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.

Obama Iran Cash Cartoon

Israel blasts Iran's new cash-for-terrorists scheme aimed at rewarding families of 'martyrs'

Iran’s new cash-incentive plan for “martyrs” who strike in Jerusalem is proof the Islamic Republic intends to spend billions reaped in the recent nuclear deal on terrorism, Israeli officials told FoxNews.com Thursday.
Already identified as the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism, Iran will now pay the equivalent of $7,000 "to every family of a martyr of the intifada in Jerusalem,” Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon said Wednesday at a news conference in Beirut. What’s more, Tehran will pay $30,000 to the family of any terrorist whose home gets bulldozed by Israel, a tactic the Jewish state has employed in the West Bank to deter attacks.

“Iran continues to sow terror throughout the world and is fueling the flames of Palestinian terror and incitement.”
- Danny Danon, Israeli ambassador to UN

“This demonstrates again Iran’s role in encouraging terror,” Emmanuel Nahshon, spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry told FoxNews.com. “Following the nuclear agreement, Iran continues being a major player in international terror."
The Iranian diplomat, Mohammad Fathali, giddily unveiled the new scheme to benefit the families of terrorists involved in the ongoing uprising in Jerusalem, which began on Sept. 13, 2015. So far, 32 Israelis and one Palestinian have been murdered, and 357 people injured. The latest figures issued by Israel show 188 stabbings, 75 shootings and 39 vehicle attacks. More than 160 Palestinians have been killed during the same period by Israeli security forces and armed members of the Israeli public, with most reportedly shot while carrying out attacks.

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Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Mohammad Fatahali, (center), makes announcement at press conference in Beirut. (Screenshot/TheAlgemeiner)

Attacks by Palestinians on Israeli civilians and military personnel continue to take place on a near-daily basis, and with no condemnation from either the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority or the Hamas government in Gaza. On the contrary, attackers are routinely referred to as “martyrs” in Palestinian state media, and many have had streets and public buildings named in their honor.

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Paying stipends to the families of terrorists killed attacking Israelis was pioneered by Saddam Hussein. The former Iraqi dictator told a TV audience in March 2002 he would pay $25,000 to the families of deceased Palestinian suicide bombers. Less than a week later, a Hamas suicide bomber blew himself up in Jerusalem’s Moment Café, killing 11 Israelis and seriously wounding 16 more. Just three months later, the mother of the suicide bomber received a check from Hussein, as promised, for $25,000.


Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, yesterday urged the international community to speak out against Iran’s latest plan.
“Iran continues to sow terror throughout the world and is fueling the flames of Palestinian terror and incitement,” Danon wrote in a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. “If the UN is really interested in bringing calm to our region, they must cut off the flow of Iranian financial support of terrorism."
Also on Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon warned that Iran intends to sponsor terror on the streets of Europe and the United States.
"The Iranian regime, through the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corps, is building a complex terror infrastructure, including [sleeper] cells that are stockpiling arms, intelligence and operatives, and are ready to act on order, including in Europe and America," Ya’alon said.
The U.S.-brokered agreement between six world powers and Iran, finalized earlier this year, gave Tehran access to an estimated $100 billion of previously frozen funds in exchange for Iran pledging to drop its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Israel has already charged Iran is shipping more weaponry to its Lebanon-based proxy army, Hezbollah, which is believed to have thousands of missiles – both short and medium range – aimed at the Jewish state.

Big debate? Nah… It’s still a Trump world and the other candidates are just living in it

Thursday night in Houston we met the Marco Rubio who was meant to be the most electable candidate in the Republican field.
He was sharp, articulate, cutting, passionate and bold. And he’s been all those things before. Indeed, he was either the winner or had the second best showing as compared to Trump in the first few debates for exactly these reasons.
But what was different on Thursday night was that Rubio showed real backbone. He knew that fresh off second place finishes he needed to make the case that not only is Donald Trump is unhinged, unprincipled and has no concrete plans, but also that he is much better equipped to be president than Ted Cruz, his chief rival.
Cruz was certainly marginalized Thursday night. As arguably the best debater on the stage, he made very few comments that anyone will remember by the weekend. His strongest points came early on when he called Trump out for not really caring about illegal immigration since he hires illegal immigrants to build his properties and that we can’t trust Trump to nominate traditional constitutionalists to the Supreme Court because he’s supported key Democratic figures like the Clintons, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in the past. He was also strong in his defense of Israel, drawing a start contrast with Trump who has said that he would try to be neutral in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
But Cruz was an afterthought Thursday evening compared to Rubio. The Florida senator relentlessly hit Trump on his inconsistencies and hypocrisy. “If Trump builds the wall [on the Mexican border] like he built Trump Tower, he'll be using illegal immigrants,” might very well be the best line of the debate and one of Rubio’s strongest points. He continually encouraged viewers to Google “Donald Trump polish workers.” Viewers who took him up on it were led to articles on Trump’s practice of hiring illegal immigrants. Rubio also  pushed Trump to define his health care plan and accused him of repeating himself – “America will win again” specifically – over and over again.
And Rubio didn’t do well by just attacking Trump. His defense of limited government, free enterprise and a strong national defense as the guiding principles of the conservative movement that he wants to be the standard bearer of was spirited and downright presidential.
Furthermore, Rubio remains the most convincing commander-in-chief the GOP is offering. He knows his stuff and has clear plans to address all the major issues we’re facing including, but not limited to, fighting Islamic terrorism, handling North Korea and China as well as how we should be striking a balance between privacy and national security.
That said, it’s my belief that while Rubio took advantage of his last chance to attack Trump before Super Tuesday – and that he did it very well – it won’t be enough to change the alignment of the candidates. Trump had a decent night. It wasn’t his best performance, but what’s growing increasingly clear is that it doesn’t really matter.
More so than with any other candidate, Trump’s voters make up their minds early. They are committed to him and after big wins in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, Trump has shown that his base will turn out to vote for him even though they’re largely from groups that don’t typically vote in primaries (lower income, high school educated). And with leads in every Super Tuesday state except for Texas where Cruz is slightly ahead, there’s no reason to think that Thursday night’s debate changes the trajectory.
As for Carson and Kasich, the debate in Houston showed that they really are running peripheral candidacies and there isn’t much reason to go on.
Kasich would still have a good case to be a vice presidential choice without eating up votes that could go to Rubio. And it’s not altogether clear what’s motivating Carson to carry on.
All this is to say that it’s a Trump world and the rest of the candidates are just living in it. We better get used to it.

Rubio pounds Trump at Houston debate. Cruz, Kasich, Carson left on the sidelines

Some credit Aesop and his “Fox and the Lion” fable with first coining the phrase: “familiarity breeds contempt.”
I’m guessing you didn’t know that they held Republican presidential debates back in Ancient Greece.
A better Aesop fable in honor of Thursday night’s gathering in Houston, the tenth such GOP debate dating back to August?
It’s not “The Trumpeter Taken Captive.” If you tuned in to Thursday night’s debate hoping to see Donald Trump get his comeuppance: close, but not quite.
A better choice: “The Frightened Hares,” given the Republican establishment’s growing panic over the very real prospect of Trump actually winning the party’s nomination.
A few observations:
Did Trump Lose Ground? In a word: no.
Let me amend that: not with the people who believe Trump’s word is gospel – and the other candidates are Judases.
From the time he first latched on to illegal immigration and changed the dynamics of this race, it’s been clear that Trump knows how to speak to the fed-up side of the GOP electorate – more so than any other candidate still alive in the race.
The base-thumping approach was on full display in Houston. Trump took swipes at debate moderators (“I don’t believe anything Telemundo says” … “Very few people listen to your [show]”, he told talk radio’s Hugh Hewitt). Trump promised to add 10 feet to his border wall when told former Mexican President Vicente Fox said his country wouldn’t pay for it. He said he’s trim back government (no more Common Core) and crack down on fraud and waste. Trump generally stood his ground and pushed back when pushed by the moderators or attacked by his fellow debaters – and that was often.
The establishment hates the man’s style and antics, but the one-third-plus of the primary electorate that’s propelled Trump to the front of the multi-candidate pack – and won’t be leaving him anytime soon – adores the show. Which is why Trump likely will fare well on Super Tuesday, despite spending a great deal of time on the defensive and on the bad side of some pretty nasty put-downs.
Rubio Going After Trump. I was in Washington, D.C., earlier this week, listening to well-heeled Republicans carp that none of the candidates had torn into Trump. Which is kind of ironic, given that there’s nothing stopping individuals of means from doing the job (look no further than the Ricketts family of Chicago Cubs’ fame).
Rubio must have heard the griping, as he went right after Trump on the get-go. It began with allegations of Trump hiring foreign workers for his Palm Beach estate. After that: construction labor forces, Trump-signature products manufactured overseas, the lawsuit over the entity formerly known as Trump University. And on it went, throughout the night.
Rubio’s use of “Now he’s repeating himself”, after having the same words drilled into him in New Hampshire by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie: the best sound bite of the evening.
This tactic will get Rubio a lot of air time between now and Super Tuesday. It’s also a second-guesser’s delight, as the cling-free Trump has been the Teflon Don of this field.
On Bruising – And Not Much Cruz-ing. “Consistent. Conservative. Trusted.” That's the Texas senator’s campaign slogan.
But on Thursday night, Cruz seemed consistently missing from the action. Part of it had to do with Rubio and Trump noisily locking horns. But having to ask Wolf Blitzer for a chance to weigh in on Obamacare? It seemed . . . well, kind of weak for a debate champ on his home Texas turf.
Cruz did have a strong moment when given the chance to talk about the Supreme Court – not a surprise, as that’s the constitutionalist’s sweet spot. But it wasn’t until 90 minutes into the debate that he really got into it with Trump over taxes and who’s better qualified to question Hillary Clinton’s ethics come the fall.
If Thursday night was closing the deal in Tuesday’s Texas primary, Cruz failed at the task.
What About Kasich and Carson? In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, one of the great rock anthems of the 1960’s, runs slightly over 17 minutes. That’s about the same stretches of silence from Dr. Ben Carson and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
To be fair, both gentlemen brought this on themselves – just as they have in previous debates.
Kasich has fashioned himself as the take-the-upper-road guy in the GOP field – he won’t butt in on any crosstalk.
Carson decided months ago that he’d speak only when spoken to.  Yes, the retired neurosurgeon had a valid complaint when he pointed out to Hewitt that he was left out of the tax-reform discussion. And he scored the other big sound bite of the night, underscoring the fact that he was going unnoticed amidst the food fight: “Can someone attack me, please?”
But that’s been Carson’s stage problem all along: he refuses to accept that debating is not a passive undertaking — sometimes the gifted hands have to do some shoving.
A final thought:
Presidential campaigns and their debates are a lot like criminal trials – long, drawn-out proceedings, trying to keep order in the court, a little perjury tossed in here and there, and way too many lawyers offering way too much in the way of tortured logic.
At this point, with only two scheduled GOP debates remaining (March 3 in Michigan; March 10 in Florida), the Republican field should be approaching its closing arguments.
Instead, what went down in Houston felt more like jury selection for the non-Trump candidates as they continue search for a sympathetic jury of their peers (ok, maybe I need to stop watching “The People vs. O.J.”).
The 150-minute debate in Houston underscored how the situation is driving mainstream Republicans nuts. Trump gets attacked all night long – in the process, giving Hillary Clinton’s oppo team writer’s cramp as it races to jot down the many vulnerabilities – yet he seems impervious to attacks personal, professional and policy-wise.
That Trump 757? It’s more like a white Bronco.
And no one can figure how to get it off the freeway.

Rubio, Cruz tag-team Trump at fiery GOP debate

Marco Rubio, joined at times by Ted Cruz, launched a battery of attacks against Donald Trump at a rowdy Republican debate Thursday, assailing his business record and even trying to turn the tables on the primary front-runner after he teased the senator over his infamous debate “meltdown” earlier this month.
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.”
“I took one-million and I turned it into 10 billion dollars,” Trump countered.
The front-runner stood his ground and cast the attacks as a desperate attempt to take down No. 1, at one point mocking Cruz’s criticism by saying, “Swing for the fences.” In an unruly debate where the moderators often lost control, Trump responded to many of the attacks with his trademark barrage of insults.
“This guy’s a choke artist. And this guy’s a liar,” he said, pointing to Rubio and then Cruz.
Rubio got some of the biggest applause of the night, though, for his response when Trump mocked him for repeating himself on stage weeks ago against then-candidate Chris Christie.
Rubio said Trump was doing the same thing as he described his plan to remove “lines around the states” to increase competition among health insurers.
“Now he’s repeating himself,” Rubio said.
Trump said he watched Rubio “repeat himself five times four weeks ago.” But Rubio swiftly shot back, “I saw you repeat yourself five times five seconds ago.”
At the CNN-Telemundo debate in Houston, Trump continued to tout his polling successes, and claimed he’s growing the Republican Party.
“We are building a new Republican Party. A lot of new people are coming in,” Trump said.
But his Senate candidate rivals did all they could to raise questions for the American people about Trump’s record as they head into Super Tuesday and try to prevent him from locking down the nomination next month.
Rubio mocked Trump’s past company bankruptcy filings. Cruz suggested Trump had something to hide in his still-unreleased tax returns (though Trump indicated he’d release them after his audit is over).
And both candidates cited the ongoing fraud case against the former Trump University, as well as decades-old allegations that he hired illegal immigrants from Poland for a project in New York.
“I‘m the only one on the stage that’s hired people. You haven’t hired anybody,” Trump told Rubio, calling his allegation on illegal immigrant hiring “wrong.”
But Rubio stood by it, and Cruz backed him up. Rubio later said Trump “lied about the Polish workers.”
“Thirty-eight years ago,” Trump said.
“I guess there’s a statute of limitations on lies,” Rubio said.
According to press reports from more than 25 years ago on the case, Trump at the time claimed he didn’t knowingly hire undocumented workers. As for the fraud case, Trump downplayed it and said he’d eventually win.
The chaotic battle Thursday among the top three candidates often sidelined the other two, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
The fighting even prompted Carson to plead at one point, “Could somebody attack me, please?”
Carson’s most-memorable, and strangest, line may have been when he said of vetting a Supreme Court nominee that he would look at the “fruit salad of their life.”
Kasich cast himself as the best candidate to take on Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
“Executive experience really matters,” said the only governor remaining in the race.
Immigration was a top topic, as most the candidates talked tough on border security in Texas, the biggest delegate prize in next week’s contests.
Trump, for his part, doubled down on his promise to build a U.S.-Mexico wall if elected, responding to comments by former Mexican President Vicente Fox, who said Mexico will not pay for the “f------ wall.”
Trump said at the debate, “I will, and the wall just got 10 feet taller, believe me.”
Rubio again used the issue to bring up the illegal hiring case. “If he builds the wall the way he built Trump Towers, he’ll be using illegal immigrant labor,” he said.
“Such a cute sound bite,” Trump responded.
Cruz also went after Trump, when the front-runner said Cruz should be “ashamed” for failing to get any support from his fellow GOP senators.
“If you want to be liked in Washington, that’s not a good attribute for a president,” Cruz said.
He, too, challenged Trump’s record on immigration.
“Anyone who cared about illegal immigration wouldn’t be hiring illegal immigrants,” Cruz said.
And Cruz challenged Trump when he claimed he doesn’t want “socialized medicine” but would also not allow people to “die on the streets.”
“So the government pays everyone’s health care,” Cruz said.
“Call it what you want,” Trump later said.
The debate in Houston was their last before more than a dozen states hold contests on Tuesday, when nearly half of the delegates needed to win the nomination are on the line. Anything close to a sweep by Trump would be devastating for the other remaining contenders.
The front-runner’s momentum has only intensified this month with three straight primary and caucus wins, and he’s threatening to knock down his rivals, one by one, in each of their home states in March.
Kasich’s campaign, despite performing poorly in the South Carolina and Nevada contests, issued a defiant call earlier Thursday for Rubio to drop out – citing his shaky numbers in his home state. The state is considered a must win for the Florida senator, but a new Quinnipiac University poll showed Trump leading Rubio 44-28 percent among primary voters there.
Though the insults and put-downs rendered foreign policy discussions few and far between Thursday night, Trump also took heat for saying he doesn’t want to take “big sides” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because he wants to be able to negotiate a deal.
Cruz accused him of wanting to stay “neutral” and Rubio said it’s not a deal “when you’re dealing with terrorists. “
“Marco is not a negotiator,” Trump said.

Megyn Kelly Cartoon