Establishment Mouthpiece Tells GOP, ‘Reject Trump Even If He’s Nominee’

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maxresdefaultBy George Will. Donald Trump’s damage to the Republican Party, although already extensive, has barely begun. Republican quislings will multiply, slinking into support of the most anti-conservative presidential aspirant in their party’s history. These collaborationists will render themselves ineligible to participate in the party’s reconstruction.

Ted Cruz’s announcement of his preferred running mate has enhanced the nomination process by giving voters pertinent information. They already know the only important thing about Trump’s choice: His running mate will be unqualified for high office because he or she will think Trump is qualified.

Hillary Clinton’s optimal running mate might be Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a pro-labor populist whose selection would be balm for the bruised feelings of Bernie Sanders’ legions. Running mates rarely matter as electoral factors: In 2000, Al Gore got 43.2 percent of the North Carolina vote. In 2004, John Kerry, trying to improve upon Gore’s total there, ran with North Carolina Sen. John Edwards but received 43.6 percent. If, however, Brown were to help deliver Ohio for Clinton, the Republican path to 270 electoral votes would be narrower than a needle’s eye.

Republican voters, particularly in Indiana and California, can, by supporting Cruz, make the Republican convention a deliberative body rather than one that merely ratifies decisions made elsewhere, some of them six months earlier. A convention’s sovereign duty is to choose a plausible nominee who has a reasonable chance to win, not to passively affirm the will of a mere plurality of voters recorded episodically in a protracted process. (Read more from “Establishment Mouthpiece Tells GOP, ‘Reject Trump Even If He’s Nominee'” HERE)

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Eyeing an Indiana Victory, Trump Says, ‘It’s Over’

By Steve Holland and Valerie Volcovici. Front-runner Donald Trump said on Sunday that he will have essentially sealed the Republican U.S. presidential nomination if he wins Tuesday’s contest in Indiana, where he holds a big lead over chief rival Ted Cruz.

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist opinion poll showed Trump with a wide lead in Indiana, 49 percent to 34 percent for Cruz and 13 percent for a third candidate, Ohio Governor John Kasich.

Trump, a 69-year-old billionaire real estate developer, sounded confident in an interview on “Fox News Sunday” when asked whether Indiana would basically end the long-running Republican race in his favor.

“Yes, it’s over,” Trump said. “It’s already over.”

The poll showed the depth of the challenge facing Cruz, a conservative U.S. senator from Texas who is trying to prevent Trump from winning the 1,237 delegates needed to seal the nomination. (Read more from “Eyeing an Indiana Victory, Trump Says, ‘It’s Over'” HERE)

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Amid ‘Cry of Change,’ Sanders Supporters May Back Another Outsider

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Bernie_Sanders_2015_(1)_(cropped)If Donald Trump emerges as the Republican presidential nominee to face Hillary Clinton, he will receive support from backers of Clinton’s Democratic rival — at least that’s the prediction of Bill Maher.

“Some Bernie voters are going to vote for Trump,” Maher said Friday during his HBO show, Real Time with Bill Maher.

“Absolutely,” said Kellyanne Conway, who runs a super PAC that supports Sen. Ted Cruz. “Based on trade. Based on outsider, absolutely. No money in politics, same view.”

“I think Bernie Sanders is too poor to be bought, and I think Donald Trump is too rich to be bought by special interests,” said Royce Gourley, a real estate investor, who gave $2,500 to Sanders and $2,700 to Trump, Federal Election Commission filings show.

Trump has indicated he will seek the support of Sanders enthusiasm backers if the general election pits him against Clinton.

“You have two candidates in Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders which have reignited a group of people who have been disenfranchised and disappointed with the way Washington, D.C. and career politicians have run the country,” said Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. “Bernie Sanders has large crowds — not as large as Mr. Trump’s, but large crowds — and so there is a level of excitement there for people about his messaging and we will bring those people in.” (Read more from “Amid ‘Cry of Change,’ Sanders Supporters May Back Another Outsider” HERE)

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Calling on Lucifer to Hurt Trump and Cruz, Just More Evidence Establishment Wants to Destroy Both

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hqdefaultRINO Lindsey Graham Uses Lucifer Analogy on Trump

By Cathy Burke. Donald Trump’s poll numbers are so bad, Satan himself would likely give him a run for his money in a general election, Sen. Lindsey Graham declared Sunday.

In an interview with CBS News ‘ Face the Nation,’ the South Carolina lawmaker, who is supporting Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the contentious GOP primary, said Republicans embracing the real estate billionaire are “destroying conservatism.”

“You will make it hard for this party to ever regain footing with Hispanics because his immigration proposal is unworkable, is hateful,” he said. “When it comes to women, we’re alienating women who should be coming our way after eight years of [President Barack] Obama,” adding: “If you think his foreign policy is sound, you are obviously not listening to the same man I’m listening to” . . .

“There’s been a lot of talk about Lucifer,” Graham continued, referring to recent remarks by former House Speaker John Boehner that Cruz was Lucifer in the flesh.” “I think Lucifer may be the only person Trump could beat in a general election. When it comes to women and Hispanics, Trump polls like Lucifer. This is a contest between conservatism and Trumpism and Trumpism will get creamed at the ballot box.” (Read more from “Calling on Lucifer to Hurt Trump and Cruz, Just More Evidence Establishment Wants to Destroy Both” HERE)

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Cruz: Boehner Let out His ‘Inner Trump’ When He Called Me Lucifer

By Sara Jerde. Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said Sunday that former House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) let out his “inner Trump” when he called him “Lucifer in the flesh” . . .

“Well, you know, I think Boehner kinda let out his inner Trump. And you know, had some colorful imagery there,” Cruz said. “But it’s interesting when Boehner was attacking me, he praised Hillary Clinton he thinks she’s terrific and he praised Donald Trump, he said Donald Trump is his friend, texting buddy, golfing buddy, there’s a reason — if you want to see the next president as a John Boehner Republican, then Donald Trump is your man.” (Read more from “Cruz: Boehner Let out His ‘Inner Trump’ When He Called Me Lucifer” HERE)

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Cruz Delegates Waver as Trump Gains Momentum

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10664313236_b106846413_b (1)By Brendan Bordelon. Down in the polls and with zero margin for error heading into Tuesday’s crucial Indiana primary, Ted Cruz could be forgiven for seeing a silver lining in his apparent strength with unbound Republican delegates. Until Donald Trump’s romp through the Northeast last Tuesday abruptly changed the subject, the political world was captivated — and Trump supporters were infuriated — by the Cruz campaign’s successful effort to elect large blocs of friendly delegates at a series of state-party conventions.

But friendly delegates are as subject to shifts in the race’s momentum as anyone else, and Cruz’s strength with some of these crucial first-ballot convention voters may be overstated — particularly in North Dakota, where his campaign declared victory after filling 18 of 25 unbound delegate slots with its chosen candidates at the April 3 convention. Those delegates are vital to Cruz’s quest to deny his rival the 1,237 delegates he’ll need on the first ballot in Cleveland. But as they’ve watched Cruz struggle to tread water in a primary increasingly dominated by Trump, many of them, wary of a bitter convention battle that could rend the party at its seams, are rethinking their commitment to the Texas senator . . .

“I think [last Tuesday’s vote] spooked a lot of people,” says Jim Poolman, a North Dakota delegate who had previously committed to a first-ballot convention vote for Cruz. “But I want to be clear, I think the will of the people does mean something, as well,” he says. “Donald Trump has gotten a lot of support across the country, and just [last Tuesday], winning five [states] is one heckuva showing.” Poolman now says he will opt to see how the remaining primaries play out, and is “not necessarily” a first-ballot vote for Cruz. (Read more from “Cruz Delegates Waver as Trump Gains Momentum” HERE)

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Ted Cruz’s Support Softens Among the Delegates He Courted

By Jeremy W. Peters. Even as Donald J. Trump trounced him from New Hampshire to Florida to Arizona, Senator Ted Cruz could reassure himself with one crucial advantage: He was beating Mr. Trump in the obscure, internecine delegate fights that could end up deciding the Republican nomination for president.

“This is how elections are won in America,” Mr. Cruz gloated after walking away with the most delegates in Wyoming last month.

Now, as he faces a potentially candidacy-threatening contest on Tuesday in Indiana — where a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll, released Sunday morning, showed him trailing Mr. Trump by 15 percentage points — Mr. Cruz can take little solace from his vaunted delegate-wrangling operation even if he prevails there. (Read more from “Ted Cruz’s Support Softens Among the Delegates He Courted” HERE)

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Cuban-American Filmmaker Warns America Is Morphing Into Communist Country

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cuba-1176152_960_720Filmmaker and American citizen Agustin Blazquez never thought his native Cuba would become a communist country, but now he sees the same radical shift happening in America.

In this exclusive video interview for The Daily Caller News Foundation, he says the left has been clever by using “very non-threatening words,” like liberal, progressive and concerned citizens, for advancing government control of American lives. The truth about Cuban politics is hard to find because of media spin and propaganda dominating American discourse.

For Blazquez, watching American youth embrace avowed socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders for president, strikes him as “absurd.” It is the end result, he says, of the cultural marxist education and media propaganda that has anesthetized too many Americans who do not defend the values that made America exceptional.

Watching President Barack Obama travel to Cuba, he says, made him “want to throw up.” This was a “betrayal to victims of communism,” the filmmaker of “Covering Cuba” says. Blazquez adds there are “so many [Nelson] Mandelas” in Cuban prisons, who are tortured, denied medical attention and abused. Yet, prominent black elites from America, including most incredibly to him, the Congressional Black Caucus, are wined and dined by the political elites but are blind to their “betrayal of blacks in Cuba.” (Read more from “Cuban-American Filmmaker Warns America Is Morphing Into Communist Country” HERE)

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Cruz Denies an Indiana Loss Would End Campaign

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8571614768_c26c0ebc57_bRepublican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz said on Sunday he would continue his campaign if he lost the critical Indiana primary on Tuesday.

“If you don’t win in Indiana under these circumstances, is this race over?” asked “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace.

“Of course not,” Cruz said. “It’s going to be a battle to see who can earn a majority of the delegates elected by the people at the convention. And the reason Donald is so frantic to say the race is over … is because Donald knows he cannot earn a majority of the delegates that were elected by the people . . .

Cruz in the days leading up to the primary has announced former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina as his running mate and gained the endorsement of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R).

He also cut a deal with rival Ohio Gov. John Kasich in the hopes of boosting his chances in the Hoosier State. In exchange for Kasich pulling out of Indiana, thus helping Cruz gain more support in the state, the Texas senator would forgo campaigning in New Mexico and Oregon to pave the way for Kasich to best Trump in those states. The deal was struck in an attempt to stop Trump from securing the GOP nomination. (Read more from “Cruz Denies an Indiana Loss Would End Campaign” HERE)

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‘Spying Billboards’ Under Fire for Tapping Into People’s Cellphones

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A U.S. senator is calling for a federal investigation into an outdoor advertising company’s latest effort to target billboard ads to specific consumers.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer has dubbed Clear Channel Outdoor Americas’ so-called RADAR program “spying billboards,” warning the service may violate privacy rights by tracking people’s cell phone data via the ad space.

“A person’s cellphone should not become a James Bond-like personal tracking device for a corporation to gather information about consumers without their consent,” Schumer, a Democrat, said in a statement ahead of a planned news conference Sunday in Times Square, where the company operates billboards.

But the company, which operates more than 675,000 billboards throughout the world, argues that characterization of its program is inaccurate, insisting it only uses anonymous data collected by other companies.

In a statement, company spokesman Jason King said the RADAR program is based on a years-old advertising technique that “uses only aggregated and anonymized information” from other companies that certify they’re following consumer protection standards. (Read more from “‘Spying Billboards’ Under Fire for Tapping Into People’s Cellphones” HERE)

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Europe’s First Islamic Constitution?

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islam-727776_960_720By Thomas Seibert. Calls by a top member of the ruling party of Turkey for an Islamic constitution to replace the secular basic law in place in the country, a NATO member and crucial U.S. ally, have been rejected by politicians from all stripes, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, himself a pious Muslim. But as Erdogan is trying to avoid a debate that could harm him politically, the question remains: How should the relationship between state and religion be defined in a country with a 99 percent Muslim population?

Turkey’s current constitution, which enshrines the principle of secularism in Article 2, was drawn up under military rule in 1982. All parties in Ankara agree that a completely new text should be written to give Turkey a more modern and more democratic outlook.

Erdogan is trying to convince Turks to also change the form of government from the current parliamentary to a U.S.-style presidential one, with himself at the helm. The opposition says his real aim is absolute power without the sort of checks and balances that limit executive excesses elsewhere, amid speculation in the media that a referendum on a new constitution could be called this year. Erdogan cannot be sure that a majority of Turks would accept a presidential system in such a vote, with some polls saying support for his plan is as low as 35 percent. (Read more from “Europe’s First Islamic Constitution?” HERE)

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Labor Candidate Favorite for London Mayor After Racially Charged Campaign

By William James. Sadiq Khan of opposition Labour Party is the strong favourite to win London’s mayoral election on Thursday after a contest marked by religious tensions and accusations of racism.

Polls show Khan, the son of a bus driver, is as much as 20 percentage points ahead of rival Conservative Zac Goldsmith in the race to run one of the world’s top financial centres. If he wins, he will succeed current Conservative mayor Boris Johnson to become the first Muslim to head a major Western capital.

London’s population of 8.6 million is among the most diverse in the world and it is rare for identity politics to enter British campaigning.

But Goldsmith, with the support of Prime Minister David Cameron, has for weeks focused on Khan’s faith and past appearances alongside radical Muslim speakers, accusing him of giving “platform, oxygen and cover” to extremists.

Former human rights lawyer Khan says he has fought extremism all his life and regrets sharing a stage with speakers who held “abhorrent” views. (Read more from “Labor Candidate Favorite for London Mayor After Racially Charged Campaign” HERE)

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NSA Pins Another ‘Badge of Honor’ on Snowden

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hqdefaultIf the Director of National Intelligence “’blames” you for something, is that bad, or is it a badge of honor?

That would be the latter for Edward Snowden… again.

This time, he’s not getting the blame for a massive data dump proving that nefarious governments have been using computer technology to invade individuals’ privacy.

The director doesn’t like that Snowden’s recent revelations were an impetus for speeding up encryption technology. I would have praised Snowden, but Director James Clapper said in The Intercept recently:

“As a result of the Snowden revelations, the onset of commercial encryption has accelerated by seven years,” James Clapper said during a breakfast for journalists hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. (Read more from “NSA Pins Another ‘Badge of Honor’ on Snowden” HERE)

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SORRY, FOLKS: Donald Trump Is the Washington Establishment

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There’s an important opinion piece by former U.S. prosecutor and staunch Constitutionalist Andrew C. McCarthy that every GOP primary voter should read. You say you want the key graphs? Boom.

Donald Trump is the Washington establishment. The fact that he has not previously held public office does not make him an “outsider.” Hell, Reince Priebus — the head of the Republican National Committee — has never held public office. If the ruling class were just the officeholders, it would be short-lived. The Donald Trumps who pay the freight are the Washington establishment’s lifeblood. They are joined to the officeholders at the hip . . . or hadn’t you noticed Governor Christie shadowing The Donald?

…Take John Boehner, former House speaker, GOP establishment pillar . . . and longtime Trump golf pal. When last seen, in his Capitol Hill swan song, Boehner was courting Democrats and slamming through a budget that forfeited all Republican leverage against Obama. But with Trump kicking off his California campaign this week, there was Boehner, thrilling the campus Left at Stanford University with snipes at Ted Cruz. The Texas senator is “Lucifer in the flesh,” chortled the former speaker, and “a more miserable son of a bitch” than anyone with whom Boehner had worked in his entire life.

Remember: Boehner spent the last decade working with Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid. Yet, it’s Ted Cruz he can’t abide. As it happens, Cruz and Boehner barely know each other. They overlapped in Washington for a little over one congressional term, in different chambers. They’ve exchanged few words (none of them cross, apparently) in the few times they’ve spoken, and they’ve never worked together — at least not directly. Cruz, however, is a principled conservative, who fought Obamacare to the bitter end; Boehner brought about the bitter end by pushing to fund Obamacare while pretending to oppose it…

…As it happens, Cruz and Boehner barely know each other. They overlapped in Washington for a little over one congressional term, in different chambers. They’ve exchanged few words (none of them cross, apparently) in the few times they’ve spoken, and they’ve never worked together — at least not directly. Cruz, however, is a principled conservative, who fought Obamacare to the bitter end; Boehner brought about the bitter end by pushing to fund Obamacare while pretending to oppose it. That experience is enough for Boehner to spew his bile and count himself as #NeverCruz . . . though he’d gladly vote for Trump, with whom he bragged of being “texting buddies.”

Want to know why Obamacare is fully funded? Why the meager spending caps enacted in 2011 were busted? Why the debt limit was suspended so Washington could zoom past its $18 trillion credit line? Why Obama’s lawless executive order granting de facto amnesty to illegal aliens is proceeding apace? Why Obama is emptying Guantanamo Bay and planning to transfer detainees into the United States? Why the EPA continues to implement Obama’s climate-change agenda despite a Supreme Court stay of its anti-coal regulation? Why no official was impeached and no funding was slashed when the IRS was used as a political weapon against conservative groups? Why the Justice Department has a $27 billion budget that pays for its paralyzing investigations of the nation’s police departments while the attorney general threatens new legal action against climate-change “deniers” and “anti-Muslim” speech? Thank John Boehner.

…To fight Obama on these and other progressive priorities would have required exploiting Congress’s constitutional authority, particularly the power of the purse. Boehner and other GOP leaders were given this power because voters believed their promises to fight. Empty promises…

While Boehner was surrendering, Donald Trump was backing him to the hilt: a staggering $100,000 contribution to the Congressional Leadership Fund — Boehner’s super PAC, formed largely to fend off conservative primary challenges against GOP establishment loyalists. It should be easy to remember that number, $100,000. It is the same amount Trump gave to the Clinton Foundation. That’s even more than the $60,000 Trump gave to Kentuckians for Strong Leadership, the super PAC of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell…

As they say on the real blogs, read the whole thing. And then pass it on.

Especially to your pals in Indiana.

It’s time to take a stand against John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and the rest of the GOPe. The time is now. Take action now. (For more from the author of “SORRY, FOLKS: Donald Trump Is the Washington Establishment” please click HERE)

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