Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Thursday 24 March 2016

The European Union Times


Posted: 24 Mar 2016 06:49 AM PDT

Is Donald Trump really the voice of reason the day after the attacks in Brussels?
These left-leaning women from The View are besides themselves in having to admit that they agree with The Donald on his foreign policy and ISIS views.
He apparently called months ago that something was going on in Belgium, and that new waves of terror attacks were forthcoming.
As The Blaze reported:
The co-hosts of ABC’s “The View” appeared to soften a little on GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump on Tuesday, admitting that his foreign policy positions don’t seem all that outrageous in the aftermath of the deadly terror attacks in Brussels.
Joy Behar, an outspoken critic of Trump, pointed out that the Republican was “right” about the Iraq invasion being a “huge mistake” and everyone seemed to be in agreement that Trump accurately noted in January that “there’s something bad going on” in Brussels.
“He was right, so his foreign policy isn’t so outrageous,” co-host Sunny Hostin said. She later added, “I can’t believe I’m feeling this way, but he seems reasonable today.”
Watch this incredible clip as Joy Behar and some of the other co-hosts come to terms with their unlikely agreement with Trump:

Is this any indication that Trump would really be a president to bridge the partisan divide and actually address the real problems going on, and deal with them in a strong way?
That’s up for debate, but I’m sure this isn’t the last surprise defection in this election season. There have to be some very uncomfortable Democrats who see Hillary’s presidency as a greater threat than Trump’s.
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Posted: 24 Mar 2016 06:29 AM PDT


MSNBC host Chris Matthews was told to “stop talking” by someone in his earpiece in the middle of an anti-Wall Street rant during his show last night.
Agreeing with Bernie Sanders’ policy on free college tuition, Matthews argued that young people should have, “some sense of economic independence, don’t make them debtors basically for the first half of their adulthood”.
Matthews then lambasted “wealthy people on Wall Street who make a lot of money, the traders, the speculators, they owe something back to society.”
Matthews appears flustered before asking another person on his show “Am I supposed to stop talking?”
“No,” responds his guest.
“OK, somebody just told me to,” states Matthews.
Matthews then looks to the back of the studio before continuing with his rant.
Was Matthews told to shut up simply because he was messing up the show schedule, or was the topic of his rant the real problem?
One might normally suspect the more mundane explanation, but MSNBC has previous when it comes to shutting down hosts who challenge establishment narratives.
Former MSNBC host Cenk Uygur, who went on to front The Young Turks, had a popular show on the cable network but later resigned after he was told by MSNBC president Phil Griffin to tone down his rhetoric because “people in Washington” were concerned about Uygur being too combative towards “those in power.”
Uygur also revealed that he was ordered by MSNBC bosses not to warn the public about the danger posed by the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant in 2011.
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Posted: 24 Mar 2016 06:09 AM PDT

Restaurant owner Betty Rivas received abusive and threatening calls after attending a Trump rally with a “Latinos Support Trump” sign.
Now locals are flooding into her restaurant to show Betty support after the reports of harassment made the news.
KGUN9 reported:
KGUN9 On Your Side went back to visit Sammy’s Mexican Restaurant in Catalina after our story aired and the Rivas’ family said on Tuesday, they have now become overwhelmed with showings of support.
“…At 7-o-clock, my husband called me and say, ‘You need to come in and I said, ‘ Why?’” said owner Betty Rivas. “I think it happen something bad.”
But, instead – the flood of customers came for more than just the food. Customers like Rhonda Mikuski – who said, she’s been to the restaurant before, but made a special visit today.
“We just wanted to come by today – more or less -to just show our support that America still exists,” said Mikuski. “People have the right say what they want to say without being threatened.”
Harry Edmondson said he heard about the drama through the news and Facebook and he felt the need to come by.
“I don’t want her to fail because some people… are meaning to shut free speech down,” Edmondson said. “So, I’ll support her”
But, Rivas said, she did not exercise her right to vote today, saying she was too busy and had not come to a decision on a candidate yet.
“No, I’m still thinking,” Rivas laughed.
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Posted: 24 Mar 2016 05:53 AM PDT

US Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders slams Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, condemning the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
In a foreign policy speech in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Monday, the Vermont senator said Israel’s settlement constructions in the West Bank undermine the peace process.
Sanders was the only presidential candidate to skip the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington. He was able to skip solely because he is Jewish himself. If he were a Christian, he would have been called an anti-semite in the first second after announcing the boycott.
The Vermont senator called for an end to Israel’s siege on the Gaza Strip, which has created a dire economic situation in the enclave.
“We are obligated to speak the truth as we see it. This is what real friendship demands, especially in difficult times,” Sanders said, according to a prepared text of his remarks provided by his campaign.
“To be successful, we have to be a friend not only to Israel, but to the Palestinian people, where in Gaza, they suffer from an unemployment rate of 44 percent—the highest in the world—and a poverty rate nearly equal to that,” he noted.
The Israeli regime denies about 1.8 million people in Gaza their basic rights, such as freedom of movement, jobs with proper wages as well as adequate healthcare and education.
Sanders criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for withholding over hundreds of millions of shekels in tax revenue to Palestinians.
He also called for a “sustainable and equitable distribution of precious water resources” in the occupied territories.
“Right now, Israel controls 80 percent of the water reserves in the West Bank. Inadequate water supply has contributed to the degradation and desertification of Palestinian land,” Sanders said. “A lasting a peace will have to recognize Palestinians are entitled to control their own lives, and there is nothing human life needs more than water.”
Speaking to CNN on Monday evening, Sanders also took a swipe at his own government for giving a free pass to Israel over its crimes.
“Overwhelmingly the United States time and time again has looked aside when Israel has done some bad things,” he said.
Sanders slammed Israel for waging a devastating war on Gaza in summer of 2014, which killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including 577 children. “The kind of destruction that was wrecked on Gaza during that war was way above what needed to be done for military purposes.”
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Posted: 24 Mar 2016 05:26 AM PDT

A GOP caucus in Utah reportedly handed out multiple ballots to voters – and never bothered to check the IDs or credentials of the voters.
One of the voters described the caucus as a vote with “no apparent controls, no credential checks, no ID checks and ballots being handed around like napkins,” with at least 250 ballots passed out to only 120 voters.
“I literally had over 50 ballots in my hand,” the voter wrote on the Godlike Productions forum. “We were told to mark our vote and place our ballot in a tin can.”
“They then asked for a volunteer to hold the can and at this point, most people filed out the door.”
And when he went to visit another precinct caucus, he was handed another ballot without being asked for ID.
“As I left the building, I started overhearing results coming back from other precincts: Overwhelmingly numbers for Cruz, like 70-90% or more,” the voter added. “In one precinct Cruz got around 100, Trump had 2, Kasich 0.”
“Bottom line: They basically are going to post whatever the hell numbers they want.”
There were similar reports of voter fraud and outright lies in Iowa.
For one thing, Marco Rubio was polling at a distant third, yet he managed to finish just one percent behind Trump, and the voting machines used were provided by Microsoft, a major Rubio supporter.
And then the Cruz campaign lied to Iowa voters by claiming Ben Carson was dropping out of the race prior to the vote.
“The Cruz people willfully planted a story on CNN and MSNBC that Ben Carson was getting out of the race and prior to that they have prepared an enormously expensive targeting of a voter identification program of phone numbers and e-mails of those who were for Carson,” election insider Roger Stone revealed. “Those people were then contacted in the hours before the caucus and told ‘CNN has reported Carson is getting out – switch your vote to Cruz!’”
Insider: Cruz Campaign Encouraged Utah Voters to Break Law
The Ted Cruz campaign reportedly encouraged absentee voters to slip in their ballots without proper documentation.
A Utah voter received the following e-mail apparently from the Cruz campaign:

If an absentee voter follows these instructions, he would risk violating Utah voting laws which state that absentee voters must submit an application form the Thursday before the primary.
Voters cannot simply decide to vote “absentee” the day before the election and print off a ballot without having filed an application beforehand, which these instructions imply.
“All completed absentee ballot application forms should be filed with the appropriate election officer [County Clerk’s Office] no later than the Thursday before election day,” Vote.utah.gov says in no uncertain terms. “Military and overseas ballots will be mailed by 45 days before an election; all other by-mail ballots will be mailed 28 days before an election.”

Proper instructions on how to “vote absentee” legally would have mentioned the application form and would have been sent out long before the primary.
The e-mailed instructions, on the other hand, seem to prey on the ignorance of Utah election officials, many of whom are inexperienced volunteers.
The voter who received the e-mail and posted it at Godlike Productions said the e-mail encouraged “total fraud.”
“First, I served several years in a leadership role in the Utah Republican Party, so I know a few things about the process,” he said. “There are only two things that will happen if people show up with ballots like this:
1) It will slow down voting while volunteers try to figure out wtf to do with these ballots. Hopefully, if people are doing their jobs, these will be thrown out.
2) The more likely scenario is, in the chaos, volunteers will just take the ballot and submit it with the rest of the ballots.”
“If you do this, you are participating in voter fraud,” he warned.
The Cruz campaign has a history of unethical behavior, such as misleading Iowa voters into thinking Ben Carson had dropped out of the race so they would vote for Cruz.
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Posted: 23 Mar 2016 03:54 PM PDT


Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush endorsed Senator Ted Cruz on Wednesday. It’s clear that the establishment if doing everything it can to defeat popular New York businessman Donald Trump.
The Politico reported:
In a surprise announcement, Jeb Bush will endorse Ted Cruz on Wednesday as an antidote to the “divisiveness and vulgarity” of Donald Trump, providing a badly needed boost to the Texas senator – but it’s one that comes dangerously late in a game that Trump is dominating.
Cruz, in New York City on Wednesday, planned to celebrate with a victory lap of three network morning shows. The endorsement comes 32 days after a beaten Bush dropped out of the GOP presidential race, and eight days since Sen. Marco Rubio abandoned his own quest after being rebuffed by Bush, his fellow Floridian and one-time mentor.
Bush says in a statement to be released by the Cruz campaign: “Ted is a consistent, principled conservative who has demonstrated the ability to appeal to voters and win primary contests.”
“For the sake of our party and country, we must move to overcome the divisiveness and vulgarity Donald Trump has brought into the political arena, or we will certainly lose our chance to defeat the Democratic nominee and reverse President Obama’s failed policies,” the statement continues.

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Posted: 23 Mar 2016 03:27 PM PDT

Officials in Belgium have declared three days of national mourning in the wake of terrorist attacks on the capitals airport and metro station.
Belgian officials have called for three days of national mourning after the deadly terrorist attacks in Brussels took the lives of at least 34 people and wounded nearly 200 others.
Meanwhile, the victims of a series of blasts in the Belgian capital have yet to be identified, Brussels City Mayor Yvan Mayeur said Tuesday.
“The victims have not been identified yet. It will take considerable time,” the mayor told reporters in Brussels.
According to Mayeur, Brussels is now in the same situation as Paris was in November 2015.
Earlier on Tuesday, twin blasts rocked Brussels Airport, killing at least 13 and injuring dozens more. ​Belgian prosecutors call the airport attacks, and the subsequent metro bomb just steps away from the European Comission building, acts of terrorism.
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Posted: 23 Mar 2016 03:19 PM PDT


A rule used in 2012 to prevent Ron Paul from having his name placed on the Republican nomination in Tampa, Florida will be discarded to prevent Donald Trump from claiming it this year.
The Washington Examiner reports:
Party officials and knowledgeable sources have confirmed over the past few days that Rule 40(b) doesn’t exist for the purposes of the upcoming convention. That means at this point, the three candidates left in the race, front-runner Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, are all eligible for the nomination, as, possibly, are the Republican contenders who have since suspended their campaigns.
“There will always be a perception problem if people continue to miss—to not explain the process properly. So, the 2012 rules committee writes the rules for the 2012 convention. The 2016 rules committee writes the rules for the 2016 convention,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus told CNN.
Priebus insisted what the voters decide in the primaries matters, and yet the RNC has sent the message they are not important and the Republican establishment will decide the rules based on the threat Trump presents to the status quo.
Establishment Republicans may argue otherwise, but actions speak louder than words.
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 20:34