PrairiePundit

It is probably asking too much to expect Trump to no longer be a 360-degree jerk.  But Lee sets out a reasonable course for Trump to take if he wants to bring reluctant conservatives into the fold.  It clearly is going to take more than just talking about Hillary Clinton's myriad faults. So far, Trump's idea of reaching out to those reluctant to support him is to threaten them with exclusion from the convention speaking schedule and now for ever being able to run again.  That is the kind of talk that will not be persuasive and shows his contempt for the constitution. It is up to Trump to reach out to those who are not supporting him.  He sounds more like the guy who tries to make up with his wife by saying "You don't sweat much for a fat person."  And the response has been more polite than he deserves.  He needs their support and he should start with an apology for the insults and false accusations.

Mike Lee: ... In 1861, Abraham Lincoln told Congress that the “leading object” of American government was:  “to elevate the condition of men - to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all, to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance, in the race of life.” In a single sentence, Lincoln explains precisely what poverty is, and what government ought to do about it. As Lincoln knew first hand, true poverty was not for most people an absence of money, but an absence of opportunity – a lack of access to those social and economic networks where human opportunities are created. Then, as now, people were not isolated because they were poor – they were poor mostly because they were isolated.  And so, in America’s original war on poverty, government did not give the poor other people’s money. It gave them access to other people.  In Lincoln’s era – even during a cataclysmic war that was itself a struggle for human fre...

Daily Caller: It’s Nov. 16, 2013, and the partial government shutdown ended one month ago today. In those four weeks, and the two prior, everything conservatives said would happen has happened. What’s more, the Democrats’ united stand against them has turned into a retreat — and is primed to become a rout — as they amend Obamacare’s disastrous rollout, President Barack Obama apologizes for his failures , and electorally vulnerable Democrats break ranks and flee . Hell, even the polls that D.C.’s Republican pundits shrieked, wept and clawed over show the Grand Old Party has bounced back while the Democrats have fallen behind. Because, in the end, real people simply weren’t affected by the shutdown, so they won’t vote on it — a distinction Obamacare does not share. It’s clear now that the whole shutdown thing could have been avoided if Mr. Obama had been willing to bend on his signature health-care law — something reality has since forced him to do, and something he will likely have to...

Christopher Bedford: After Republicans drifted for years without a pilot, Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee have taken the helm of the GOP, steering their party and its grassroots into a much-needed, head-on battle with the Democrats. On the campaign trail on the way to his win in November 2012, President Barack Obama promised to finish the work he’d gone to Washington to do: “fundamentally transforming the United States.” Things look tough for the right in Washington today, but the reality is these three conservative Republicans, aided by friends in the Senate and the House, have dragged the president’s ambitious agenda to a complete halt, throwing both him and Democrat Sen. Harry Reid on their heels and adding policy paralysis to the president’s long list of post-election woes. While Republican leadership in the House was loud when scandals from Benghazi to the IRS unfolded, over the last year conventional wisdom in Washington has held that sequester would never happen; amnesty for ille...