Presumptuous Politics

Monday, April 4, 2016

Candidates crisscross Wisconsin, where leaders Trump, Clinton stare down upsets

Presidential candidates crisscrossed Wisconsin on Sunday ahead of the state’s GOP and Democratic primaries in which upsets are looming -- while other, pressing campaign-season issues including debate challenges and convention rules unfolded off the campaign trail.
“I want it,” Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” in response to suggestions that she is avoiding a debate with rival Sen. Bernie Sanders in her adopted home state of New York ahead of its April 19 primary.
Sanders, a Brooklynite who has won five of the last six primaries or caucuses, challenged Clinton to a debate.
The Clinton campaign has offered a few dates -- including a weekday morning and at the same time as Monday night’s NCAA men’s basketball champions -- that the Sanders campaign and others see as less than optimal for viewership.
Still, Clinton said she was “confident” about the debate happening.
Late Sunday, the Sanders campaign countered by saying the candidate is available to debate April 10, 11, 12 or 13.
Campaign spokesman Michael Briggs also said the Clinton campaign “disingenuously” announced that it had agreed to a debate on a day when it knew Sanders already had locked in park permits for a major rally in New York City.
"Let’s stop the silly political games,” Briggs said. “Let’s get on with debating the candidates’ stands on serious issues affecting New York and the United States.”
Briggs said in a statement late Sunday that Sanders accepted an invitation for a prime-time debate on April 10 on NBC News.
"We hope the Clinton campaign also accepts. The April 10 debate date is one of four dates that the Sanders campaign had proposed for a debate with Secretary Clinton before the New York primary election," he said.
Clinton has no public events Sunday in Wisconsin, where some polls show Sanders with a slight lead.
Though she has attempted to focus her resources of late on a general election race with GOP front-runner Donald Trump or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Clinton also made clear Sunday the Sanders remains a political threat.
“I certainly I haven't moved on,” she told NBC. “I know that I still have work to do to win the nomination.”
She also repeated her regret for using a private email server for official communications while secretary of state, amid nagging concerns about her trustworthiness and said the FBI had not contacted her about being interviewed regard its investigation of the email matter.
Sanders and the top two GOP presidential candidates, Trump and Cruz, were campaigning in Wisconsin.
The other Republican candidate, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, told ABC’s “This Week” that the Republican convention -- which could happen in July without a clear nominee based on delegate wins -- could be a civics lesson for the country.
“Kids will spend less time focusing on Bieber and Kardashian and more time focusing on how we elect presidents," said Kasich, who has won only Ohio. "It will be so cool."
Trump on Sunday called for Kasich to drop out of the race, arguing he shouldn't be allowed to continue accumulating delegates if he has no chance of being the nominee.
Trump has 736 pledged delegates, followed by Cruz with 463, then Kasich with 143 -- with 1,237 needed to secure the nomination.
However, Trump, after a difficult week, now trails Cruz in Wisconsin, which holds its primary Tuesday, after some polls showed him leading by double-digits several weeks ago.
Trump said Sunday that Kasich could be considered as a nominee at the GOP convention in July even without competing in the remaining nominating contests.
Trump told reporters at a Milwaukee diner that he had relayed his concerns to Republican National Committee officials at a meeting in Washington this past week.
"He's taking my votes," Trump said about Kasich.
The Kasich campaign tried to flip the script, contending that neither Trump nor Cruz would have enough delegates to win the nomination outright going into the convention.
"Since he thinks it's such a good idea, we look forward to Trump dropping out before the convention," said Kasich spokesman Chris Schrimpf.
Trump's declaration came as Republican concerns grew about the prospect of convention chaos if Trump fails to lock up his party's nomination -- or even if he does.
Despite the bad week, Trump returned to the confident bravado his supporters have come to expect. Stopping for breakfast at Miss Katie's Diner on Sunday, Trump predicted he'd do "very well" on Tuesday.
"We're going to have a big surprise for you," he said. "We're going to have a big success."
He also had a town hall event in West Allis, Wis.
Cruz held rallies Sunday in Green Bay and Eau Claire, Wis.
In Green Bay, Cruz was joined by former GOP Gov. Scott Walker, former 2016 candidate Carly Fiorina, wife Heidi Cruz and Packer hall of famer Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila.
Cruz joked about Gbaja-Biamila sacking Trump.
“I’m just picturing the shy, retiring Donald Trump back in the pocket looking at Kabeer, jumping over the offensive line and coming in for a sack,” Cruz said. “I think Donald’s hair would stand on end.”
Sanders held a rally in Madison and a town hall event in Wausau, Wis.

Trump regrets Heidi Cruz retweet, digs in on NATO and Asia nukes

While admitting his controversial comments last week on women and abortion -- and the subsequent back-tracking -- may have taken a toll on his campaign going into Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump also took to the airwaves Sunday to defend equally controversial statements that NATO was “obsolete” and that South Korea and Japan “would be better off” if they had nuclear weapons.
In recent days, the first-time candidate retweeted an unflattering picture of primary rival Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s wife and suggested NATO is obsolete and “some form of punishment” is needed for women who have abortions if the procedure were illegal.
“I could have done without the tweet,” Trump told “Fox News Sunday.”
Trump wouldn’t agree that he made a mistake on the abortion question, but said, “As a hypothetical question, I would have rather answered it in a different manner.”
He eventually issued two statements to clarify his comments.
Those mistakes appear to be hurting him in Wisconsin, which holds its primary on Tuesday, and with women voters, a key voting bloc in the general election.
Most polls show Trump trailing Cruz in Wisconsin, after leading him by double-digits in late February. And a recent WSJ/NBC poll shows 70 percent of women have an unfavorable view of him.
However, Trump on Sunday held firm on his position that NATO has become obsolete.
He said the international peacekeeping force doesn’t focus enough on stopping terrorism and that the United States pays too much for what it gets in return.
“It's obsolete,” Trump said. “We're not getting the benefits that we should be getting for the money. We're carrying a lot of countries. … What I said was exactly right. … I think NATO has to be readjusted.”
Trump also stuck by his suggestion that it’s perhaps time for the U.S. to stop paying most of the bill to defend Japan and South Korea against nuclear-armed North Korea, even if that means touching off a nuclear arms race in the Korean peninsula.
“You have Pakistan and you have North Korea. And you have China. And you have Russia. And you have India. And you have the United States and many other countries have nukes,” Trump said. “You already have a nuclear arms race.”
Trump has run his campaign since June in an unabashed style in which he has risen in the polls in part with unapologetic remarks about deporting roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States and a call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigrants.
On Sunday, the New York real estate magnate still expressed confidence about doing well in Wisconsin and winning the party nomination. He acknowledged, however, being a politician for just eight months and having a “learning curve.”
He also remained defiant regarding his decision to defend campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who has been charged with misdemeanor battery for allegedly grabbing the arm of a female reporter.
Trump said the reporter, Michelle Fields, originally and falsely claimed she was nearly knocked to the ground and that Lewandowski is a “good, honest man.”
“The easier thing would have been: ‘Corey, you're fired. You're not very good at that, OK?’ But I don't want to ruin him . . . I don't want to destroy him,” Trump said.

Trump doubles-down on allies paying more for US protection, vows to repeal ObamaCare

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump doubled-down Sunday night on his comments that the US should “do a better deal” with Japan, South Korea and other allies, saying they should pay more for America’s protection while taking a greater role in their defense — including building their own nuclear weapons.
Responding to questions at a Fox News Channel “On the Record” town hall two days before the Wisconsin primary — where polls show he trails Ted Cruz — Trump also said that raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour wasn’t good for business or jobs creation.
"If you start raising that minimum wage, you're going to make a lot of our companies even more non-competitive," he said.
Trump also delved into his plans to change the nation's tax code by "simplifying" it.
"The very rich are probably going to end up paying more, but there's an incentive for them to invest and create jobs in the country," he said.

'On the Record' Town Hall with Donald Trump: GOP presidential front-runner says he agrees that tone and tenor matter in a campaign, sounds off on what it means to be presidential and whether he would continue to tweet if elected president

He also renewed his promise to repeal ObamaCare — though he again wouldn’t offer specifics about what would replace it.
Trump’s comments capped a full day of defending his controversial statements on abortion, comments about rival Ted Cruz’s wife and American’s continued participation in NATO.
Trump pointed to the deals to defend countries such as Japan, Germany, and South Korea as an example of how the U.S. is a "policemen to the world."
"We defend all these countries, we're not properly reimbursed for the kind of money that we're spending," he said.
"We cannot spend billions and billions and billions of dollars on defending all of these countries," he added.
In recent days, the first-time candidate retweeted an unflattering picture of primary rival Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s wife and suggested NATO is obsolete and “some form of punishment” is needed for women who have abortions if the procedure were illegal.
“I could have done without the tweet,” Trump said earlier in the day on “Fox News Sunday.”
Trump wouldn’t agree that he made a mistake on the abortion question, but said, “As a hypothetical question, I would have rather answered it in a different manner.”
He eventually issued two statements to clarify his comments.
Trump held firm on his position that NATO has become obsolete.
He said the international peacekeeping force doesn’t focus enough on stopping terrorism and that the United States pays too much for what it gets in return.
“It's obsolete,” Trump said. “We're not getting the benefits that we should be getting for the money. We're carrying a lot of countries. … What I said was exactly right. … I think NATO has to be readjusted.”
Trump also stuck by his suggestion that it’s perhaps time for the U.S. to stop paying most of the bill to defend Japan and South Korea against nuclear-armed North Korea, even if that means touching off a nuclear arms race in the Korean peninsula.
“You have Pakistan and you have North Korea. And you have China. And you have Russia. And you have India. And you have the United States and many other countries have nukes,” Trump said. “You already have a nuclear arms race.”
Trump has run his campaign since June in an unabashed style in which he has risen in the polls in part with unapologetic remarks about deporting roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States and a call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigrants.
On Sunday, the New York real estate magnate still expressed confidence about doing well in Wisconsin and winning the party nomination. He acknowledged, however, being a politician for just eight months and having a “learning curve.”

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Radical Islamic Terrorists Cartoon

Hollande's 'Islamist terrorism' omitted from White House vid; 'technical issue' blamed

French President Francois Hollande’s comments this week in Washington about Islamic terrorism -- a term President Obama won’t use -- were omitted from an official White House video.
Holland made the comments at an international summit in Washington on nuclear security that also focused largely on global terrorism.
“We are also making sure that between Europe and the United States there can be a very high level coordination. But we’re also well aware that the roots of terrorism, Islamist terrorism, is in Syria and in Iraq. We therefore have to act both in Syria and in Iraq, and this is what we’re doing within the framework of the coalition. …” Hollande said following a meeting at the summit between his and Obama’s top officials.
However, an audio gap occurs in the original White House video where the French-to-English translator would have said: “Islamist terrorism, is in Syria and in Iraq. We therefore have to act both in Syria and in Iraq, and this is what we’re doing within the framework of the coalition.”

The gap was reported first by the Media Research Center, a conservative-leaning government watchdog group.
Republicans and others have been highly critical of Obama, and Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, for not saying the words “Islamic terrorism” when talking about the Islamic State terror group, which has claimed responsibility for the recent, deadly bombing attacks in Paris and Brussels.
“For seven years, President Obama, and Hillary Clinton and this administration have been sound bound up by political correctness that they have refused to acknowledge what is it is we are fighting, refused to even name it,” GOP presidential candidate Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told FoxNew on Sunday.
“After every one of these attacks, the president does a national TV conference where he refuses to say the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ Instead he lectures Americans on Islamophobia. Well, enough is enough.”
The White House told several news outlets on Friday the audio gap was the result of a "technical issue" not an attempt to scrub or censor Hollande’s comments and that an updated video with the complete audio was posted on WhiteHouse.gov soon after the problem was recognized.

Recent ISIS Attacks and ISIS-inspired Attacks in Europe | FindTheData.org

Officials also said the official transcript posted on the website always included the dropped sentences.
Obama has said that he will not use the words “radical Islamic terrorists” because they legitimize the efforts of the Islamic State, to which he refers to as ISIS.

Clinton, Sanders camps squabble over NY debate, latest in now contentious primary

The Clinton campaign has met rival Sen. Bernie Sanders’ challenge to debate him in New York ahead on the state’s April 19 primary, but the final negotiations have resulted in the kind of acrimony the has pervaded their primary contest in recent days.
The Clinton campaign said Saturday that the Sanders team rejected three days offered this week: Monday night, the evening of April 14 or on ABC’s April 15 “Good Morning America” show.
“The Sanders campaign needs to stop using the New York primary as a playground for political games and negative attacks against Hillary Clinton,” said Clinton National Press Secretary Brian Fallon.
He said the Monday date was apparently rejected because the Sanders campaign wanted the debate after Tuesday’s Milwaukee primary and that the April 14 and 15 offers still stand.
Clinton has a huge delegate lead over Sanders in the race to win the Democratic nomination in July. However, Sanders is on roll, having recently upset Clinton in the Michigan primary and taken five of the last six state contests. And polls show he’s in a tight race with Clinton in Wisconsin.
A loss in delegate-rich Wisconsin or New York would be a major setback for Clinton, particularly in New York, her adopted home state for which she was a U.S. senator. Sanders was born in Brooklyn.
“We are very pleased that Secretary Clinton finally has accepted our request for a debate,” Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs said in response to the offers. “Unfortunately, the dates and venues she has proposed don’t make a whole lot of sense.”
Briggs the Monday night idea is “ludicrous,” considering the NCAA men’s basketball finals are being played at that time and Syracuse could be one of the teams.

He left open the possibility of compromise by saying, “We hope we can reach agreement in the near future.”
However, the episode capped an especially scrappy week for the campaigns.
Clinton snapped at a Greenpeace protester. She linked Sanders and Tea party Republicans. And she bristled with anger when nearly two dozen Sanders supporters marched out of an event near her home outside New York City, shouting "if she wins, we lose."
"They don't want to listen to anyone else," she shot back. "We actually have to do something. Not just complain about what is happening."
After a year of campaigning, months of debates and 35 primary elections, Sanders is finally getting under Clinton's skin in the Democratic presidential race.
Clinton has spent weeks largely ignoring Sanders and trying to focus on Republican front-runner Donald Trump. Now, after several primary losses and with a tough fight in New York on the horizon, Clinton is showing flashes of frustration with the Vermont senator — irritation that could undermine her efforts to unite the party around her candidacy.
According to Democrats close to Hillary and former President Bill Clinton, both are frustrated by Sanders' ability to cast himself as above politics-as-usual even while firing off what they consider to be misleading attacks. The Clintons are even more annoyed that Sanders' approach seems to be rallying — and keeping — young voters by his side.
While Hillary Clinton's team contends her lock on the nomination as "nearly insurmountable," the campaign frequently grumbles that Sanders hasn't faced the same level of scrutiny as the former secretary of state, New York senator and first lady. Her aides complain about Sanders' rhetoric, claiming he's broken his pledge to avoid character attacks by going after her paid speeches and ties to Wall Street, and they point to scenes of Sanders supporters booing Clinton's name at his rallies.
Actress Rosario Dawson's 15-minute speech at a New York City rally on Thursday, in which she rallied the crowd by crying "shame on you, Hillary" and noted that Clinton could soon face an FBI interview over the email controversy while at the State Department, underscored the growing tensions between the campaigns.
Clinton hopes that big victories in New York and five Northeastern states a week later will allow her to wrap up the nomination by the end of the month.
But aides acknowledge that Sanders, who's raised $109 million this year and has pledged to take his campaign to the party convention in July, is unlikely to feel significant political or financial pressure to drop out of the race, even if it becomes clear he cannot win the nomination.
Clinton stayed in the 2008 contest against Barack Obama until the bitter end, though her initial advantage with superdelegates, who later flipped to the Illinois senator, gave her a stronger case for the nomination.
Unlike eight years ago, when California Sen. Dianne Feinstein brought Clinton and Obama together for a meeting, few Democrats are in position to broker peace between Clinton and Sanders. For most of his political career, Sanders identified as an independent — not a Democrat — leaving him with far weaker ties to party powerbrokers.
According to an Associated Press analysis, Sanders must win 67 percent of the remaining delegates and uncommitted superdelegates — party leaders and officials who can support any candidate — through June to be able to clinch the Democratic nomination. So far he's only winning 37 percent.
Joel Benenson, Clinton's chief strategist, said: "We're going to get to a point at the end of April where there just isn't enough real estate for him to overcome the lead that we've built."
Still, any kind of truce is probably weeks, if not months, away.
For now, Sanders is costing Clinton significant time, money and political capital. His victories in recent Western caucuses underscored her weaknesses among younger and white working-class voters, important elements of the Democratic coalition. He's favored in the Wisconsin primary Tuesday.
Sanders is drawing sizable crowds in New York, attracting 18,500 to rally in the South Bronx on Thursday. A victory in that state, which Clinton represented for two terms in the Senate, would deal a significant psychological blow to her campaign, rattling Democrats already worried about her high national disapproval ratings.
Clinton is more reliant on traditional fundraising than is Sanders, who's raised the bulk of his money online. Even as she prepares for New York's primary, she has scheduled fundraisers before then in Denver, Virginia, Miami and Los Angeles — at the home of actor George Clooney.
She needs to continue raising primary dollars because June contests in California and New Jersey will be expensive. Sanders faces fewer financial anxieties.
Sanders adviser Tad Devine said the senator was not encouraging his supporters to disrupt Clinton's events and was focused on his own message. But he also said the campaign would respond when Clinton mischaracterizes Sanders' records and positions.
Her attacks, he said, only help Sanders.
"When your attacks against your opponent feed the biggest weakness that you have, you are undermining yourself," said Devine.

Cruz turns to GOP convention rule to keep Kasich from nabbing nomination

Sen. Ted Cruz is making the case that GOP presidential rival John Kasich and his pesky campaign cannot win the party nomination unless he has top showings in eight states -- an argument that could help Cruz in the upcoming Wisconsin primary and the GOP White House race.
Cruz in recent interviews has repeatedly cited a Republican National Committee rule that states candidates can be nominated only if they've won the total delegate majority in eight or more states, as reported first by The Washington Post.
The Texas senator is trailing front-runner Donald Trump by 273 delegates with about half of the country’s caucus-primary contests remaining.
However, Cruz now leads Trump in the Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary, according to most polls. But Kasich, the governor of Ohio who is running a distant third in the GOP White House, could win enough votes to decide the primary and the entire nominating process.
Kasich has won only one contest, his home-state of Ohio, and he has finished in second-place or tied for second in five others.
Trump has 736 pledged delegates, followed by Cruz with 463, then Kasich with 143 -- with 1,237 needed to secure the nomination.
The RNC wrote the rule in 2012 after then-Texas Rep. Ron Paul had nearly enough wins to at least complicate the nomination process for clear front-runner Mitt Romney.
Kasich is now considered the only remaining candidate that the Republican establishment could try to nominate in a contested convention.
Trump and Cruz have in part made their campaigns an indictment of insider Washington and are being called un-electable in a general-election race against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Cruz on Wednesday told conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt: "It was the Washington establishment that put this rule in place. So now when the Washington establishment candidates are losing, they want to change the rules to try to parachute in some candidate who hasn't earned the votes of the people. That is nothing short of crazy."

RCP Poll Average for Republican Presidential Nomination | InsideGov

Hewitt was following up on Cruz’s comments on a CNN “Town Hall” in which he said Kasich being on the ballot was “against the rules” and “If no one has 1,237 (delegates), you have to have won at least eight states."
Karl Rove, a senior Bush White House adviser, said Thursday on Hewitt’s show that Cruz has “misinterpreted” the so-called 40b rule.
Rove acknowledge the rule was indeed written just before the 2012 convention to keep Paul, who has just roughly 5 percent of the vote, from getting a “full blown” nomination process.
He said the rule states candidates must have that majority of delegates to have an official nominating speech and seconding speeches. However, they can receive votes on the first ballot from the “pledged” delegates they won in caucuses and primaries.
Republican officials and others have also reportedly said new rules could be written before this year’s convention in July.

Trump, Cruz take different paths Saturday but stay on the attack

Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz took different approaches Saturday toward winning the GOP president nomination but stuck with the personal attacks in an effort to discredit each other’s campaign.

“Such deception and such lying,” the front-running Trump said about Cruz, at a rally in Racine, Wis., after one of the worst weeks of his campaign.
The Texas senator was, meanwhile, taking a quick detour from Wisconsin to make an appearance at North Dakota's Republican convention, where presidential delegates are being picked.
Convention-goers are scheduled to select 25 of their 28 national delegates on Sunday. North Dakota isn't holding a primary or caucus in the 2016 Republican race.
Still, before leaving Wisconsin, which holds its primary Tuesday, Cruz said Friday that making Trump the GOP nominee would be a “train wreck.”
Trump and Cruz are in a close race in Wisconsin, with Ohio Gov. John Kasich running third, according to most polls.
Trump and Kasich sent supporters to North Dakota on their behalf to make the case that they should be backed by the state’s delegates at the Cleveland convention in July.
Cruz earned an ovation in North Dakota when he said the state has become "a powerful energy haven" and that he would keep the federal government "the heck out of the way."
The outcome in Wisconsin could help determine whether Trump can seize the Republican nomination without a fight at the party's convention this summer.
Trump says his wife, Melania, is going to be joining him Monday at campaign events.
In Racine, Trump began the afternoon by defended a series of controversial comments in recent days on NATO, abortion and his remark that Japan and South Korea should perhaps be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons.
"This politics is a tough business because you can say things one way and the press will criticize you horribly,” he said. “You say it another way and the press will criticize you horribly."
Among his biggest missteps have been Trump's recent comments on abortion, which have managed to unite both abortion rights activists and opponents in their criticism.
During a taping of "Face the Nation" on Friday, Trump said he believed that, when it comes to abortion: "The laws are set. And I think we have to leave it that way." His spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, quickly issued a clarification that Trump meant that laws won't change until he's president and appoints judges who can interpret them differently.
It was the second time in days that he'd stepped in hot water over the issue. On Wednesday, he'd said women should be punished for getting abortions if they're ever banned -- a position the notoriously unapologetic campaign quickly reversed.
Trump told the audience on Saturday that his words had been repeatedly taken out of context, and complained that he was being held to a different standard than his rivals. He called his comments on "Face the Nation" "perfect" and "so good."
"They took words out that I said," Trump told the rally, implying CBS had edited his answer about keeping abortion laws as they are. But the video made clear there was no editing in the exchange about abortion and his response was given in full.
"It's a tough question," he added of abortion. "You know, 50 percent of the people hate you. Fifty percent of the people love you, very simple."
Trump's comments raised concerns in the Republican Party about whether his unpopularity with women as measured in preference polling would make him unelectable in a general election match-up against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
In an apparent effort to address that concern, Trump is bringing his wife on the campaign trail. His daughter Ivanka, who just had a baby, will also be returning to campaign with him in another week or so, he said.
Trump responded at length to criticism from both of his rivals as well as from President Obama over his call to consider allowing South Korea and Japan to acquire nuclear weapons -- a position the president said betrayed an ignorance of foreign policy and the world.
"Now I didn't say anything about letting Japan nuke," Trump said. "But I did say, perhaps if we can't do the right deal, we'll have to let them take care of themselves."
Trump said, "if that means they'll have to someday get nuclear weapons, in all fairness folks, I know the way life works, eventually they're going to probably want to do it anyway." And he later claimed that his much-panned assertion that NATO was irrelevant was suddenly being embraced by people who had "studied the organization for 30 years."
Trump said he was popular in some areas of Wisconsin but "in certain areas, the city areas, I'm not doing well. And I'm not doing well because nobody knows my message."
He said people were given misinformation, and partly blamed "crazy talk show hosts" including Charlie Sykes, with whom he had a contentious radio interview.
But Trump said he's hoping he'll be able to win some of those skeptics over as he campaigns across the Wisconsin -- and went so far to predict, in an afternoon rally in Wausau, that he would win the state.