Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Sunday 24 April 2016

The European Union Times


Posted: 24 Apr 2016 06:20 AM PDT

Initially Hamm had backed Senator Marco Rubio for the Republican nomination.
Harold Hamm, chief executive of shale oil producer Continental Resources and Mitt Romney’s 2012 energy adviser, endorsed U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday, saying he has the “fortitude to make tough decisions.” Hamm also said Trump is the “best choice”.
Hamm, who had previously donated to Senator Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign, called the real estate mogul a “business leader’s candidate” who has the will to right what he called a series of mistakes from politicians in Washington, including “burdensome government regulations.”
“The next president of the United States must have the courage, determination and intelligence to disrupt politics as usual,” Hamm wrote in a public letter.
“Such an honor to get the endorsement of Harold Hamm, one of the great men in the history of the oil and energy business,” Trump said in a statement to Reuters.
Marco Rubio has already declared his readiness to endorse Donald Trump, so now it is only logical to see Marco Rubio’s supporters go over to Trump to endorse him.
Known for his outspoken views on U.S. energy policy and other matters, Hamm once referred to OPEC leader Saudi Arabia as a “toothless tiger” in the face of growing U.S. oil output.
OPEC and Saudia Arabia eventually proved Hamm wrong by using its influence to keep prices low for more than 18 months and counting, exerting sharp pain on U.S. oil producers. Hamm’s Continental is expected to post a quarterly loss next month.
Hamm’s endorsement followed President Barack Obama’s meeting with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman in Riyadh this week.
By endorsing Trump, Hamm has parted ways with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican candidate for the White House, who has vigorously opposed Trump’s candidacy despite praising Trump back in 2012 when he received a fat check from him.
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Posted: 24 Apr 2016 05:55 AM PDT

In March Republican convention rules member Curly Haugland told CNBC that the delegates choose the GOP nominee, not the people.
On Friday Curly told CNBC that even if Donald Trump wins 1,237 delegates that does not mean he will be the Republican nominee.
Curly added: “The votes during the primary process are only estimates.”
CNBC reported:
Curly Haugland, a longstanding RNC official and an unbound delegate from North Dakota who will be on the convention rules committee in July, told CNBC that attaining 1,237 during the primaries does not secure the nomination.
“Even if Trump reaches the magic number of 1,237 the media and RNC are touting, that does not mean Trump is automatically the nominee,” Haugland said. “The votes earned during the primary process are only estimates and are not legal convention votes. The only official votes to nominate a candidate are those that are cast from the convention floor.”
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Posted: 24 Apr 2016 05:51 AM PDT


Fracking should be banned as a “global threat” as it causes methane leaks contaminating water in the communities near gas wells, says an Australian MP who literally set a river ablaze to draw attention to the adverse effects of the practice.
The companies that extract coal seam gas via fracking are duping people into believing that their technology is safe, while in reality it has contributed greatly to the pollution of sites like Condamine river located in the Australian state of Queensland just near the fracking site, Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham said in an interview to RT.
“This gas is leaking out of the ground because of the fracking. They have thousands of gas wells around this river, around this site. They drill, they frack, but the gas isn’t just flowing up their gas wells, it’s coming through the ground,” he said, stressing that Origin Energy company, that operate the wells, “should be condemned for polluting one of our most important rivers.”
Speaking of how to prevent the fracking industry from damaging the environment, he said that Australia should ban fracking as an unsafe practice altogether.
“What we are waiting in Australia is a moratorium on fracking,” he said, adding that fracking should be viewed as a global threat and its spreading should make people around the world “terrified.”
Earlier this month, Buckingham came to Chinchilla, in southwest Queensland, while campaigning against fracking as part of the Green’s party’s agenda. To show the dire effect on nature caused by the technology, Buckingham set the Condamine river on fire with a kitchen lighter and later unloaded the video on the web.
‘Industries should be fixing problems instead of doing propaganda’
Calvin Tillman, a co-founder of ShaleTest and former mayor of Dish, Texas, echoed Buckingham’s concerns, saying the fracking companies’ claims that gas leaks out of natural reasons don’t stand up to scrutiny.
“It’s insane to think that the river would just catch on fire, that the water would just catch on fire because of this,” he said, referring to the Queensland river.
He argues that the industry, which portrays fracking as safe, should focus on tackling the actual problem of damage they cause instead of marketing their activities as environmental-friendly.
In its promotional video, Origin Energy said: “Making reliable energy in the safest way possible is our healthy obsession,” and called fracking the “safest way to extract” gas reserves.
“If it is the safest way to get [gas] then it’s obviously not safe. The industries need be accountable and they don’t need to put propaganda, they need to be fixing problems such as this,” he said.
The negative impact from living next to the gas wells is not confined only to methane pollution and risks of explosions, as many other dangerous substances are coming through the ground in the process of fracking.
“Along with this methane and this flammable gas you also have the variety of different chemicals that cause a variety of different health effects,” he warns.
Tilman has a first-hand experience of living by the gas wells which even made him move out of town where he was a mayor at the time. Speaking to Huffpost in 2011, Tilman explained his decision to step down by the worsening ecological situation in a town with 60 gas wells and 200 residents many of whom were complaining of nosebleeds and poor circulation since the establishment of the first compressor station in 2005.
Speaking of the imminent threats that fracking pose to people Tilman said there were known incidents in Texas which “water well houses have actually exploded and severely burnt people,” adding that it is “an obvious issue” there.
In August 2015, RT reported that a Texas family from the town of Perrin, filed a lawsuit, accusing the local fracking companies of high-level methane contamination in the area which led to an explosion on their ranch.
The family had suffered from burns after methane from nearby fracked wells leaked into their water well and ignited in August 2014, leaving the husband permanently disabled.
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Posted: 24 Apr 2016 05:13 AM PDT

If it was a GOP candidate who apparently was anyone but Donald Trump, the repeated reports would be indicating him to be the single most dominant Republican candidate for President in a generation. Instead, the media and political establishment mouthpieces even now continue to tell voters Trump might not win the GOP nomination.
That way, if that same nomination is taken from Trump at a brokered convention, the public will have already been prepared to accept it.
Here is a list of facts to share with others to show just how wrong that nomination theft would be.
Did you know no candidate has won more 2016 primary elections than Donald Trump?
Mr. Trump has amassed an impressive 18 primary wins. His closest GOP challenger, Ted Cruz, has won just four. Trump also bests Hillary Clinton who has won 17.
In the total votes category, Trump’s margin is even more impressive. Presently he has accumulated the support of nearly 9 million total votes. Ted Cruz’s vote total is more than 2.5 million LESS than Mr. Trump’s.
That’s a lot of votes.
Trump has won more states than any other candidate be they Republican or Democrat.
Trump has the highest win % of any other candidate.
Trump has won the highest % of delegates vs any other candidate.
What all of these numbers indicate is a candidate who has, despite considerable opposition, proven himself the single most dominant presidential candidate in the race from either political party.
And yet, the political and media establishments would have you believe that not to be so. Don’t fall for their attempt to manipulate reality. Donald Trump is calling for an “America First” presidency, and if the above numbers hold true, it appears America agrees.
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Posted: 24 Apr 2016 04:23 AM PDT

Donald Trump posted an OFFICIAL CAMPAIGN LIST of Trump Pennsylvania delegates on Twitter on Saturday.
Voters in Pennsylvania MUST VOTE ON THESE CONFIRMED TRUMP DELEGATES In their district.
BUT BE WARNED: There are Cruz vampire lists popping up on Twitter.
This one list from KellerForDelegate website includes candidate Gabriel Keller who is not the original list.
Be alert for fake Trump Pennsylvania delegate lists.
Refer to the Trump websites or Twitter list.
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Posted: 23 Apr 2016 03:24 PM PDT


Barack Obama got a tough question today from the British Media and he answered it by threatening the UK and all of this was done right in front of UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron.
Barack Obama was asked about his hypocrisy of coming to lecture Great Britain on the upcoming Brexit vote in June.
ITV Reporter: British reporters in various degrees of politeness they have said to you that you should really keep your views to yourself. With that in mind, Mr. President, do you still think it was the right thing to intervene in this debate?… And what happens if the UK does decide in June to leave the European Union?
Barack Obama: This is a decision for the people of the United Kingdom to make. I am not coming here to fix any votes… Maybe some point down the line there might be a UK-US trade agreement but it’s not going to happen anytime soon because our focus is in negotiating with a big block the European Union to get a trade agreement done. And the UK is going to be in the back of the queue. Not because we have a special relationship but because given the heavy lift on any trade agreement, us having access to a big market with a lot of countries rather than trying to do piecemeal trade agreements is hugely inefficient.
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Posted: 23 Apr 2016 03:05 PM PDT

Maine Republican Governor Paul LePage endorsed Donald Trump for president in February before the Maine primary caucus.
Cruz won the state with 12 delegates. Trump was second with 9 delegates followed by John Kasich with 2 delegates.
This week the Cruz campaign, like they’ve done is several states, are cheating and stealing delegates from Trump at the state convention.
But this time Governor Paul LePage went off on the Cruz campaign for stealing delegates.
…No doubt the Ted Cruz supporters and FOX News will call this a “good ground game.”
Ted Cruz’s campaign faced more allegations of dirty tricks after the Maine governor, Paul LePage, took to Facebook to condemn the Texas senator’s campaign as being run by “greedy political hooligans.”
The fiery and controversial governor claimed on Friday that the Trump and Cruz campaigns had previously reached a “unity deal” to elect delegates to the national convention in proportion to results of the Pine Tree state’s 5 March caucuses.
Such an allocation would deliver 12 Cruz delegates, nine for Trump and two for John Kasich, the Ohio governor.
However, LePage, a Trump supporter, said on the eve of Maine’s state convention that the Cruz campaign had reneged on the deal, believing they could fill all 20 elected delegate slots on the ballot. “I can’t stand by and watch as Cruz and the Republican establishment forcibly overrule the votes of Mainers who chose Trump and Kasich,” said LePage.
While delegates are bound on the first ballot according to the results of state primaries and caucuses, they are unbound on subsequent ballots if a contested convention occurs. Such votes would have nothing to do with the results from the states and be solely decided by the individual delegates.
The Guardian can confirm there was discussion of a unity slate in Maine; sources disagree on whether a deal was ever reached.
Here is Governor LePage’s statement on Facebook condemning the Cruz camp’s dirty tricks.
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Posted: 23 Apr 2016 02:38 PM PDT

Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed an executive order Friday restoring the voting rights of 206,000 ex-felons, a sweeping action the governor said was aimed largely at rectifying Virginia’s “long and sad history” of suppressing African-American voting power.
The move, coming in a presidential election year, outraged Republicans who accused McAuliffe of abusing his power to help longtime ally Hillary Clinton win a battleground state by putting more likely Democratic voters on the books.
The governor’s order applies to all violent and nonviolent felons who had finished their sentence and supervised release as of Friday, even those who have not applied for a restoration of rights. Previous Virginia governors have restored rights on an individual basis, but none has done it for an entire category of offenders with one pen stroke.
The order stops short of creating automatic restoration of rights for all ex-offenders, because McAuliffe will have to sign similar orders on a monthly basis moving forward. Still, the order is a historic shift away from Virginia’s policy of lifetime disenfranchisement for those convicted of serious crimes.
“We benefit from a more just and accountable government when we put trust in all of our citizens to choose their leaders,” McAuliffe said Friday from the steps of the state Capitol, where a gospel choir warmed up a jubilant crowd. “It has taken Virginia many centuries, unfortunately, to learn this lesson. But today, we celebrate its truth.”
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 18:59