Trump virtually clinches Republican presidential nomination

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — In a stunning triumph for a political outsider, Donald Trump all but clinched the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday with a resounding victory in Indiana that knocked rival Ted Cruz out of the race and cleared Trump's path to a likely November face-off with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Trump still needs about 200 delegates to formally secure the nomination, but Cruz's decision to end his campaign removed his last major obstacle.
"Ted Cruz — I don't know if he likes me or he doesn't like me — but he is one hell of a competitor," Trump said of his last fierce competitor whom he had dubbed "lyin' Ted." Trump, in a victory speech that was much lower-key than usual, promised victory in November, vowing anew to put "America first."
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders eked out a victory over Clinton in Indiana, but the outcome will not slow the former secretary of state's march to the Democratic nomination. Heading into Tuesday's voting, Clinton had 92 percent of the delegates she needs.
"I know that the Clinton campaign thinks this campaign is over. They're wrong," Sanders said defiantly in an interview Tuesday night. But Clinton already has turned her attention to the general election.
She and Trump now plunge into a six- month battle for the presidency, with the future of America's immigration laws, health care system and military posture around the world at stake. While Clinton heads into the general election with significant advantages with minority voters and women, Democrats have vowed to not underestimate Trump as his Republican rivals did for too long.
Previewing Clinton's general election message, top adviser John Podesta said Trump was "simply too big of a risk" to be president.
For months, Republican leaders considered him a fringe candidate and banked on voters shifting toward more traditional contenders. But Trump tapped into Republicans' deep anger with party leaders and outlasted more than a dozen experienced political rivals.
Party Chairman Reince Priebus declared the race over, saying on Twitter that Trump would be the GOP' s presumptive nominee.
"We all need to unite and focus on defeating @HillaryClinton," he wrote.


Indeed, Trump's first challenge will be uniting a Republican Party that has been roiled by his candidacy. While some GOP leaders have warmed to the real estate mogul, others have promised to never vote for him and see him as a threat to their party's very existence.
Even before the Indiana results were finalized, some conservative leaders were planning a Wednesday meeting to assess the viability of launching a third party candidacy to compete with him in the fall.
One outside group trying to stop Trump suggested it would shift its attention to helping Republicans in other races. Rory Cooper, a senior adviser to the Never Trump super PAC, said the group will help protect "Republican incumbents and down-ballot candidates by distinguishing their values and principles from that of Trump and protecting them from a wave election."
Indiana was viewed as the last gasp for Cruz, the fiery Texas conservative. He campaigned aggressively in the state, securing the support of Indiana's governor and announcing businesswoman Carly Fiorina as his running mate.
Cruz had clung to the hope that he could keep Trump from reaching the 1,237 delegates needed for the nomination and push the race to a rare contested convention.
"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 a somber crowd in Indianapolis.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich is now the only other Republican left in the race. But Kasich has won just one primary — his home state — and trails Trump by nearly 900 delegates.
Kasich pledged to stay in the race, with his campaign manager saying the governor would continue to "offer the voters a clear choice for our country."
Only about half of Indiana's Republican primary voters said they were excited or optimistic about any of their remaining candidates becoming president, according to exit polls. Still, most said they probably would support whoever won for the GOP.
Clinton, too, needs to win over Sanders' enthusiastic supporters. The Vermont senator has cultivated a deeply loyal following, in particular among young people, a group Democrats count on in the general election.
Though Sanders claimed momentum, he has conceded his strategy hinges on persuading 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.
Exit polls showed about 7 in 10 Indiana Democrats said they'd be excited or at least optimistic about either a Clinton or Sanders presidency. Most said they would support either in November.
The exit polls were conducted by Edison Research for The Associated Press and television networks.
With Sanders' narrow victory Tuesday, he picked up at least 42 of Indiana's 83 delegates. Clinton now has 2,201 delegates to Sanders' 1,399. That includes pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses, as well as superdelegates.
Trump now has at least 1,041 delegates. Cruz exits the race with 565, while Kasich has 152.
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SOURCE:AP

TED CRUZ DROPS OUT OF REPUBLICAN WHITE HOUSE RACE

Ted Cruz drops out of Republican White House race

 

 

 

•  

Ted Cruz, the insurgent Texan whose presidential campaign was fueled by disdain for Washington, dropped out of the 2016 race Tuesday night, removing the last major hurdle in Donald Trump’s quest to become the Republican nominee for president.
Cruz’s decision came after losing overwhelmingly to Trump in the Indiana primary, all but ensuring that real estate mogul will claim his party’s mantle at the Republican National Convention in July.
The exit comes after a series of desperate moves to keep his candidacy afloat in recent weeks, including naming former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina as his running mate in a bizarre announcement where Cruz spoke for a half hour and Fiorina sang to his young daughters.
In his last day on the campaign trail, Cruz unloaded on Trump, calling the businessman a”pathological liar” and a “narcissist” who was proud of being a “serial philanderer.” The attacks were reminiscent of the broadsides Sen. Marco Rubio launched against Trump in the waning days of his own presidential campaign — and a far cry from the lavish praise Cruz heaped on Trump for most of 2015, declaring, “I like Donald Trump.”
Cruz’s campaign hit its zenith in February when he resoundingly won the Iowa caucuses, due in large part to months of cultivating grassroots support in the state. But it soon became a roller-coaster ride of crushing losses in states where Cruz expected to do well, including South Carolina and Georgia, followed by resounding wins in his home state of Texas and Wisconsin. Cruz’s campaign used its grasp of the delegate process to beat Trump at state conventions where delegates were chosen, but it was not enough to overcome the businessman’s tally and strength with the electorate.
© Scott Olson/Getty Images With his wife Heidi by his side, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks during his election night watch party at the Crowne Plaza Downtown Union Station where he announced he was suspending…
The fact that Cruz remained one of the last candidates standing in a once-crowded field would have been viewed as improbable when he entered the race 14 months earlier. Cruz, the first major candidate to enter the race, is a first-term senator best known for getting under the skin of his Senate colleagues and championing controversial tactics to block the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. He was painted as a long-shot underdog who was too religious and conservative to advance past the early nominating contests.
But his campaign had a meticulous strategy it planned to roll out over the year that followed, and it started working soon after he announced.
“It is the time for truth. It is the time for liberty. It is the time to reclaim the Constitution of the United States,” Cruz said during his campaign kickoff at Liberty University, which was founded by the fundamentalist preacher Jerry Fallwell.
Cruz was immediately buoyed by impressive fundraising and the national platform that comes with announcing first. Groups backing the senator raised $31 million during the first week of his candidacy, and the campaign raked in $4 million.
The Texas Republican’s campaign employed a strategy of slowly introducing Cruz to a national audience while furiously working to shore up support with local activists and evangelical leaders in the first four voting states and the South, where the campaign expected Cruz to do well.
The campaign also talked about securing the support of delegates to the July convention almost as soon as it launched, envisioning Cruz in a head-to-head matchup with an establishment rival. The campaign sent emissaries to far-flung places such as Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands to try to lock down delegate support over the summer.
It was a campaign that reflected its candidate: methodical, strategic and data-driven. Cruz’s campaign deployed a sophisticated data strategy that used psychographic information to appeal to the fears or hopes of potential voters.
Cruz touted his outsider status and contempt for what he called the “Washington cartel” of politicians and lobbyists in politics to get rich. He made the enmity of his Senate colleagues a point of pride, joking about needing a “food taster” in the Senate dining room. He made it clear that no other candidate would get to the right of him, particularly on the issue of immigration.
But then came Donald Trump.
Cruz made an early, conscious decision to buddy up to Trump, brushing aside the businessman’s caustic comments about Mexicans and praising his toughness on immigration.
The two men met at Trump Tower in July, where Cruz invited Trump to tour the U.S.-Mexico border with him. Trump went, but Cruz could not because of Senate votes. Cruz and Trump both appeared at a rally against the Iranian nuclear deal on Capitol Hill in September.
As rivals were punching at Trump during the fall and quickly seeing their poll numbers drop as the businessman swatted back at them with insults, Cruz lavished praise on his rival for the nomination.
Cruz also tacked sharply to the right in order to compete with Trump’s rhetoric. Cruz’s immigration proposals grew tougher the longer Trump was in the race. He criticized Trump’s plan for mass deportation of illegal immigrants, then seemed to support it. He spoke of being weary of foreign intervention, but promised to “carpet bomb” the Islamic State to see if “sand can glow in the dark” there. He introduced a bill to bar refugees from Syria and other groups.
In December — as Cruz’s poll numbers were up nationally and in Iowa — he was caught on tape saying at a closed-door fundraiser that Trump may not have the judgment to be president. Cruz moved to smooth over the fracas, but Trump pounced. A few weeks later in January, Trump questioned whether Cruz, who was born in Canada, is eligible to be president.
Cruz then went on an offensive blitz against the businessman, assailing him for supporting partial-birth abortion and bankrolling Democratic candidates. It seemed to work, with Cruz beating Trump in the Iowa caucuses. But the momentum stopped in New Hampshire, where Trump won by big margins before marching to victories in South Carolina and Nevada.
Trump also upended Cruz’s plan to chalk up big wins in the South, an area the campaign saw as receptive to Cruz’s unyielding conservatism and his Christian faith. The campaign was hit with internal turmoil when Cruz fired his communications director, Rick Tyler, after Tyler posted on social media a video falsely purporting to show Sen. March Rubio disparaging the Bible. Some of Cruz’s most prominent backers openly questioned his campaign strategy.
Despite his other losses in the South, Cruz notched a big win in his home state that offered him a bonanza of delegates and kept his candidacy alive. A win in Wisconsin in early April infused much-needed momentum into the flagging campaign.
Cruz’s team proved adept at mastering the arcane art of delegate allocation, regularly snatching delegate support from Trump at state conventions. But as the primary calendar moved to the Northeast — an area hostile to Cruz, who derided “New York values” on the campaign trail — Trump gained momentum while Cruz flagged.
Indiana, which Cruz’s team had identified - along with Nebraska and California - as a state where it thought it could do well, never warned to him. Cruz announced that he and Ohio Gov. John Kasich had an agreement where Cruz would campaign in Indiana and Kasich would not, instead focusing on Oregon and New Mexico. But the alliance turned rocky just hours after it was announced when Kasich refused to tell his supporters to vote for Cruz. The Texas Republican later said that there was no alliance, to which Kasich’s chief strategist tweeted, “I can’t stand liars.”
Cruz laced into Trump across the state, criticizing the endorsement he received from boxer Mike Tyson, who served time in prison in Indiana on a rape conviction, and decrying Trump as an insecure bully. The Fiorina announcement, meant to revive Cruz’s flagging candidacy in the state, gave it no discernable boost. The two barnstormed around the state, where Cruz faced less than enthusiastic crowds, and confronted a pro-Trump protester in Marion.
Cruz said of Trump, “This man is lying to you and he’s taking advantage of you.”
The man accused Cruz of lying, and said: “You’ll find out tomorrow. Indiana don’t want you.”
SOURCES:MSN.COM
                   AP

TED CRUZ DROPS OUT OF REPUBLICAN WHITE HOUSE RACE

Ted Cruz drops out of Republican White House race

 

 

 

•  

Ted Cruz, the insurgent Texan whose presidential campaign was fueled by disdain for Washington, dropped out of the 2016 race Tuesday night, removing the last major hurdle in Donald Trump’s quest to become the Republican nominee for president.
Cruz’s decision came after losing overwhelmingly to Trump in the Indiana primary, all but ensuring that real estate mogul will claim his party’s mantle at the Republican National Convention in July.
The exit comes after a series of desperate moves to keep his candidacy afloat in recent weeks, including naming former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina as his running mate in a bizarre announcement where Cruz spoke for a half hour and Fiorina sang to his young daughters.
In his last day on the campaign trail, Cruz unloaded on Trump, calling the businessman a”pathological liar” and a “narcissist” who was proud of being a “serial philanderer.” The attacks were reminiscent of the broadsides Sen. Marco Rubio launched against Trump in the waning days of his own presidential campaign — and a far cry from the lavish praise Cruz heaped on Trump for most of 2015, declaring, “I like Donald Trump.”
Cruz’s campaign hit its zenith in February when he resoundingly won the Iowa caucuses, due in large part to months of cultivating grassroots support in the state. But it soon became a roller-coaster ride of crushing losses in states where Cruz expected to do well, including South Carolina and Georgia, followed by resounding wins in his home state of Texas and Wisconsin. Cruz’s campaign used its grasp of the delegate process to beat Trump at state conventions where delegates were chosen, but it was not enough to overcome the businessman’s tally and strength with the electorate.
© Scott Olson/Getty Images With his wife Heidi by his side, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks during his election night watch party at the Crowne Plaza Downtown Union Station where he announced he was suspending…
The fact that Cruz remained one of the last candidates standing in a once-crowded field would have been viewed as improbable when he entered the race 14 months earlier. Cruz, the first major candidate to enter the race, is a first-term senator best known for getting under the skin of his Senate colleagues and championing controversial tactics to block the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. He was painted as a long-shot underdog who was too religious and conservative to advance past the early nominating contests.
But his campaign had a meticulous strategy it planned to roll out over the year that followed, and it started working soon after he announced.
“It is the time for truth. It is the time for liberty. It is the time to reclaim the Constitution of the United States,” Cruz said during his campaign kickoff at Liberty University, which was founded by the fundamentalist preacher Jerry Fallwell.
Cruz was immediately buoyed by impressive fundraising and the national platform that comes with announcing first. Groups backing the senator raised $31 million during the first week of his candidacy, and the campaign raked in $4 million.
The Texas Republican’s campaign employed a strategy of slowly introducing Cruz to a national audience while furiously working to shore up support with local activists and evangelical leaders in the first four voting states and the South, where the campaign expected Cruz to do well.
The campaign also talked about securing the support of delegates to the July convention almost as soon as it launched, envisioning Cruz in a head-to-head matchup with an establishment rival. The campaign sent emissaries to far-flung places such as Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands to try to lock down delegate support over the summer.
It was a campaign that reflected its candidate: methodical, strategic and data-driven. Cruz’s campaign deployed a sophisticated data strategy that used psychographic information to appeal to the fears or hopes of potential voters.
Cruz touted his outsider status and contempt for what he called the “Washington cartel” of politicians and lobbyists in politics to get rich. He made the enmity of his Senate colleagues a point of pride, joking about needing a “food taster” in the Senate dining room. He made it clear that no other candidate would get to the right of him, particularly on the issue of immigration.
But then came Donald Trump.
Cruz made an early, conscious decision to buddy up to Trump, brushing aside the businessman’s caustic comments about Mexicans and praising his toughness on immigration.
The two men met at Trump Tower in July, where Cruz invited Trump to tour the U.S.-Mexico border with him. Trump went, but Cruz could not because of Senate votes. Cruz and Trump both appeared at a rally against the Iranian nuclear deal on Capitol Hill in September.
As rivals were punching at Trump during the fall and quickly seeing their poll numbers drop as the businessman swatted back at them with insults, Cruz lavished praise on his rival for the nomination.
Cruz also tacked sharply to the right in order to compete with Trump’s rhetoric. Cruz’s immigration proposals grew tougher the longer Trump was in the race. He criticized Trump’s plan for mass deportation of illegal immigrants, then seemed to support it. He spoke of being weary of foreign intervention, but promised to “carpet bomb” the Islamic State to see if “sand can glow in the dark” there. He introduced a bill to bar refugees from Syria and other groups.
In December — as Cruz’s poll numbers were up nationally and in Iowa — he was caught on tape saying at a closed-door fundraiser that Trump may not have the judgment to be president. Cruz moved to smooth over the fracas, but Trump pounced. A few weeks later in January, Trump questioned whether Cruz, who was born in Canada, is eligible to be president.
Cruz then went on an offensive blitz against the businessman, assailing him for supporting partial-birth abortion and bankrolling Democratic candidates. It seemed to work, with Cruz beating Trump in the Iowa caucuses. But the momentum stopped in New Hampshire, where Trump won by big margins before marching to victories in South Carolina and Nevada.
Trump also upended Cruz’s plan to chalk up big wins in the South, an area the campaign saw as receptive to Cruz’s unyielding conservatism and his Christian faith. The campaign was hit with internal turmoil when Cruz fired his communications director, Rick Tyler, after Tyler posted on social media a video falsely purporting to show Sen. March Rubio disparaging the Bible. Some of Cruz’s most prominent backers openly questioned his campaign strategy.
Despite his other losses in the South, Cruz notched a big win in his home state that offered him a bonanza of delegates and kept his candidacy alive. A win in Wisconsin in early April infused much-needed momentum into the flagging campaign.
Cruz’s team proved adept at mastering the arcane art of delegate allocation, regularly snatching delegate support from Trump at state conventions. But as the primary calendar moved to the Northeast — an area hostile to Cruz, who derided “New York values” on the campaign trail — Trump gained momentum while Cruz flagged.
Indiana, which Cruz’s team had identified - along with Nebraska and California - as a state where it thought it could do well, never warned to him. Cruz announced that he and Ohio Gov. John Kasich had an agreement where Cruz would campaign in Indiana and Kasich would not, instead focusing on Oregon and New Mexico. But the alliance turned rocky just hours after it was announced when Kasich refused to tell his supporters to vote for Cruz. The Texas Republican later said that there was no alliance, to which Kasich’s chief strategist tweeted, “I can’t stand liars.”
Cruz laced into Trump across the state, criticizing the endorsement he received from boxer Mike Tyson, who served time in prison in Indiana on a rape conviction, and decrying Trump as an insecure bully. The Fiorina announcement, meant to revive Cruz’s flagging candidacy in the state, gave it no discernable boost. The two barnstormed around the state, where Cruz faced less than enthusiastic crowds, and confronted a pro-Trump protester in Marion.
Cruz said of Trump, “This man is lying to you and he’s taking advantage of you.”
The man accused Cruz of lying, and said: “You’ll find out tomorrow. Indiana don’t want you.”
SOURCES:MSN.COM
                   AP

TED CRUZ DROPS OUT OF REPUBLICAN WHITE HOUSE RACE

Ted Cruz drops out of Republican White House race

 

 

 

•  

Ted Cruz, the insurgent Texan whose presidential campaign was fueled by disdain for Washington, dropped out of the 2016 race Tuesday night, removing the last major hurdle in Donald Trump’s quest to become the Republican nominee for president.
Cruz’s decision came after losing overwhelmingly to Trump in the Indiana primary, all but ensuring that real estate mogul will claim his party’s mantle at the Republican National Convention in July.
The exit comes after a series of desperate moves to keep his candidacy afloat in recent weeks, including naming former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina as his running mate in a bizarre announcement where Cruz spoke for a half hour and Fiorina sang to his young daughters.
In his last day on the campaign trail, Cruz unloaded on Trump, calling the businessman a”pathological liar” and a “narcissist” who was proud of being a “serial philanderer.” The attacks were reminiscent of the broadsides Sen. Marco Rubio launched against Trump in the waning days of his own presidential campaign — and a far cry from the lavish praise Cruz heaped on Trump for most of 2015, declaring, “I like Donald Trump.”
Cruz’s campaign hit its zenith in February when he resoundingly won the Iowa caucuses, due in large part to months of cultivating grassroots support in the state. But it soon became a roller-coaster ride of crushing losses in states where Cruz expected to do well, including South Carolina and Georgia, followed by resounding wins in his home state of Texas and Wisconsin. Cruz’s campaign used its grasp of the delegate process to beat Trump at state conventions where delegates were chosen, but it was not enough to overcome the businessman’s tally and strength with the electorate.
© Scott Olson/Getty Images With his wife Heidi by his side, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks during his election night watch party at the Crowne Plaza Downtown Union Station where he announced he was suspending…
The fact that Cruz remained one of the last candidates standing in a once-crowded field would have been viewed as improbable when he entered the race 14 months earlier. Cruz, the first major candidate to enter the race, is a first-term senator best known for getting under the skin of his Senate colleagues and championing controversial tactics to block the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. He was painted as a long-shot underdog who was too religious and conservative to advance past the early nominating contests.
But his campaign had a meticulous strategy it planned to roll out over the year that followed, and it started working soon after he announced.
“It is the time for truth. It is the time for liberty. It is the time to reclaim the Constitution of the United States,” Cruz said during his campaign kickoff at Liberty University, which was founded by the fundamentalist preacher Jerry Fallwell.
Cruz was immediately buoyed by impressive fundraising and the national platform that comes with announcing first. Groups backing the senator raised $31 million during the first week of his candidacy, and the campaign raked in $4 million.
The Texas Republican’s campaign employed a strategy of slowly introducing Cruz to a national audience while furiously working to shore up support with local activists and evangelical leaders in the first four voting states and the South, where the campaign expected Cruz to do well.
The campaign also talked about securing the support of delegates to the July convention almost as soon as it launched, envisioning Cruz in a head-to-head matchup with an establishment rival. The campaign sent emissaries to far-flung places such as Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands to try to lock down delegate support over the summer.
It was a campaign that reflected its candidate: methodical, strategic and data-driven. Cruz’s campaign deployed a sophisticated data strategy that used psychographic information to appeal to the fears or hopes of potential voters.
Cruz touted his outsider status and contempt for what he called the “Washington cartel” of politicians and lobbyists in politics to get rich. He made the enmity of his Senate colleagues a point of pride, joking about needing a “food taster” in the Senate dining room. He made it clear that no other candidate would get to the right of him, particularly on the issue of immigration.
But then came Donald Trump.
Cruz made an early, conscious decision to buddy up to Trump, brushing aside the businessman’s caustic comments about Mexicans and praising his toughness on immigration.
The two men met at Trump Tower in July, where Cruz invited Trump to tour the U.S.-Mexico border with him. Trump went, but Cruz could not because of Senate votes. Cruz and Trump both appeared at a rally against the Iranian nuclear deal on Capitol Hill in September.
As rivals were punching at Trump during the fall and quickly seeing their poll numbers drop as the businessman swatted back at them with insults, Cruz lavished praise on his rival for the nomination.
Cruz also tacked sharply to the right in order to compete with Trump’s rhetoric. Cruz’s immigration proposals grew tougher the longer Trump was in the race. He criticized Trump’s plan for mass deportation of illegal immigrants, then seemed to support it. He spoke of being weary of foreign intervention, but promised to “carpet bomb” the Islamic State to see if “sand can glow in the dark” there. He introduced a bill to bar refugees from Syria and other groups.
In December — as Cruz’s poll numbers were up nationally and in Iowa — he was caught on tape saying at a closed-door fundraiser that Trump may not have the judgment to be president. Cruz moved to smooth over the fracas, but Trump pounced. A few weeks later in January, Trump questioned whether Cruz, who was born in Canada, is eligible to be president.
Cruz then went on an offensive blitz against the businessman, assailing him for supporting partial-birth abortion and bankrolling Democratic candidates. It seemed to work, with Cruz beating Trump in the Iowa caucuses. But the momentum stopped in New Hampshire, where Trump won by big margins before marching to victories in South Carolina and Nevada.
Trump also upended Cruz’s plan to chalk up big wins in the South, an area the campaign saw as receptive to Cruz’s unyielding conservatism and his Christian faith. The campaign was hit with internal turmoil when Cruz fired his communications director, Rick Tyler, after Tyler posted on social media a video falsely purporting to show Sen. March Rubio disparaging the Bible. Some of Cruz’s most prominent backers openly questioned his campaign strategy.
Despite his other losses in the South, Cruz notched a big win in his home state that offered him a bonanza of delegates and kept his candidacy alive. A win in Wisconsin in early April infused much-needed momentum into the flagging campaign.
Cruz’s team proved adept at mastering the arcane art of delegate allocation, regularly snatching delegate support from Trump at state conventions. But as the primary calendar moved to the Northeast — an area hostile to Cruz, who derided “New York values” on the campaign trail — Trump gained momentum while Cruz flagged.
Indiana, which Cruz’s team had identified - along with Nebraska and California - as a state where it thought it could do well, never warned to him. Cruz announced that he and Ohio Gov. John Kasich had an agreement where Cruz would campaign in Indiana and Kasich would not, instead focusing on Oregon and New Mexico. But the alliance turned rocky just hours after it was announced when Kasich refused to tell his supporters to vote for Cruz. The Texas Republican later said that there was no alliance, to which Kasich’s chief strategist tweeted, “I can’t stand liars.”
Cruz laced into Trump across the state, criticizing the endorsement he received from boxer Mike Tyson, who served time in prison in Indiana on a rape conviction, and decrying Trump as an insecure bully. The Fiorina announcement, meant to revive Cruz’s flagging candidacy in the state, gave it no discernable boost. The two barnstormed around the state, where Cruz faced less than enthusiastic crowds, and confronted a pro-Trump protester in Marion.
Cruz said of Trump, “This man is lying to you and he’s taking advantage of you.”
The man accused Cruz of lying, and said: “You’ll find out tomorrow. Indiana don’t want you.”
SOURCES:MSN.COM
                   AP

 

Cruz, Trump trade insults to the end as Indiana votes

 

 

 

 

 

© Denny Simmons/Evansville Courier & Press Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, visits with supporters at Wolf's Bar-B-Q during a campaign stop on the day of the state's presidential primary, Tuesday morning, May 3… INDIANAPOLIS  — Assailing each other with no letup, Republican front-runner Donald Trump and challenger Ted Cruz traded insults, charges and more Tuesday as Indiana voters went to the polls in what could be an all-but-decisive presidential primary election.
Texas Sen. Cruz, who is facing a critical moment for his struggling campaign, unleashed a blistering attack against Trump, calling the businessman "amoral" and warning the country could "plunge into the abyss" if he is elected president.
Trump, growing increasingly confident about his chances of clinching the GOP nomination, responded by saying Cruz "does not have the temperament to be president of the United States." Earlier Tuesday Trump had rehashed unsubstantiated claims that the Texan'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."
The heated exchanges come as Cruz's opportunities to block Trump dwindle. While Indiana's primary once looked like a ripe opportunity for the conservative Texas senator to make up ground, his campaign has faltered here and aides were pessimistic about their prospects.
During one of his final stops in the state, a visibly exasperated Cruz let his frustrations with Trump fly, calling him a "pathological liar," a "serial philanderer," ''kooky," ''nuts" and "terrified with strong women."

Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders also faced off in Indiana's Democratic primary on Tuesday, though the stakes were lower than in the Republican race. Clinton holds a commanding lead, with 91 percent of the delegates she needs to win the nomination. That means she can still win even if she loses every remaining contest.
Sanders has conceded that he faces a difficult path, one that hinges on persuading 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 were in Indiana Tuesday. Sanders was making stops in Kentucky, which holds a primary in mid-May, while Clinton moved on to Ohio, a key general election battleground.
A fall showdown between Clinton and Trump would pit one of Democrats' most experienced political figures against a first-time 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.
Still, Trump has won six straight primary contests and has 80 percent of the delegates needed to secure the GOP nomination. Cruz, as well as Ohio Gov. John Kasich, can only hope to keep him from the 1,237 delegates he needs and push the GOP race to a contested convention.
Cruz has spent the past week camped out in Indiana, securing the support of the state's governor and announcing Carly Fiorina, the retired technology executive, as his running mate. He's vowed to stay in the race as long as he has a possible path.
Trump, too, 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 Clinton.
While Trump cannot clinch the nomination with a win in Indiana, his path would become easier and he would have more room for error in the campaign's final contests. After Cruz's comments in Evansville, he said in a statement the Texas senator was "a desperate candidate trying to save his failing campaign."
Cruz said America is "looking, potentially, at the Biff Tannen presidency," referencing a character in the "Back to the Future" films. He described the character as "a braggadocious, arrogant buffoon who builds giant casinos with giant pictures of him everywhere he looks."
The film's screenwriter Bob Gale told the Daily Beast last year that the character was based on Trump.
Cruz's aides were cautious heading into Tuesday's vote. Campaign officials had been told to prepare for Cruz to deliver "a very somber" speech Tuesday night in Indianapolis, according to one aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal discussions.
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.
SOURCE:MSN.COM

COLORADO WOMAN WHO CUT BABY FROM WOMB OF STRANGER GETS 100 YEARS

 

Colo. woman who cut baby from womb of stranger gets 100 years

 

 

 

 

 

 

© Provided by New York Daily News Dynel Lane, 36, was sentenced Friday to 100 years in prison. - Matthew Jonas/AP

A baby-obsessed Colorado woman who cut a baby from the womb of a complete stranger was sentenced Friday to 100 years in prison for the sickening crime.

Dynel Lane, 36, will likely die behind bars for the March 2015 attack on Michelle Wilkins, who was nearly eight months pregnant at the time.

The unborn baby girl died but Wilkins miraculously survived — and was in the courtroom as the judge handed down the stiff sentence.

Lane lured Wilkins to her home with a Craigslist ad promising free maternity clothes.

Prosecutors had asked the judge for a 126-year sentence, the max allowed for convictions of attempted murder, on four charges of felony assault and one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy.

Colorado law did not allow a murder charge for the dead fetus.

SOURCE:NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

TRUMP TROUNCING IN CALIFORNIA BY 34 POINTS:POLL

 

Trump trouncing in Calif. by 34 points: Poll

  

       

   

 

 

 

 

© Michael Conroy, AP Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump waves a rally at in Carmel, Ind., on May 2, 2016.

Donald Trump is leading Ted Cruz by a whopping 34 percentage points – 54%-20% -- among likely Republican voters in California, a SurveyUSA poll for KUSA found.
That’s a significant gain for the Republican frontrunner, who’s lead was only 8 percentage points in the last Survey USA poll a month ago. And it’s a significant loss for Cruz. The two were 40%-32% last month.
California, which holds its primary June 7, is one of the most delegate-rich states with 172 at stake for GOP hopefuls.
That makes Indiana, which will award 57 delegates after its primary Tuesday, all that much more important for Cruz if he wants to stop Trump from reaching the 1,237 delegates he needs to clinch the nomination. In the most recent poll, though, he is trailing by 15 percentage points in the Hoosier State.
On the Democratic side, the SurveyUSA poll gives Hillary Clinton a 57%-38% lead over Bernie Sanders in California. In general election matchups, she beats Trump 56%-34% and Cruz 57%-29%. California has not sided with a Republican for president since Ronald Reagan in 1988.
SurveyUSA polled 2,011 registered voters in California from April 27 to April 30.
SOURCE:USA TODAY

 

Trump leads Clinton by two points in Rasmussen poll

  

       

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© Provided by The Hill Five ways Trump will attack Clinton

Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton by 2 points in a head-to-head matchup, according to a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey.

Trump gets 41 percent to Clinton's 39 percent in the new poll.
This poll differs from recent polling, which all show Clinton holding a lead over the Republican front-runner. According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, Clinton has a 7.3 point lead over Trump, 47.4 to 40.1 percent.
Just last week, Clinton and Trump tied in another Rasmussen poll in which each won 38 percent. In that survey, voters were also allowed to answer that they would stay home and not vote for either candidate.
According to the latest Rasmussen poll, 15 percent of respondents would prefer some other candidate and 5 percent were undecided.
The recent poll also found that Trump does twice as well among Democrats as Clinton does among Republicans in a matchup between the two candidates.
Trump takes 15 percent support of Democrats in a general election matchup between Trump and Clinton, but Clinton takes just 8 percent of GOP voters.
Trump has 73 percent support of Republicans and Clinton has 77 percent support of Democrats in a matchup.
The survey was conducted from April 27-28 among 1,000 likely voters. The margin of error is 3 percent.
SOURCE:THE HILL

BODIES OF CLIMBER ALEX LOWE AND HIS CAMERAMAN FOUND I6YEARS AFTER THEY WERE KILLED BY A HIMALAYAN AVALANCHE

 

Bodies Of Climber Alex Lowe and His Cameraman Found 16 Years After They Were Killed By a Himalayan Avalanche

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

© Provided by TIME Inc. The families of renowned climbers Alex Lowe and David Bridges received some closure last week when the remains of both men were finally found 16 years after they were killed by a Himalayan avalanche, according to a statement on the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation's website.

Two hikers found Lowe and Bridges' bodies during their ascent of Shishapangma, the world's 14th tallest mountain, which is located in Tibet.

"They had come across the remains of two climbers still encased in blue ice but beginning to emerge from the glacier," the statement said. "[Hiker David] Goettler described the clothing and packs of the climbers to [Conrad Anker] who concluded that the two were undoubtedly David Bridges and Alex Lowe."

Lowe, then 40, and his cameraman Bridges, 29, were climbing the mountain in October 1999 when they were buried by a massive avalanche. Conrad Anker – who is now married to Lowe's widow Jennifer Lowe-Anker – was also with the men, but survived with minor injuries. The remaining members of the expedition team searched for the men for two days, according to Outside magazine.

"Alex and David vanished, were captured and frozen in time. Sixteen years of life has been lived and now they are found. We are thankful," Lowe-Anker said in the statement.

Lowe-Anker, who shared three children with Lowe, said she was surprised by "how quickly" her late husband's body was found. "I thought it might not be in my lifetime," she told Outside.

While Anker and Lowe-Anker have not yet seen photos of the bodies, and a conclusive test hasn't been conducted, he said, "we're pretty sure it's them."

"They were close to each other. Blue and red North Face backpacks. Yellow Koflach boots. It was all that gear from that time period," Anker explained. "They were pretty much the only two climbers who were there."

The family, who now operate the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation, plans to recover the bodies this summer, and will likely hold a ceremony in nearby town Nyalam, Tibet.

"It's never something you look forward to," Anker-Lowe told Outside. "To see the body of somebody you loved and cared about. But there is a sense that we can put him to rest, and he's not just disappeared now."