Presumptuous Politics

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Fox News projects Sanders to win Indiana Democratic primary

Fox News projects Sen. Bernie Sanders will win Indiana’s Democratic presidential primary, scoring an upset victory against front-runner Hillary Clinton.
“The Clinton campaign thinks that this campaign is over, I’ve got some bad news for her.” Sanders told reporters at a press conference Tuesday evening. “I think we can pull off one of the great political upsets in the history of the United States.”
Clinton had led Sanders in pre-election polls, but it appears that not enough of her supporters actually turned out to vote for her Tuesday.
He said he has an "uphill climb" to the nomination but he's "in this campaign to win and we are going to fight until the last vote is cast."
Sanders said he wants to debate Clinton in California.
“I sense a great deal of momentum,” said Sanders. “I sense some great victories coming.”
The Vermont senator is far behind the former secretary of state in the delegate count. He won't win by a large enough margin Tuesday to keep Clinton from collecting at least some delegates.
Clinton entered the night with 91 percent of the delegates she needs to become the first woman nominated by a major party.
Sanders called himself the “strongest candidate to prevent Trump from becoming president.”
“I think we have a path toward victory, although it is a narrow path.”
Despite a significant trail in the Democratic primary, Sanders said Sunday he will stay in the run until the end.
“We intend to fight for every vote and every delegate remaining,” Sanders said at a press conference in Washington, D.C., before heading to campaign events in Indiana.
Sanders has brought in about $26 million in April in his primary challenge to Clinton, a steep decline from the $46 million he raised in March, raising questions about whether he can sustain his powerful online money machine as his path to the nomination has substantially narrowed against Clinton.

Cruz suspends campaign, clearing Trump path to GOP nomination

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz cleared the path Tuesday night for Donald Trump to claim the Republican presidential nomination, suspending his underdog campaign following a crushing defeat in the Indiana primary – allowing the billionaire businessman to effectively leave the raucous primary behind and turn his attention squarely to the general election.
“We’re gonna win in November,” Trump said.
John Kasich’s campaign said the Ohio governor would remain in the race until a candidate reaches the necessary 1,237 delegates. But with Cruz ending his bid, Trump would appear on a glide path to hitting that, having vanquished almost everyone in what was once a 17-person field – and now within easy reach of the party mantle, an outcome some pundits and power-brokers once refused to even contemplate.
Cruz announced his decision to dismayed supporters in Indianapolis.
“I said I would continue on as long as there was a viable path to victory. Tonight, I’m sorry to say it appears that path has been foreclosed,” Cruz said.
While a Trump-Hillary Clinton match-up now appears inevitable, Sen. Bernie Sanders kept the race alive on the Democratic side Tuesday night by pulling off a projected upset victory in Indiana.
“I understand that Secretary Clinton thinks that this campaign is over,” Sanders said, adding that he has “bad news” for her.
Sanders said he expects “more victories in the weeks to come” though he admitted he has an “uphill climb” to the nomination.
But on the GOP side, while Kasich remains in the race and Trump still could face drama at the party convention in Cleveland, GOP Chairman Reince Priebus declared him the presumptive nominee Tuesday night, as did Clinton.
Trump addressed supporters at Trump Tower in New York on Tuesday night after his seventh consecutive victory in Indiana.
He called Cruz "one hell of a competitor," calling his decision to drop out of the race "brave."
He also said that while he wasn't sure if Cruz likes him, he praised his former rival as a "smart" and "tough guy" who had an "amazing future" ahead of him.
Trump then turned his attention to his likely Democratic opponent, saying, “We're going after Hillary Clinton."
The New York billionaire criticized Clinton's recent comments about the coal industry. He says she wants to close mines and he promised to help coal miners get back to work.
During his concession speech, Cruz told dismayed supporters the path to victory had been closed.
"I've said I would continue on as long as there was a viable path to victory; tonight I'm sorry to say it appears that path has been foreclosed," Cruz told the somber crowd in Indianapolis.
Cruz campaigned aggressively in Indiana, but could not overcome Trump.
“With a heavy heart, but with boundless optimism for the long-term future of our nation, we are suspending our campaign. … But hear me now, I am not suspending our fight for liberty," Cruz said.
Fox News projected Trump has the winner shortly after the polls closed at 7 p.m. ET.
With 97 percent of precincts reporting, Trump has 53.2 percent of the vote.
Tuesday’s primary capped off a bitter and personal clash between Trump and Cruz with both accusing the other of being an unhinged liar.
As soon as the race was called, Trump demanded Cruz exit the primary race, tweeting that ““Lyin’ Ted” should “stop wasting time & money.”
Earlier in the day, Trump rehashed claims on Fox News that Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, appeared in a 1963 photograph with John F. Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald -- citing a report first published by the National Enquirer.
"His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald's being, you know, shot," Trump said on Fox & Friends. "Nobody even brings it up; I mean they don't even talk about that."
Responding, Cruz called his father his "hero," and labeled Trump an "amoral" liar. He also described Trump as a “braggadocious, arrogant buffoon.”
Cruz went into the Indiana primary vowing to fight on even if he lost.
Prior to Tuesday’s contest, The Associated Press had Trump leading the delegate count at 996, Cruz in second with 565 delegates and Kasich with 153. To secure the Republican nomination, a candidate must have 1,237 delegates going into the national convention in July.
Though Trump cannot clinch the nomination with a big win in Indiana, his path toward securing the delegates he needs gets much easier. A Hoosier State win also gives Team Trump more wiggle room in the campaign’s final contests.
Trump has devoted more time to campaigning in Indiana than he has to most other states, underscoring his eagerness to put his Republican rivals away and shift his attention to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Indiana emerged as a must-win state for Cruz and the “Stop Trump” movement to block Trump from locking up the Republican nomination.
In an attempt to stack the odds, Cruz and Kasich recently announced an alliance to deny the billionaire businessman the delegates he needs to win.
Cruz and Kasich agreed to cede upcoming primary contests to one another. Kasich would stand down in Indiana while Cruz would do the same in Oregon and New Mexico, which hold their primaries May 17 and June 7.
Cracks in communication about the tactical team-up were visible almost immediately. When Kasich was asked about the deal’s message on April 25 and what his Indiana supporters should do he said, “I’ve never told them not to vote for me. They ought to vote for me.”
Cruz also tried to reenergize his campaign by naming former businesswoman Carly Fiorina as his running mate. He rounded out the week with an endorsement from Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
Like Trump, Cruz knows how critical Indiana is to keeping his hopes alive for the GOP bid – and his campaign has worked hard to recreate his prior Midwestern wins.
The Texan travelled across the state on a tour bus and has spent most of his time reaching out to large groups of politically engaged evangelical Christians – a demographic he dominates.
While barnstorming Indiana, Cruz also sharpened his opposition to transgender rights for Americans and has publically attacked both Trump and Clinton for supporting North Carolina’s controversial new anti-LGBT law.
According to the Associated Press delegate count, Clinton went into Tuesday’s contest with a commanding lead over Sanders. Clinton has 2,165 delegates compared to Sanders’ 1,357. A Democratic candidate needs 2,383 delegates to shore up the party’s nomination.
So far, Clinton has secured 91 percent of the delegates she needs to win the nomination. That means, even if she loses every single remaining primary, she can still win the nomination.
Neither Clinton nor Sanders spent Tuesday in Indiana. Sanders made stops in Kentucky while Clinton focused on West Virginia and Ohio, a key general election battleground.

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Political College Correctness Cartoon

Judge blocks Louisville from moving 120-year-old Confederate monument

Unbelievable! Lets also burn some books we don't like.

A Kentucky judge Monday issued a temporary restraining order preventing the city of Louisville from moving a 70-foot-tall Confederate war monument from the spot near the University of Louisville campus where it has stood since 1895.
Jefferson County Circuit Judge Judith McDonald-Burkman issued the order against Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and the metro area's government, preventing them from moving, disassembling or otherwise tampering with the monument.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans and Everett Corley, a Republican running for Congress, filed for the restraining order on Monday. They contended that the mayor lacks the authority to remove the monument and did not follow proper protocol.
Fischer and University President James Ramsey had announced Friday that they would remove the monument, marking the latest government effort to reconsider displaying Confederate symbols following the massacre of nine black churchgoers in South Carolina last summer.
The city said the stone and bronze structure, for years a source of tension, would be disassembled and moved to storage until a decision is made on where it should be properly displayed.
County Attorney Mike O'Connell said he would aggressively defend the merged city-county government's legal ability to remove the sculpture from its prominent location between Second and Third streets, next to campus and the university's celebrated Speed Art museum, which just completed a $60 million renovation.
The judge scheduled a hearing Thursday morning, though O'Connell's office asked for more time to prepare its legal arguments. The judge will hear that motion Tuesday morning.
Corley, a real estate agent running against two other Republicans to take on Rep. John Yarmuth in the fall, called the statue's proposed removal "the 2016 version of book burning." He said removing the monument — which features statues of three Confederate soldiers and the inscription "To Our Confederate Dead" — would be an insult to soldiers who fought and died.
Kentucky, sandwiched between three free states and three slave states, never seceded from the Union and attempted to remain neutral throughout the Civil War. But its people were deeply divided. Some fought for the Union, others for the Confederacy, and the mixed allegiances tore apart families and communities across the state.
Kentucky is the birthplace of both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, the only president of the Confederacy. Both are honored in the state's Capitol rotunda with large statues. Following the Charleston church shootings, leaders from both political parties called for the removal of the Davis statue. But a state commission voted 7-2 to leave it be.
Corley charged that while the city says it plans to move the Louisville monument, it really intends to destroy it and throw it away. O'Connell called that allegation "ridiculous."
Some in the city and the university community have called for years for the monument to be removed. The city's announcement last week came days after Ricky Jones, a professor of Pan-African studies at the university, wrote an opinion piece in the Courier-Journal newspaper calling again for it to be moved. He called it "a symbol of treachery, terrorism, slavery and racism" and a "celebration of backwardness."

Trump touts poll giving him edge over Clinton; Cruz issues dire warning

Donald Trump moved Monday to blunt the narrative that he would lose a general election to Hillary Clinton if he’s the Republican nominee, touting a new poll that showed him narrowly edging the Democratic presidential front-runner in a hypothetical match-up.
The Rasmussen Reports survey buoyed Trump’s campaign as he seeks to add to his hot streak on Tuesday in Indiana’s primary – a contest rival Ted Cruz is fighting hard to win.
Cruz has escalated his rhetoric as he courts Hoosier voters, even saying Sunday that Americans are “praying” for them. He warned against giving “in to evil.”
Asked Monday what he meant by that, the Texas senator said, “We are not a bitter, angry, petty, bigoted people. That is not America.” Spokesman Ron Nehring also invoked religious imagery, telling Fox News a Trump nomination would lead to a “wipeout of biblical proportions” for the GOP in November.
But the Rasmussen poll released Monday – even if it’s a flash-in-the-pan outlier – for the time being helps Trump counter persistent claims by Cruz, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and other detractors that he would surely lose to Clinton in November.
The poll showed Trump edging Clinton 41-39 percent in a hypothetical match-up, the first time he’s led their polling since last October. There is an asterisk in that finding: If voters are given the option of staying home, another recent Rasmussen survey showed Clinton and Trump tied.
Still, it was enough for Trump to herald the results on Twitter.
The poll of 1,000 likely voters was conducted April 27-28, and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
In Indiana itself, Trump continues to enjoy a roughly 9-point lead over Cruz, according to the RealClearPolitics average. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has maintained a nearly 7-point average lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Though Clinton, too, has been on a winning streak and is far closer to clinching the nomination than Trump, Sanders has – like Cruz – insisted he plans to keep on fighting.
“We intend to fight for every vote and every delegate remaining,” Sanders said at a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Sunday.
On Monday, Cruz similarly declared: "I am in for the distance, as long as we have a viable path to victory. I am competing until the end.”
Asked whether he still has a path to victory even if he loses on Tuesday, Cruz said: “Absolutely.”
Trump, to the contrary, said if he wins Tuesday, “it’s over.”
Fifty-seven delegates are at stake Tuesday in the Indiana GOP primary; 83 are at stake for the Democrats.
The pressure has only mounted on Cruz to do well in Indiana, amid reports that so-called “unbound” delegates in states like North Dakota who had been aligned with Cruz are growing uneasy amid Trump’s winning streak – and could consider flipping to Trump on the first ballot in Cleveland.
Nehring vowed Monday that Trump “will not get a majority on the first ballot.”

Cruz faces hard fight against Trump surge in Indiana, as front-runner says race is 'over' with win

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz could see his last opportunity to stop rival Donald Trump from clinching the Republican nomination go begging Tuesday if Indiana voters back the real estate mogul by a large margin.
Cruz has spent the past week camped out in Indiana, securing the support of Gov. Mike Pence and announcing retired technology executive Carly Fiorina as his running mate. Yet the Associated Press reported early Tuesday that his aides were prepared Tuesday for Cruz to fall short, though the senator vowed to stay in the race, regardless of the results.
"I am in for the distance, as long as we have a viable path to victory," Cruz told reporters on Monday during a campaign stop.
Trump devoted more time to campaigning in Indiana than he has to most other states, underscoring his eagerness to put his Republican rival away and shift his attention toward Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. While Trump cannot clinch the nomination with a big win in Indiana, his path would get easier and he would have more room for error in the campaign's final contests.
"Indiana is very important, because if I win that's the end of it. It would be over," Trump said during a lunch stop Monday in Indianapolis.
Republican leaders spent months dismissing Trump as little more than an entertainer who would fade once voting started. But Republican primary voters have stuck with the billionaire businessman, handing him victories in every region of the country, including a string of six straight wins on the East Coast.
Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders will also face off in Indiana's Democratic primary on Tuesday, though the stakes are lower than in the Republican race. Clinton holds a commanding lead over Sanders. securing 91 percent of the delegates she needs to win the nomination. That means she can still win the nomination even if she loses every remaining contest.
Sanders has conceded that he faces a difficult path to overtake Clinton, one that hinges on convincing superdelegates to back him over the former secretary of state. Superdelegates are Democratic Party insiders who can support the candidate of their choice, regardless of how their states vote. And they favor Clinton by a nearly 18-1 margin.
Neither Clinton nor Sanders planned to spend Tuesday in Indiana. Sanders was making stops in Kentucky, which holds a primary in mid-May, while Clinton moved on to Ohio, a key general election battleground.
Clinton's team has started deploying staff to states that will be crucial in November and is also raising money for the fall campaign. Even as Trump hires more staff to round out his slim team, he already lags far behind Clinton in general election preparations.
A showdown between Clinton and Trump would pit one of Democrats' most popular and highly-regarded figures against a first-time political candidate who is deeply divisive within his own party. Cruz and other Republicans have argued that Trump would be roundly defeated in the general election, denying their party the White House for a third straight term.
But Trump is the only Republican left in the race who can secure the 1,237 delegates needed for the nomination through regular primary voting. Cruz -- as well as Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who trails significantly in the delegate count -- must try to block Trump in Indiana and the handful of other remaining states to push the race toward a contested convention.
In an abrupt strategy shift, Cruz and Kasich announced an alliance of sorts in Indiana. The Ohio governor agreed to stop spending money in Indiana to give Cruz a chance to compete head-to-head with Trump. Cruz has pledged to do the same for Kasich in Oregon and New Mexico, which vote in the coming weeks.
But that strategy, which appeared to unravel even as it was announced, may have backfired. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll found that nearly 6 in 10 Indiana primary voters disapproved of the Cruz-Kasich alliance.
"After they made the alliance, their numbers tanked," Trump said Monday. "That's what happens when politicians make deals."

Clinton confronted by laid-off coal worker at West Virginia campaign stop

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was confronted Monday at a campaign stop in West Virginia by a laid-off coal worker over previous comments she made that “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”
Clinton was attending a panel discussion with residents and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in Williamson, W. Va. when she was asked a question by Bo Copley, who told her he was a laid off worker in the coal industry.
“I just want to know how you can say you’re going to put a lot of coal miners out of, out of jobs, and then come in here and tell us how you’re going to be our friend, because those people out there don’t see you as a friend,” Copley said, sometimes breaking into tears, as the chants of the protesters were heard outside.
Clinton however said her comments in March were a “misstatement,” and that she has been talking about helping out coal country “for a very long time.”
“What I was saying is that the way things are going now, we will continue to lose jobs,” Clinton said Monday. “That’s what I meant to say, and I think that that seems to be supported by the facts. I didn’t mean that we were going to do it, what I said was, that is going to happen unless we take action to try to and help and prevent it.”
Clinton released a $30 billion plan last fall aimed at aiding communities dependent on coal production and she's promised that her husband would focus on revitalizing the region.
Manchin came to Clinton’s defense on Monday.
“If I thought that was in her heart, if I thought she wanted to eliminate one job in West Virginia I wouldn’t be sitting here,” he said. “I think Hillary knows that. She wouldn’t be here if she felt that way. There is no way you could come into this type of a setting and the way that people are hurting so bad unless you want to help them.”
Copley however told Manchin he didn’t believe that his endorsement of Clinton was a good move.
“If I can be candid, I think still supporting her hurts you, it does, because it’s not a good outlook here,” he said.
"I can't take it back, and I certainly can't get people who, for political reasons or personal reasons, very painful reasons, are upset with me," Clinton said. "I want you to know I'm going to do whatever I can to help no matter what happens politically."
She added, "Whether or not West Virginia supports me, I'm going to support you."
Copley said he plans to vote in the Republican primary May 10.
The Republican National Committee responded Monday to the Clinton calling her earlier comments a “misstatement.”
“If Hillary Clinton really stood with coal country she’d be calling on the Obama EPA to stop taking a wrecking ball to their way of life. Given her steadfast support for Obama’s War on Coal, her promise to ‘put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business’ may have been one of the few honest moments she’s had this entire campaign,” said RNC spokesman Michael Short.
Clinton is in the midst of a two-day campaign swing through Appalachia ahead of voting in that region later this month.