Cruz Raising Phenomenal Amounts of Money

$20 million

Amount Sen. Ted Cruz raised for his presidential campaign in the fourth quarter — a 66% increase over the previous three-month period, the Wall Street Journal reports. “The $20 million haul in the final three months of 2015 is up sharply from the $12.2 million raised in the third quarter, a bonanza that came as polls showed Mr. Cruz rising to a top-tier candidate from a back-of-the-pack contender in the crowded GOP candidate field. … By the end of the third quarter, Mr. Cruz already had more cash on hand than any other GOP candidate.”

Koch Brothers’ Operation Larger than GOP’s

1,200

Number of full-time, year-round staffers in 107 offices nationwide that Charles and David Koch have quietly assembled, piece by piece, to create a privatized political and policy advocacy operation like no other in American history that today includes hundreds of donors as well. “The political machine that Charles Koch launched a dozen years ago in a Chicago hotel conference room with 16 other rich conservatives has exploded in size and influence in the past few elections and now eclipses the official GOP in key areas,” Politico reports. That’s about 3½ times as many employees as the Republican National Committee and its congressional campaign arms had on their main payrolls last month.”

Bubba’s Speaking Fees a Possible Conflict for Hillary Clinton

$8 million

Speaking fees paid by more than two dozen companies and groups and one foreign government to former President Bill Clinton to give speeches around the time they also had matters before Hillary Clinton’s State Department, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Fifteen of them also donated a total of between $5 million and $15 million to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, the family’s charity, according to foundation disclosures.

No More Plastic Microbeads. Thanks, Obama!

beadsJust when you think Obama can’t do anything cooler, he does it.

Here’s some news to end 2015 on a high note. Pres. Obama has signed a ban on plastic microbeads. Who cares, you ask? You should. This is huge.

A microbead is any solid plastic particle that is less than 5 millimeters and is used for the purpose of exfoliating or cleansing, according to the bill.

These tiny plastic beads have become ubiquitous in hundreds of products ranging from body scrubs to toothpastes. They provide an exfoliating sensation for users and are designed to wash down drains.

Toothpaste? Who knew? That means most of us have been ingesting plastic microbeads for years. I bet if you took a random poll of any group of people and asked if they prefer to brush their teeth with plastic microbeads or something they recognize on the label like say, baking soda, they’d choose the baking soda.

It’s not just us swallowing all this tiny plastic. Would you like the catch of the day fried, blackened or grilled, and with or without plastic microbeads?

In September, a study published in Environmental Science & Technology reported that more than 8 trillion microbeads were entering the country’s aquatic habitats daily. The volume was enough to coat the surface of 300 tennis courts every day…

Not only are they hard to clean up because they are about the size of a pinhead…Some marine life mistake small plastic as food particles. Scientists are researching whether microplastics affect the health of marine life once ingested and if chemicals transfer to humans who eat those species later, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Yes, he turned around the economy, but banning plastic microbeads is one big reason we’re going to miss Pres. Obama, even if the next president is a Democrat.

There’s a Good Reason Pataki Quit the Race

149

Number of times George Pataki registered 0 percent in the 221 polls that asked about him. He earned more than 1 percent just 10 times and more than 2 percent only once, according to Five Thirty-Eight. “Put another way, you could add up Pataki’s support in every national, Iowa and New Hampshire poll and not reach 100 percentage points. His sum is only 83, or what Donald Trump gets through the summing of about two national polls these days.”