Illegal Aliens Cartoon

Clinton commands dominant lead ahead of Saturday's South Carolina primary

The Democratic presidential race moves to South Carolina on Saturday, where Hillary Clinton is hoping to expand her winning streak against rival Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Multiple polls show Clinton with a dominant lead going into the first-in-the-South contest.
Clinton played up her allegiance to President Obama at a rally Thursday, and pledged to continue fighting for tougher gun laws -- an argument that resonates with black voters wielding influence in Saturday’s primary.
"I'm really proud to stand with President Obama, and I'm really proud to stand with the progress he's made," she said in Kingstree, South Carolina. "I need your help, starting with this primary on Saturday."
Clinton also pledged to “take on the gun lobby” in office, and slammed Sanders for having voted against some gun restrictions during his congressional career.
"We need to close the gun show loophole, the online loophole and what is called the Charleston loophole, which my opponent supported, which means that at the end of three days, whether the background check is done or not you get the gun," Clinton said.
"That's what the killer here in Charleston did."
Sanders spent Thursday making stops in the Great Lakes region – visiting several states that hold early March primaries.

Alabama passes law barring cities and towns from increasing minimum wage

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley signed a bill Thursday barring cities and towns from setting their own minimum wage just as Birmingham was set to raise it to $10.10.
The legislation’s passage came after the Birmingham City Council voted to increase the city’s minimum wage, according to AL.com.
The block drew criticism from Birmingham council leader Jonathan Austin who said “we will continue to work together to stand and fight for our citizens.”
“It’s certainly is unfortunate, if it stands up, it is a loss for those who deserve to earn a livable wage in the city of Birmingham, and, for that matter, the state of Alabama,” Austin said. “But the state obviously disagrees.”
Bentley signed the bill less than an hour after it was passed, AL.com reported.
Alabama has no state minimum wage and has used the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour since 2009 when it was last raised. The Guardian noted that a full-time employee who works for the entire year will only earn $15,080 per year.
State senator Jabo Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills, argued Thursday that an increased minimum wage would stall economic development in the state. He claims business owners contacted him and asked him if they would have to close up shop because of a possible increased minimum wage, according to The Guardian.
“We want businesses to expand and create more jobs – not cut entry-level jobs because of a patchwork of local minimum wages causes operating costs to rise. Our actions today will create predictability and consistency for Alabama’s economy, which benefits everyone,” Waggoner said.
Alabama Democrats have said the federal minimum wage is too low for the working poor with families to survive on.
“Somebody has to recognize that we have a working-poor class of people that are not just in Birmingham,” state senator Linda Coleman-Madison, D-Birmingham, said. She added that she is sponsoring a new bill that will make the minimum wage in all of Alabama $10.10.
“We don’t move until we’re forced to move. For once, I’d like for this legislative body to be the leader.”
Birmingham, the state’s largest city, is home to 212,237 residents and its per capita income was about $19,650 between 2009 and 2013, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
In 2014, Oklahoma also passed a bill keeping cities from raising their minimum wage. Arizona passed a similar law in 2013, but it was overturned last June.

Christie endorses Trump for president

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Friday endorsed businessman Donald Trump for the Republican nomination for president, becoming the New York billionaire’s most noteworthy endorsement to date.
The endorsement was announced at a news conference in Fort Worth, Texas.
“We don’t need any more of these Washington, D.C. acts," Christie said."We don’t need Washington politicians to come in and fix it."

Christie used the platform to both endorse Trump and attack Marco Rubio for what he sees as the freshman senator's lack of experience.
Christie said no other candidate is better prepared to provide the United States with strong leadership both at home and around the world. He also said that no other Republican candidate is a more formidable challenger to Hillary Clinton.
“I can guarantee you that the one person that Bill and Hillary don’t want to see on that stage in November is Donald Trump,” Christie said.
Christie's endorsement comes the day after a heated Republican debate where both Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz attacked Trump.
Both Rubio and Cruz fought hard to throw Trump off his stride as the field charges into the all-important Super Tuesday contests. Rubio, in particular, was unrelenting in keeping the pressure on Trump Thursday night, going so far as to claim if Trump hadn’t inherited money he’d be “selling watches in Manhattan.”
Christie attacked Rubio at the final Republican debate before the New Hampshire primary, tripping up Rubio in a moment that likely contributed to his poor performance in the state's primary. Christie accused him of parroting the same talking points repeatedly and said a president should be able to think on his feet.

The endorsement from Christie comes the day after Rubio changed tactics in Thursday's GOP debate and began to attack Trump on a variety of fronts, from his business background to his preparedness to lead the nation. Rubio continued on Friday morning, calling Trump "a con artist" during a round of morning television interviews.
Trump says Rubio is a "desperate guy" and said, "I don't think he's of presidential caliber." The announcement comes days before the pivotal Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses.
“I will lend my support between now and November in every way possible,” Christie said.
Christie said he was not offered any position by Trump and intends to serve out the remainder of his governorship in New Jersey and eventually work in the private sector with the hopes of one day making more money than his wife, who works as an investment banker.
A senior adviser to Rubio is interpreting Christie's endorsement as a remedy to what he calls the billionaire's inability to articulate his policy plans, explain why he won't release his tax returns and defend his past financial dealings.
Todd Harris told reporters traveling with the Florida senator that, "Donald Trump can't put a coherent noun and verb together to explain any of these things, so he had to bring in someone like Chris Christie to try to do it for him. And Chris Christie has got his work cut out for him."
Clinton, for her part, said she is eager to debate any Republican on economics and health care policy.
Campaigning Friday at Atlanta City Hall, Clinton talked about the job growth that took place during the administrations of her husband and President Obama.
She compared that to "trickle-down economics" of Republican administrations. And she mocked Republicans for voting repeatedly in Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
She says "they never really tell you what they're going to put in its place," because "they know we won't like it."

In fresh attacks, Rubio takes on Trump, tries to hold onto post-debate bounce

Fresh from a tag team attack on front-runner Donald Trump, primary opponents Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz spent Friday hoping to use new debate momentum to cut into Trump’s commanding lead ahead of the Super Tuesday contests.
Rubio, in particular, ramped up the rhetoric Friday, calling Trump a “con artist” in numerous live appearances and poking fun at the billionaire candidate’s tweet misspellings and behavior at Thursday’s raucous debate.
In an interview with Bret Baier on Fox News' "Special Report," he accused Trump of being a "con man" at least three times and also called him "a clown," adding, "it's time to take the mask off this guy."
He also predicted that if Trump were to be nominated to head the GOP ticket, "the Republican party would split apart...he's a dream for the Democrats."
Earlier, in a fundraising letter to to supporters Thursday, Rubio said, “In last night's debate, America saw firsthand that Donald Trump can't even talk about, let alone do anything about, the dire problems facing our nation."
“Donald Trump is a con artist trying to hijack the conservative movement and the Republican Party, and he cannot be our nominee.”
Cruz took to Twitter on Friday, also mocking Trump’s debate performance -- particularly on the issue of ObamaCare -- and pointing out that while he was in the Senate wrestling over illegal immigration, Trump was “firing @dennisrodman on TV,” referring to the ex-NBA star’s participation on Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice.”
In a gaggle with reporters that afternoon, he stressed that he is in a better position than Rubio to beat Trump.
"(I am) the only candidate that has beat Donald Trump and can beat Donald Trump," he said, assuring "we will come out of Super Tuesday seeing a meaningful difference in the delegation allocation. He proceeded to blast Trump on reports that his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach has a reputation for passing over American workers for foreign visa holders.
Cruz later described Trump as very close ideologically to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
"Donald Trump, like Hillary Clinton, is a rich New York liberal," Cruz told Fox News' Sean Hannity.
For his part, Trump sought to trump any debate bounce the two senators were enjoying by rolling out an endorsement from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Trump then spoke at a rally in Texas, where he took multiple jabs at Rubio’s age (“He looks like a little boy”) his ears, what he said was his make-up job at the debate, and his sweat glands (“I thought he just came out of a swimming pool”).
Trump also took to Twitter Friday morning and labeled Rubio a “lightweight” who “lacks the temperament to be president.”
Rubio then took to the stage to point out that Trump had misspelled “lightweight” and “choker” in his tweets. “He calls me a little boy … he’d be the oldest president of the United States,” he said while the audience in Oklahoma City cheered. He was introduced to the stage by Sen. James Inofe, R-OK., who endorsed Rubio in January.
Cruz announced that he will be appearing with conservative talk show host Glenn Beck in Little Rock, Ark., on Saturday.
The next contest for the Republican nomination are the coveted Super Tuesday contests on March 1, with 595 delegates up for grabs from nearly a dozen states.