kasich’s rise. [insert Luntz tweet] “The longer this goes, the higher Kasich climbs and the lower Rubio sinks with my focus group.” Twitter gains showed the same pattern. [insert Twitter gains] Trump dominated Twitter, followed by Kasich, Cruz, and little Marco dead last. [insert Talk Time] A new talk-time graphic showed that Trump got clearly more talk time this debate as compared to the others. Perhaps the most interesting new metric was provided by Google Trends, which measured minute-by-minute Google search rankings. [insert Google Trends all] You can go to this URL and search your state, or even what issues were searched throughout the debate. Not surprisingly, the number one issue searched throughout the debate was immigration, and the second most-searched was ISIS. Candidates take note. [Insert Delegate Count – The Telegraph] Here is the current delegate count, according to the Wall Street Journal. Trump leading with 329, Cruz with 231, Rubio with 110, and Kasich with 25. To sum up debate #11, according to Dylan Matthews, writing for Vox: “At this point, the three non-Trumps are basically kamikaze pilots.” “Realistically, the GOP nomination will either go to Donald Trump outright, or be decided in a brokered convention. For the latter to happen, each of the remaining candidates has to keep campaigning and win a few more states — knowing that there's zero chance any of them becomes the nominee.” And according to news this morning, yes, Mitt Romney is hoping against hope that this is the scenario that plays out because it is the only way he can jump into this race – something he apparently desperately wants to do. I’m still reporting from Washington. Good day.

I’ve heard about this guy, Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, but this is the first time I’ve seen him talk. Not surprisingly, he is a slippery character. So let’s see how this guy operates: [insert 1] Struggles with facts? We have a saying among Trumpers – Trump was right again. Trump does mis-speak occasionally, but I can’t tell you how many times I thought Trump was wrong, when a week later, I found out no – Trump is way better informed on most issues that most of us are. So now, I’ve learned not to call him on facts unless I let a couple of weeks go by. But what about the Clintons? Lying is such a habit pattern with both of them that even if telling the truth would benefit them, they just lie automatically out of habit. If they get called on it, they literally lie their way out of it. This behavior is called pathological lying. [insert short one] And that’s why he’s going to win. He’s just the opposite of the Clintons. He tells the truth, even if it does not benefit him. And if this guy Mook thinks he can steer Clinton to a win by trying to sell the American people on the fantasy that everything is just swell in America – that’s a bigtime losing proposition. By the time election day draws neigh, Trump’s first two issues on his list will be the nation’s most important issues: radical Islamic terror and the open-border policy which is feeding it. [insert - What, specifically would Hillary …] This is a highly popular vote getter among the “more free stuff” crowd, but it is absolutely not the truth and not the solution. I have a college friend who is at the top level of a major university. He has told me specifically that the surge in tuition prices is directly correlated with just one metric – the increase in federally-subsidized college lending. Increasing this federal funding will only lead to proportional increases in college tuition, which will lead to more federal funding, which will lead to even higher costs. It’s yet another mini-death spiral flowing into the debt money, national debt death star. When politicians have to resort to bread-&-circuses to gain and hold power, you know the death of the nation draweth neigh. Bread & circuses refers to Roman politicians in 140 BC who introduced a grain dole – the giving out of cheap food - and providing for free circuses which were very expensive to produce. In a nation in economic decline, as citizens increasingly become more self-serving and less willing to sacrifice for the good of their nation and fellow citizens – Bread & Circuses becomes the most effective way to rise to power – no matter how short term it is. Funny how history repeats. Trump understands all of this. [insert, “She still has to get…] And that among many other reasons is why Lindsey Graham is second only to Ted Cruz among THE least respected Republican members of Congress. Also, it was Lindsey Graham who cast the deciding vote in the U.S. Senate to allow Bill Clinton to escape conviction after his impeachment. [insert: “But when she said in that debate…”] Taxpayer-funded opposition research projects, is it? Oh you mean the investigation into the 4 dead Americans in Benghazi? Well we found out quite a bit. We found out that Prez. Obama actually authorized a rescue mission, but someone countermanded that order, and I suspect that someone was Mrs. Clinton. We also found out that Mrs. Clinton was keeping all her State Dept. emailing routed thru a private server to avoid the criminal nature of her concomitant business dealings. It was a maximally insecure server over which Clinton willingly and knowingly transmitted TOP SECRET documents – an act of treason. Then she lied about it all before Congressional committees – perjury - as well as the American people as she desperately tried to cover it all up. And then, the root cause of this illegal, private server in the first place was for the purpose of enriching her and husband and daughter in what appears to be a pay-for-play racket to extort cash out of those who wanted access to the U.S. government at the highest level. So far she’s been able to put off a legitimate investigation of the Clinton Foundation extortion racket, but all the rest of it – that’s what your taxpayer-funded opposition research project discovered. And as Congressional investigations go, I’d say that’s right up there as an all-time good investment of time and public resources - a very good haul for one small investigating committee. [insert: “What’s very disturbing…”]