* Here is the state of the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination as of December 11, 2015:
* You probably heard the big polling news this week that 68% of Trump supporters would vote for him if he bolted the GOP. But here’s something from the last national Quinnipiac poll that pretty much went unnoticed:
Among Republicans, 26 percent of voters say they “would definitely not support” Trump.
That’s higher than anyone else in the field and only 1% less than Trump’s 27% support in the same poll.
* Speaking of Trump supporters, Dave Weigel wrote up what he witnessed when Frank Luntz conducted a focus group with 29 of them. It’s not pretty.
With only two exceptions, the three hours of messaging, venting and friendly arguments revealed the roots of Trump’s support. Participants derided the mainstream media, accusing reporters of covering snippets of Trump quotes when the full context would have validated him. They cited news sources they trusted — Breitbart News was one example — to refute what they were being told.
* The negotiators in Paris aren’t the only ones who extended their deadline today. Congress was supposed to pass an omnibus spending bill by midnights tonight. Instead, they passed a continuing resolution that gives them an extension until next Wednesday (Dec. 16th).
* At Republic 3.0, Stefan Hankin writes that Donald Trump’s “base” within the GOP isn’t limited to the far right fringe. Trump actually enjoys significant support from Republican primary voters of all ideological persuasions, which might explain his staying power.
* Finally, yesterday we learned about recycling plastic bottles to build houses. Today it’s all about recycling buses as showers for the homeless.
US non-profit organization Lava Mae is transforming old city buses into mobile bathrooms to give showers to around 200 homeless people in San Francisco every week.
Lava Mae, which roughly translates as Spanish for “wash me,” has installed ‘hygiene pods’ with showers, toilets, sinks and hair dryers in the decommissioned buses.
They park near homeless shelters, channel water from fire hydrants through their on-board water heaters and offer people a chance to scrub up.
