Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Wednesday 4 May 2016

The European Union Times


Posted: 04 May 2016 04:59 AM PDT


Texas Senator Ted Cruz drops out of the race entirely after losing Indiana in YUGE landslide to billionaire businessman Donald Trump.
With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Trump was declared the winner with 53.3 percent, compared to Cruz with 36.6 percent and Kasich with 7.6 percent.
It is worth noting that even though there were 3 candidates in the Republican race, Trump got 53.3%, more than Sanders got on the Democratic side, 52.5% despite having only 2 candidates.
Additionally it is also worth mentioning that with only 98% of the votes counted, there were 1.078.798 people combined who voted Republican, with Trump alone getting 589,416 voters while the Democrats only had 637.024 voters combined.
With that being said, only 1 out of 3 Bernie Sanders supporters say they will support Hillary Clinton in a general election and at least one third out of Bernie Sanders supporters say will vote for Donald Trump because the two candidates are quite similar in many ways.
The numbers are looking good for the Republicans for the general election.
“Thank you to each of you, incredible patriots who have fought so hard to save this nation,” Cruz told supporters in Indianapolis Tuesday night. “What you have done, the movement that you have started, is extraordinary. I love each and every one of you. From the beginning I’ve said I would carry on as long as there was a viable path to victory. Tonight I’m sorry to say that path is closed.”
So far, there is no word on whether Kasich will drop out of the race.
It is now widely speculated that John Kasich is only in the race because he enjoys a free extended vacation, traveling across the country and eating free expensive food.
Trump tweeted minutes after he was declared the winner, “Wow, Lyin’ Ted Cruz really went wacko today. Made all sorts of crazy charges. Can’t function under pressure – not very presidential. Sad!”
“We had a tremendous victory tonight. It was a tremendous victory,” Trump told supporters at Trump Towers in New York City.
“We are going after Hillary Clinton,” Trump added. “She will not be a great president. She will not be a good president. She will be a poor president.”
Indianians are, by most accounts, excited to be voting Tuesday, as their state usually does not bring as much impact to presidential races as it is this year. With each county selecting their own voting system, the day has gone relatively smoothly compared to prior state contests.
Where things are not running as smoothly is in the Cruz campaign, where many on the inside are anticipating a loss, possibly by a landslide.
“Donald Trump may walk out of Indiana with as many as three-quarters of the delegates up for grabs,” Fox News reporter John Roberts relayed from one Cruz campaign source.
Trump piled on Cruz as people were heading to the polls.
“Over the last week, I have watched Lyin’ Ted become more and more unhinged as he is unable to react under the pressure and stress of losing, in all cases by landslides, the last six primary elections – in fact, coming in last place in all but one of them. Today’s ridiculous outburst only proves what I have been saying for a long time, that Ted Cruz does not have the temperament to be President of the United States,” Trump wrote in a campaign statement on Tuesday.
Not long ago, Indiana was considered a safe state for Cruz, but the campaign misjudged the voters and their priorities. Cruz played up the North Carolina bathroom issue, leaving Trump the opportunity to candidly say his own Trump Towers bathrooms are all-inclusive. Caitlyn Jenner, who has praised Cruz in the past, actually visited one of Trump’s facilities and said in a video message, “By the way, Ted, nobody got molested.”
Over $6 million was spent in Indiana on Pro-Cruz and Anti-Trump advertisements in Indiana, according to SMG Delta. Just $963,000 was spent on Pro-Trump ads, compared to $1.5 million for Pro-Sanders ads, $2.8 million for Anti-Trump ads and $3.3 million for pro-Cruz ads.
Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, the Clinton campaign has downplayed expectations of a victory in Indiana in what could be a campaign tactic on the side of Clinton to urge even more supporters to the polls. Sanders is still widely predicted to lose by hundreds of delegates, with Clinton already being 321 delegates ahead of Sanders plus 481 Superdelegates, making it a total of 802 delegates advantage over Sanders. In fact Sanders is doing so badly that he will soon be mathematically eliminated from the race just like Ted Cruz.
Bernie Sanders has 1361 delegates while there are only 1163 available as of today. The total number required in order to be nominated is 2383.
It is virtually impossible for Bernie Sanders to reach the majority of convention delegates by June 14, that is the last day that a primary will be held, with pledged delegates alone.
        
Posted: 04 May 2016 04:01 AM PDT

Washington is continuing to pressure European leaders to sign the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) by the end of the year. However, the EU has resisted due to fears that some sectors of its economy would not be able to compete with the US economy.
The US has mounted pressure on Brussels during recent talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung reported.
According to leaked confidential documents, the EU would have to significantly decrease social, legal and environmental standards to open European markets for US-made products.
Washington is almost blackmailing the bloc to make concessions, the article read. For instance, the US has threatened to reduce imports of European cars if Brussels rejects to buy more US-made agricultural products.
What is more, according to the papers, the US plans to abandon the European principle according to which foods are free to sell only if they are safe for people and environment. As a result, genetically modified products and plants would enter the European market, the newspaper reported.
Nevertheless, the full text of the upcoming agreement between the US and European countries has not been made public yet. The German government has only one printed copy of the document and it is strictly prohibited to make additional copies of the document.
The agreement would be of colossal importance if signed. It is expected to create a free trade and capital zone accounting for nearly 50 percent of global GDP.
The sealed-off reading room at the German Economy Ministry opened on January 29, 2016, several years after the talks on the TTIP started. Previously, German officials could read the text at the US Embassy in Berlin.
It is obvious that only a small number of European politicians and officials know the details and nuances of the agreement.
On April 24, President Barack Obama arrived in Hannover and joined German Chancellor Angela Merkel to open the 2016 Hannover Messe Trade Fair. He spoke to a number of German and European officials and businessmen, promoting the TTIP deal.
Particularly, Obama said that the agreement would eliminate tariff barriers, facilitate procedures and regulations as well as make trade easier for everyone, especially small companies.
According to the president, finally the partnership would result in economic growth and create new jobs both in the US and the European Union.
However, many Europeans are concerned about what the deal really is and what consequences it will have. For example, eliminating customs tariffs and barriers would result in cheap US-made agricultural products flooding European markets. This would destroy a number of European farming companies.
Many skeptics say that Europe will not gain benefits from the TTIP deal with the US. The competitiveness capabilities of US companies are higher than in Europe. Corporate taxes and labor costs are lower in the US. What is more, US bureaucratic barriers and ecological norms are easier to defend against litigation.
The 2015 Doing Business index ranked the US seventh. Only two European countries – Denmark and Britain – were ranked higher, third and sixth relatively. Such major economies like Germany and France were ranked 15th and 27th relatively.
At the same time, German major industrial corporations may benefit from the deal with Washington. Their products are traditionally high in demand in the US. In 2015, trade between the US and Germany increased by nearly 20 percent, to €173.2 billion. The US is now Germany’s biggest trade partner.
German and other European citizens have been avidly protesting the deal. On the eve of Obama’s visit to Hannover, thousands of people took to the streets to protest against the TTIP. Last October, 150,000 people took to the streets of Berlin.
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Posted: 04 May 2016 03:38 AM PDT

Hispanic activists are planning even more violent protests as US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump moves his campaign into California, one of the most heavily overrun states in the country.
The promise of more protests follows serious unrest last week when large crowds of nonwhites engaged in extended street violence outside Trump rally venues in Costa Mesa and the Burlingame hotel.
“I think it’s going to get worse if he gets the nomination and is the front-runner. I think it’s going to escalate,” said Luis Serrano, a nonwhite invader who “works” with a group called the California Immigration Youth Justice Alliance.
“We’re going to keep showing up and standing against the actions and the hate Donald Trump is creating. We are going to continue to just show up in numbers and stand together.”
The nonwhites smashed the window of a police car and blocked traffic outside a Trump campaign event in Costa Mesa, and on Friday, they blocked the entrance of a hotel hosting the California Republican convention in Burlingame, forcing Trump to halt his motorcade and go through a back entrance to deliver his speech.
In Costa Mesa, protesters performed screeching burnouts in their cars or did doughnuts at intersections. Others kicked at and punched approaching vehicles, shouting expletives.
Ranchera and hip-hop music was blasted throughout the streets. At least 17 people were arrested, and both a Trump supporter and a teenage anti-Trump protester were hurt.
In Burlingame, five protesters were arrested and a sheriff’s deputy was injured during the Trump protest there.
Protest organizers in Southern California said the anti-Trump demonstrations spread through word of mouth and involved mostly young people, including many high school and college students.
They brought with them Mexican flags, which were once discouraged at immigrant rights rallies for fear they would be regarded as un-American.
On Sunday, thousands of Hispanics marched through Los Angeles in a May Day rally that featured a strong anti-Trump theme.
Members of the crowd carried a large blow-up effigy of Trump holding a Ku Klux Klan hood, along with signs that read: “Dump Trump.”
“He’s threatened that should he become president of the United States, in his first 18 months in office, he fully intends to deport all 11 million-plus undocumented persons in the United States. We don’t take that lightly,” Juan Jose Gutierrez, of the Full Rights for Immigrants Coalition, told the media.
Others waved Mexican flags or signs that called for immigration reform and an end to deportations.
The protests have successfully proven the point that the 2016 US Presidential election has become all about race.
Although Trump certainly did not intend the contest to hinge on this issue—and still does his best to present a multiracial campaign front—his call for an end to illegal immigration alone is enough to have racially charged the election cycle.
It is also increasingly clear that while Trump may now win the Republican nomination, the coalescing racial alliance against him means that he can only win a presidential election if unprecedented numbers of whites vote for him in November.
* Trump has a substantial lead in the California Republican primary polls, and is set to sweep that state when it votes on June 7.
* Trump said on Sunday he will have essentially sealed the Republican nomination if he wins Tuesday’s contest in Indiana, where he holds a big lead over chief rival Ted Cruz.
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Posted: 04 May 2016 03:16 AM PDT

The day Hillary Clinton moves to the White House, if she gets elected, would be a happy one for both neocons and liberal interventionists since the former secretary of state will likely push for a significantly more assertive US policy that could ultimately lead to a conflict with Russia and Iran, political writer Diana Johnstone warned.
The Democratic frontrunner, according to the author of “Queen of Chaos: The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton,” has always favored the military approach to diplomacy. Yet the issue has been absent from the primaries.
“What is still lacking in this campaign is clear denunciation of the very worst of Hillary Clinton’s many negative traits: her eagerness to go to war. And it is not merely Hillary who needs to be defeated: it is the entire militaristic power structure she represents,” Johnstone wrote for CounterPunch.
In a recent interview with Il Giornale, Johnstone also spoke about Clinton’s dislike for Russia under President Vladimir Putin. The journalist maintains that the former first lady is in general hostile towards any leader who does not play by Washington’s rules.
Putin in this respect is a fine case in point. His presidency came in sharp contrast to that of his predecessor Boris Yeltsin with regard to Russia’s relations with the US.
Putin has been a staunch advocate of a multipolar world order that is built on international law and national sovereignty. Hillary, Johnstone observed, also dislikes Putin for his policies that put Russia’s national interests first. In addition, the Russian president has prevented the US from gaining economic control over Russia’s vast resources, she added.
Johnstone also criticized Clinton for her role in destabilizing the Middle East, for her habit of not telling the truth (recall the Bosnia sniper fire story that never happened), for her dualistic worldview that divides everyone into friends and enemies.
“The occasion of this campaign should be seized not only to expose the lies of Hillary Clinton, but also to seek freedom from America’s seven decades of subjugation to the military-industrial complex and its organic intellectuals who never cease conjuring up ‘threats’ and ‘enemies’ to justify the war economy,” the journalist observed.
A recently released poll, by Rasmussen Reports, shows that both Clinton and Donald Trump, the GOP frontrunner beats Hillary Clinton by 2 points even though he hasn’t even started on her yet. Interestingly, 16 percent of responders said they would support a third-party candidate, while 6 percent noted that they would stay at home, if Clinton and Trump are the only candidates.
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Posted: 04 May 2016 02:44 AM PDT

Voting-fraud activist Gary Welsh, who tipped off Infowars’ Wayne Madsen on Marco Rubio’s foam sex parties, was found dead leading up to the Indiana primary.
Police found Welsh’s body in an apartment complex stairwell in Indianapolis, Ind., on May 1 and quickly ruled it a “suicide.”
“Welsh was a well-known lawyer and political commentator in Indiana who combated against the takeover of the state by religious fundamentalists and opposed ‘well-connected’ GOP presidential candidates like Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, and Rubio,” Wayne Madsen reported. “The timing of Welsh’s death just prior to the Indiana GOP primary, one that Cruz hopes to win to keep his chances for the GOP presidential nomination alive, is troubling, to say the least.”
“Welsh was a well-known advocate for election integrity and he supported Donald Trump for the GOP nomination.”
He published the blog Advance Indiana which heavily reported on voting fraud in the state.
A strange message was posted to Welsh’s blog prior to his death stating “if I’m not around to see the vote results, my prediction is that Trump wins Indiana with just shy of 50% of the vote.”
Welsh was also one of the insiders who told Madsen about the “foam parties” Rubio reportedly attended during the early-to-mid 1990s at gay entertainment venues in South Florida.
“At ‘Amnesia,’ emcee ‘Kitty Meow,’ a drag queen, would officiate over the foam parties, directing participants what to do,” Madsen reported. “Some foam party participants only wore jock straps.”
“It is entirely possible that Rubio did meet his future wife at a foam party, but the women who attended these functions were largely what are known as ‘fag hags’ out to have a good time while at the same time avoid being hit on by the gay men.”
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 19:34