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Transportation Security Administration administrator Peter Neffenger says an increase in passenger numbers is one reason for long lines at airport security checkpoints. (Reuters)
The long security lines at U.S. airportsare another problem for Hillary Clinton. A lot of Americans interact with the Transportation Security Administration, and they expect that agency to function properly. And when there is a problem, they want it fixed. Does anyone think of Clinton as a problem-solver? Answer: No. Can anyone think of a problem she has ever solved?
As I have written before, the Democrats are identified as a party that agitates for interest groups and social causes. They impose their will through regulations and via the courts. The Obama era has left the Democrats without any claim to managerial expertise or problem-solving skills, and Clinton will pay a price for that in November.
The current problems at the TSA are a perfect example. When Americans are standing in lines at our nation’s airports and fuming about incompetence in government, they don’t want to hear excuses about a lack of government resources. Who do you think is more likely to shake things up with the bureaucrats at the Department of Homeland Security and actually get the TSA working, President Hillary Clinton or President Donald Trump? It’s no contest.
If Trump were to show up at an American airport and face those waiting in a long security line, he would probably be welcomed and he would instantly be recognized as someone who would make changes. If Clinton were to show up, I think she would be greeted as an agent of the status quo, and the crowd reaction would be, to put it mildly, more subdued. Not one person who is outraged and disgusted while standing in a security line and missing their flight could care less about Trump’s taxes or how he may or may not have treated a girlfriend decades ago. They want somebody who can make basic government functions work. Let’s face it, the people who rolled out the Obamacare website are the same people who can’t figure out how to match the number of TSA security screeners with airport traffic.
Honestly, do you think the White House has spent more time in the past 90 days managing its school bathroom mandate for transgender students or trying figuring out how to make TSA security lines work with adequate efficiency this travel season? The answer is obvious.
Denial is rampant in this administration. Its approach to management is to deny problems exist and to shift focus to one left-wing cause or another. I have no doubt the TSA strategy will be to shift blame, whine about funding shortages and deny that things are as bad as they are. I suspect after a congressional probe, we will actually find that much of the TSA problems in the summer of 2016 were made worse by the Obama administration’s obsession with regulations, grievances and union rules that took precedence over efficiency, customer service and getting a job done.
Again, this is what our government has become under the Democrats: All lecturing and no management. This is what has fueled much of the Trump movement, and it is another reason Hillary Clinton is such a poor fit for the country in 2016. We don’t need a third Obama term. Remember that the next time you are stuck in a security line at an airport.
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May 26, 2016
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Well, I guess it's all but official now. Trump has reached the magic number to clinch the nomination of the Republican Party. Of course, the magic number, 1,237, and Trump is now at 1,238. Now, according to the AP, which apparently does not see the irony in this, the AP report says that Trump got past the magic number with the support of, one, a female delegate -- and women supposedly hate Trump. And, number two, the delegate that actually put Trump over the top is an unbound delegate from Colorado, which wasn't supposed to happen because Cruz scooped up all the delegates in Colorado.
That wasn't supposed happen, neither of these, women hate Trump, Colorado went for Cruz, and yet a woman and an unbound Colorado delegate put Trump over the top. AP making it official. Unofficial here, it's not official 'til the first ballot, convention of course, but there you go, 1,238 delegates and it's just gonna keep climbing.
Greetings, my friends, El Rushbo behind the Golden EIB Microphone here at the distinguished, the prestigious Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
So there's all kinds of stuff out there today. So we have Obama in Japan saying that Trump is rattling foreign leaders because they're afraid his policies might not be thought through. Frankly, I am ready for foreign leaders to be a little rattled by what's happening in this country -- as opposed to what they have become accustomed to and what they have come to expect out of this country, which is a blank check.
I think it's about time foreign countries -- by the way, if you hear some squeaking, I got some new shoes, and I'm telling you, these things make noise when I -- you hear that? That's my shoes. Leather being broken in. So there's nothing wrong here. Look, it's loud. If I can hear it, it's loud. You know, I go walking through the halls here and at first, "What in the world?" Thought I'm about to fall through the floor here and then I figured out it was the new shoes. Great, great shoes, by the way, best shoes, Trump shoes, brand-new leather. (laughing) Just kidding. They're Tommy Bahamas.
That's not the only one. Obama in Japan saying that world leaders are rattled. And there's another story, same premise, only about global warming, that Trump doesn't seem to be aligned in a right way on global warming. They're very, very, very concerned out there. I even read this on my tech blogs. They're very, very concerned. They're laughing at Trump. They're mocking Trump 'cause Trump thinks that global warming is a hoax sponsored by the ChiComs to impede our economic growth. It is a hoax. It is a leftist hoax and it may indeed involve the ChiComs, but Trump's instincts on this are correct.
But grab sound bite 23. Paul Ryan. This is from his weekly press conference this morning, and it's only at the top of the sound bite roster here because of the AP story, Trump reaching the magic number to clinch the nomination, 1,238. So this is Ryan, the Speaker of the House, weekly press briefing, and during the Q&A, Luke Russert, the NBC congressional correspondent, said, "Speaker Ryan, I wondered how the phone call went with Mr. Trump last night. We heard from your team that it was good. Is there anything more you can share?"
RYAN: It was a productive phone call. Like I said, we've had these conversations, our staffs have been meeting. We had a very good and very productive phone call. So I'll leave it at that. What I'm most concerned about is making sure that we actually have real party unity, not pretend party unity, real party unity because we need to win this election in the fall.
RUSH: I guess he's still waiting for real party unity before endorsing Trump. Let me just tell you Trumpsters something. Trump is making this tougher on Ryan than it needs to be. When he went after Susana Martinez, Ryan has no choice but to be protective of her. I mean, she's chairman of Republican governors. You can frown in there at me all you want and I don't care whether what Trump said about her was true or not. I was asking myself, why in the world, the timing of this, when Trump himself states that he's attempting to unify the party.
By going after Susana Martinez, Trump gave Ryan a reason to hold off a couple more days or week or whatever. I mean, Ryan can't come out and endorse Trump the day after he dumps on a Republican governor. You just can't do it, no matter who's right or wrong. No matter what Trump said about her, right or wrong, it doesn't matter, just the optics. You understand that, right? I know she dumped on him first.
By the way, there's a story here that hasn't gotten a lot of attention. I think it's big, and I think it's important, and I think it is, for those of you who are deeply invested in Donald Trump, it's crucially important, and it's very, very comforting. It's the story about how he fired Rick Wiley. But a lot of people, "What's the big deal about that, Rush?"
Well, I'll tell you why it's a big deal. It's a big deal for what it stands for and what it represents. You know, Rick Wiley is an establishment guy. Manafort hired him. He was also an establishment guy. He ran Scott Walker's campaign in Wisconsin. So he's got establishment bona fides, and Manafort brought this guy in, and they were going to try to, I don't know, overthrow, they were gonna try to take control of campaign from Trump's team that he's had throughout the primaries, led by Lewandowski and whoever else is in that mix.
Now, you might remember, it was either last week or the week before that I issued a warning of sorts that one of the pitfalls Donald Trump is going to face as the weeks and days go by and as he gets closer to and then surpasses the number of delegates -- this is human nature; it happens in many businesses; it has happened to me. One of the reasons I am fully aware of this is because of personal experience with it -- the effort to change Trump is going to be intense from within his own campaign. It'll be well intentioned, but it'll be wrong.
There are people who tell Trump, "You've gotta change, now. You have won the nomination. It's not the primaries. It's the general. You have to change." And what that means is: "You have to tone it down! You have to dial it back. You have to become more presidential." Whatever the advice is, it will consist of people thinking that Trump now has to grow in stature, in office, and drop whatever it is that worked during the primaries because they're over now, and we're on to the general, and it's not a whole slate of opponents. It's one opponent, and there's all kinds of money involved now.
And the biggest mistake Trump could make would be to take any of that advice. The biggest mistake Trump could make would be to listen to anybody who tells him it's time to change. Now, some of the advice is intended to sabotage, even people supposedly in your own circle. Folks, there's envy and there's jealousy within every organization, and in something like Trump's -- which is red hot. It is the focus of attention in the modern world today, and everybody involved wants the light to shine on them, too. It's human nature.
There are people in that organization, in every organization, particularly those that are humming and are hot and have a lot of attention focused on them. There are people within those organizations who want attention themselves. They want to be credited as the advisor, as the confidant, as the guy who has Trump's ear, as the guy who's making Trump be Trump. They're everywhere. Some of them are well-intentioned; some of them are just attention starved.
Others are saboteurs. And the fact that Trump... This is not about Wiley. I don't even know him. What I'm about to say here is not intended personally about Rick Wiley. I don't know him. I'm speaking to you, really, using my own experiences, which are overwhelming in number. Let me just... Folks, let me put it to you this way to set this up. I have been doing this radio program... If you count the 3-1/2 years that I did in Sacramento before I went national 1988, I've been doing this program over 30 years.
And along the way there were consultants at radio stations where I worked. Some of these consultants had never, ever been behind a microphone. Some of these consultants had never, ever run a radio station. In the 30 years that I've been doing this program, I have had two people not try to change me. Everybody else that I've worked with in management or consultants, tried to get me to change. Some of them even threatened to fire me if I didn't change.
And what I mean by that is, "You can't do a show without guests. If you don't start getting guests in here -- 'cause nobody listens to talk show without guests -- you're not gonna last." Ratings would come in, my ratings would be higher than anybody else's on the station, and people would come to me, "This isn't gonna last. You'd better start getting guests," or, "You'd better stop playing all that music or whatever you're doing! It's not talk radio, what you're doing. You can't do it that way." All the ex... Only two people.
If I had been... What's the word? If I had been forced to take the advice of I-can't-tell-you-how-many consultants -- I'm talking, 10, 12 -- I wouldn't be here today. My program would have been a failure, "Because you just can't do it that way." I said, "When have you ever done it?" "Well, I have a track record! I've consulted stations here and there." "Yeah, how are they doing?" "Well, nobody does it like you." "Precisely! It's what I'm trying to achieve here." It got knock-down, drag-out at times.
Some of these consultants even today are quoted in magazine articles about how, "You know what? This Limbaugh thing is a fad! It isn't gonna last. It isn't gonna last. He's not gonna last! He isn't gonna last." Even 28 years later, they're out there saying, "It isn't gonna last!" They're out there saying, "It's over," doom and gloom. So my point is... These are not my friends. I don't have consultants. I have never had a consultant. Since this show started live, there has never been a consultant. I'm talking about when I worked at radio stations that had hired consultants.
Trump is facing the same thing. Everybody who is a powerful personality, who is generating a lot of heat, who is winning at what he's doing and Trump's doing all of that by a multiple factor of 10, Trump just owns it right now. And there are people that don't like that. There are people that want to be part of it. There are people who want you to think they are responsible for it. There are all kinds of people surrounding Trump right now, and I'm guarantee you that he's being advised by... I don't know who they are, but I will guarantee you he's being advised to change.
He's being advised... He's being told by some people, "You can't do it this way! You can't keep doing it the way you're doing it. You've got to change. You've got to become more president. You've got to do," whatever. He's got people on his staff telling him to ignore that, too. Don't... He's got all kinds there. The point is, he ought not listen to anybody except the people he goes to to ask questions. But if somebody comes in and starts giving him advice, let it go in one ear and out the other.
Depending on who the person is, be respectful. But Trump's instincts are just fine, and he had better continue to trust them. He had better not start doubting them. He'd better not let other people make him doubt them. Not to say he's not gonna make mistakes. Not to say he's not gonna wish he could take something back. But the point is, the only stuff that would be fatal to Donald Trump is if for some reason people in his campaign started listening to the media, started listening to critics.
Or some of the people within the campaign got scared, "Oh, my God, I don't think Trump can keep this up! You can't keep talking this way. He's not gonna win," and tries to change him. He's got to have a steel spine. I think he does. I think he loves himself enough to remain who he is, and that was my advice last week. Whoever he is, is what's gotten him where he is. He's got to stay who he is. He must not let anybody, well-intentioned or otherwise, talk him out of being who he is.
Don't put a teleprompter up there unless it's an official policy speech to some group of people where even the slightest mistake cannot occur. Otherwise, leave the teleprompter. I'll give you a classic example: Last night in Anaheim or yesterday in Anaheim. By the way, kudos. They waited 'til after this program was over to start the rally in Anaheim. Did you notice that? And even it was late at that. Because it was late, the organizers of the event -- the people that Trump had hired to put on the event wherever it was, the convention center -- went to Trump.
And they said, "Look, sir, we're running behind and we're gonna have to scrub the National Anthem. We just don't have to time, we're so far behind schedule." Trump said, "What do you mean? We're not canceling the National Anthem," and he called the singer up on the stage right then and right there and made her sing the National Anthem right after he'd been told they had to cancel it. He took a step or two away, gave her the stage, gave her the microphone, put his hand over his heart, and mouthed the words as she was singing.
It was a great rendition. That act is worth more votes and more loyalty and deepens the bond of connection. You know, stop and I think of it. Something you and I would think is as innocuous as the National Anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner can mean something to Donald Trump. Because there are people in this country who don't like it. Democrats, leftists, anti-Americans, what have you. Something as simple as what is considered to be noncontroversial, tradition -- the singing of the National Anthem -- can become provocative.
Because there's some who don't like it. But whatever. Trump instinctively knew not to have the National Anthem ripped. He didn't want it canceled, and he took care of it. A lot of people would have listened to the organizers. A lot of others would say, "Okay, okay, okay." He's got to continue this. The pressure to change, the pressure from all these so-called know-it-all consultants who've never done what he's doing -- in business or in politics -- who have never done what he's doing, will be trying to tell him.
So the fact that he got rid of this guy... I don't know Rick Wiley. It's not a comment about him. But the fact that Trump got rid of the guy, to me, is a good sign that he's holding on to his identity and is confident in who he is and has realized he doesn't need the kind of advice if it's, "Mr. Trump, you have to change. Mr. Trump, you can't keep doing this." "Oh, yeah? Fine. Well, find another candidate. You're gone."
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: No, no. Folks, my point is simply: I've been there. I have been where Trump is, and I know what kind of things are happening. I know the efforts to change him. I know the fear. As I say, some of it's well-intentioned. Others are saboteurs and so forth. It's why I can relate to so much of what's happening with Trump and his campaign. It's precisely because I've been there. I just... I've not spent any time telling you about this stuff. It's all inside baseball. I mean, I'm not gonna come here every day and explain, "Guess what happened to me when the show...
"I had a meeting and they told me..." I'm not bother you with it. But just trust me. For the first couple years of this program, you would not believe. I mean, and these guys were all out there telling me, "You can't do it the way you do! You're gonna fail. I don't want you on my station. You better change! You want to be big in Latrobe or you want to be big in New York?" I heard that twice at WABC. Those guys that told me that are not working, and yet they're quoted in every story about how I'm about to end.
So I know what's happening with Trump in the campaign. I know the kind of people that are out there trying to sabotage it and also trying to nose in on it and to get some of the attention for themselves. There are all kinds of personalities out there. In every organization that's somewhat large, you're gonna have a mix of those people. Now, the real backstory, what happened with Rick Wiley happens to be in Politico, but I don't think they realize their own lead here.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: ere's what happened with this Rick Wiley story. It's in The Politico. I'm gonna read The Politico verbiage first, and then I'm gonna translate it for you. "On Thursday, word leaked back to Trump. He phoned Giorno, concerned, sources said. 'Tell me what’s wrong?' Trump asked her, according to one person familiar with the call. 'Karen unloaded on Wiley,' the source said. 'Mr. Trump is loyal. He believed her. … Rick picked a fight with the wrong person.' At that point, Trump ordered Wiley to stay away from Giorno and to neither call nor email her. 'Donald is loyal. And she’s loyal,' a source said."
Let me translate this for you. Rick Wiley -- and I'm just picking this up from Politico -- tried a power play, and these are common in these organizations. So much of this stuff, I feel like I'm reliving it in a sense, when I hear about these things. This guy, Wiley, tried a power play, on Trump's female manager, Karen Giorno. She's the Florida campaign chairwoman. And Wiley, an associate of Paul Manafort's, who Trump had hired, attempted a power play to get her out and to take over her job as he was attempting to amass power within the Trump organization. And Trump, when hearing about this, sided with the woman, in no uncertain terms, and so Rick Wiley is out.
Trump did not care about gender. He only cared about competence and loyalty. But in this story, so far, no reporters have mentioned that the reason Rick Wiley was let go was because Trump is remaining loyal to and standing by his Florida female campaign manager over the guy. So we have a female delegate and a delegate from Colorado who are the two that put Trump over the top. We have Trump siding with his female campaign manager in Florida, Karen Giorno, and Rick Wiley, the relatively new hire brought in by Manafort, is gone.
The irony is totally lost on the press because the press has this narrative that Trump hate's women and women hate Trump. You know, one of the silliest narratives that's out there is Donald Trump hates women. Donald Trump loves women. He happens to really like beautiful women. That's being portrayed as kooky and abnormal and strange and weird and something we must investigate. But it is the most natural thing since God created Adam and Eve, that a man is attracted to women he finds attractive, and all men have different definitions of attractive. That is manifestly obvious. There's nothing unnatural about it.
What is unnatural, what makes no sense whatsoever -- ladies in this audience, when you hear all these news reports about how Trump hates women, stop and think what kind of sense that has. They've said that about every conservative in the context of feminism. "Well, he's anti-female." No. There's no anti-female. Anti-liberal, maybe, anti-feminist ideology. Trump doesn't hate women. That's one of the stupidest allegations I've ever heard.
I know it works. There are a lot of women, we had one call yesterday not particularly crazy about Trump because of what she thinks Trump thinks of women. But he loves them. He loves being around them; he loves being surrounded by them. He stands by them. He hires them. He pays them as much or more as he pays the men. A woman was in charge of getting Trump Tower built. That's his home, in addition to his building. He stood by this woman, Karen Giorno, who is his Florida campaign manager, over this so-called highly touted professional and also, must be stated, GOP Establishment consultant type guy.
And yet after today it's still gonna be out there that Trump hates women. It's one of the silliest things. Not just about Trump. They say it about every conservative. They say it about every Republican. Anti-female, anti-gay, anti-this. If you ever stop to think about it, it literally makes no sense. You're gonna hate half the population? It's absurd. But particularly in Trump's case. It's just the exact opposite.
Now, grab audio sound bite 15, maybe through 20 here. Let me illustrate Trump being who he is. Whether you like it or not, whether people on his staff, "Oh, oh," when they shudder when he says, "We gotta get him to change. We gotta get him to tone down. Oh, my God, he's gotta become more presidential." As long Trump stays who he is. I mean, what's the old phrase, "You dance with who brung you." I mean, he's where he is for a specific set of reasons, and it's not because of any consultant advice he got. It's not because of any polling or focus groups that he did.
Donald Trump is following his instincts, and he has a deeper bond and connection with his voters than any candidate in this race, including Bernie. And it's self-evident why. And, by the way, that threatens traditionalists, too. "Well, we've gotta bust that up. We can't have that deep a connection, it's not healthy. We'll call it a cult, that's what we'll do, we'll call Trump's supporters a cult," as the attempt to impugn them ratchets up.
But it's not a cult at all. Trump supporters are there for specific reasons, specific, substantive reasons. And that's why every effort that's been made to separate Trump from his supporters has bombed. 'Cause the people trying to separate Trump from his supporters don't even know why the bond exists. They probably never experienced one themselves.
So this is late yesterday in Anaheim at the campaign event, and here's Trump speaking about Kristol, Bill Kristol. I've been waiting for him to get around -- you know, Kristol is the face of this highly touted effort in establishment circles to come up with a third party candidate, because Trump is so unacceptable, Trump is just, yuk, ew, we can't be associated with that. Even if we lose we've gotta find a third party. And Kristol is noted as leading that movement.
TRUMP: I just happened to see this guy in one of the shows the other day. Bill Kristol, he's got some magazine, I don't even know what the hell it is, and he's saying "oh, we're looking for another candidate. We're looking. We're looking." He's sweating, he's sweating. "We're still looking for a third-party candidate." He's been doing this for like nine months. He can't find anybody. What a loser. What a loser.
RUSH: Now, people inside the Trump campaign shudder, "Oh no, he didn't say that, not about Bill Kristol, we gotta walk it back, we gotta walk it back, we gotta get Mr. Trump to walk it back." No, you don't. That's who he is. He's got to remain who he is. However far it takes him. If he starts abandoning who he is, if he tries to become somebody he's not, that's how he breaks the bond with his own supporters. Only he can do it. If he starts taking advice to tone it down or to take it in a different direction -- (interruption) no, no, no. I'm not saying that there isn't room for improvement.
The point is his instincts have guided him this far, and we're in a business where people don't trust instincts. They trust consultants. They trust research. They trust focus groups. They trust polls. They trust everything but their own brains. Trump is relying on his own brain and his own heart. What do you think Bill Buckley meant when he said, "I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than the faculty at Harvard"? It's exactly what he meant. And then, as you know, one of the names Bill Kristol continues to tout as this potential third-party candidate savior is Mitt Romney.
TRUMP: Poor Mitt Romney. Poor Mitt. I have a store that's worth more money than he is. I helped him. I raised for him. I endorsed him. He wanted my endorsement -- he begged for my endorsement -- and now all he does is bad mouth. I understand losers. You can make a lot of money with losers. I said, "Mitt cannot run. He choked like a dog. He's a choker. Once a choker, always a choker." So now, as retribution, "Donald Trump shouldn't run, blah, blah, blah," and he walks like a penguin onto the stage. You ever seen?
CROWD: (laughter)
TRUMP Like a penguin!
RUSH: "He walks like a penguin," and the people in the Trump camp say, "Oh, no, he didn't! Gotta back it off. We gotta back it off! Get back to the issues, Donald. Please talk about the wall. Please talk about the Mexicans. Please talk the Muslims. Please talk foreign policy. Don't say Romney walks like a penguin! Oh, no." And Donald Trump is gonna keep doing what he does. Did you hear the crowd? The crowd doesn't want Mitt Romney to be president. They don't want Bill Kristol choosing the president, and that's all you need to know. Here's Kristol. This is yesterday, Bloomberg Politics website, Masters in Politics blog. Betsy Fischer Martin, I guess, is the cohost here, and she said, "How's it going in terms of finding that third-party candidate to run out there against Trump?"
KRISTOL: I think the leading possibility -- the real maybe the last chance here -- is with Mitt Romney, who has said "no," but I think is thinking seriously about it. I think he thinks that maybe he is the right person to do it. I think we might have a shot at Mitt Romney doing it.
RUSH: "Might have you a shot at Mitt Romney, third-party candidate, to upset Donald Trump campaign." The GOP Establishment still hasn't given up, folks.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here's that National Anthem bit at the Anaheim. What would...? I guess the Anaheim convention center is where Trump did the rally yesterday afternoon after this program. This is when the organizer said, "Mr. Trump, we're running so far behind, we just don't have time National Anthem. We're gonna have to cancel the National Anthem."
TRUMP: I got here, and they all said, "We have a great crowd. We don't have time for the National Anthem." I said, "Yes, we do."
CROWD: (cheers)
TRUMP: We have time for the National Anthem, right? And we have a young lady that is going to sing it. I said, "What are you doing?" She said, "Well, I was supposed to sing but they had time because of the television cameras. They couldn't do it." I said, "Guess what? We're gonna do the National Anthem." Okay? So Sherry Wilkins, come up. Sherry, come on.
CROWD: U! S! A! U! S! A!
RUSH: Now, I don't know if that's unique. I mean, I don't know if you had any other candidate who would have reacted the same way. You might have. But the point is there are candidates who would have agreed to cancel the National Anthem and nothing would have been said about it. Just do the event. There's no anthem. Nobody would have said anything about it. But Trump... "Life is show prep" has been my phrase. "Life is show prep." And apparently be careful what you say to Trump, 'cause he's gonna use it. He's gonna use it and he's gonna turn it to his advantage if he can.
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More than 7,000 attend Trump speech
bismarcktribune.com
Republican Party presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump electrified a crowd of more than 7,000 this afternoon in the Bismarck Event Center delivering his first major address on energy policy at the conclusion of this year’s Williston Basin Petroleum Conference.
Trump, whose support from North Dakota national convention delegates put him over the top for securing the party’s nomination earlier in the day, told the crowd he’d eliminate regulation he says is killing the fossil fuel industry as well as be favorable to additional pipeline projects and exports of American oil.
Thunderous applause greeted Trump’s declaration that in his administration there’d be an “America-first energy plan.”
“We will accomplish a complete American energy independence,” Trump said. “We’re going to turn everything around. We are going to make it right.”
He thanked the North Dakota delegates for putting him over the top.
“I will always remember that,” Trump said.
For those hoping to witness a dose of the sharp rhetoric that’s been a staple of his unconventional and eyebrow-raising campaign, he didn’t disappoint.
Trump vowed to reverse the energy policy of President Barack Obama’s administration, which he said has been devastating to industry and inflicted pain on states such as North Dakota that rely heavily on the energy sector.
“If President Obama wanted to weaken America, he couldn’t have done a better job,” Trump said.
Among the policies he’d push to undo is the Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions rules targeting coal-fired power plants. The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year voted 5-4 to halt implementation of the rules governing new and existing power plants for now.
“How stupid is that?” Trump said of the emissions rules.
He also slammed the Environment Protection Agency’s Waters of the United State rule, which he said would cause significant damage to American energy production and kill jobs.
Trump had the crowd in the palm of his hand, a sea of people dotted with Trump hats and shirts with his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.” He drew wave after wave of raucous applause when outlining how optimistic he is at the prospect of North Dakota and the country’s energy future.
“You’re at the forefront of a new energy revolution,” said Trump, adding that the country has unlocked energy reserves previously unimaginable with new technologies, such as hydraulic fracturing. “We’re loaded. We had no idea how rich we are.”
The first 100 days of a potential Trump administration also riled up the crowd: He said he’d rescind executive orders by Obama that he believes are job killers as well as work to eliminate the emissions and water rules.
When considering any federal regulations, Trump said his litmus test would be simple.
“Is this regulation good for the American worker?” Trump said.
Those who heard Trump speak gave his speech an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
“I think from what we see on TV he had a much more detailed presentation. He was really well-informed on the issues,” Whitney Bell, of New Town, said.
Bell said the crowd was fantastic and responded well to Trump's message, which he reiterated was more detailed than mere sound-bites.
Jason Bohrer, president of the Lignite Energy Council, said he was impressed with Trump’s focus on deregulation.
“I heard what I wanted to hear and more. Trump is a different kind of politician; he communicates in a way that a lot of other people don’t,” Bohrer said.
North Dakota Petroleum Council President Ron Ness said he was thrilled by how the speech went as well as the overwhelming reaction from the crowd.
“I’ve been to a lot of Class B state championships in this building; this was equal to that,” Ness said. “The energy just rolled in.”
Ness said his America-first message resonated with people and he expects it to become a staple of his campaign.
“That speech was loaded with specifics. He backed that up with a lot of numbers. I didn’t hear anything that isn’t achievable,” Ness said.
Trump tapped Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., earlier this month to help in providing him with energy policy advice. Cramer wrote a white paper on energy policy relating to federal regulations, the importance of the fossil fuel industry and other topics, which hasn’t yet been released.
Cramer was one of the first members of Congress to openly endorse Trump prior to his last opponents dropping out of the race.
North Dakota Republican Party chairman Kelly Armstrong said he heard what he needed to hear from Trump on eliminating government regulations, reducing taxes and protecting the energy industry. As chairman, Armstrong is one of North Dakota’s 28 delegates to the national Republican Party convention July 18-21 in Cleveland.
“Tremendously good for the people of North Dakota,” Armstrong said of Trump’s positions.
Rep. Rick Becker, R-Bismarck, said he didn’t hear much of anything new in Trump’s speech but will be taking time to learn more on him prior to attending the national convention.
“He’s emphasizing some really good points,” Becker said.
Becker was a staunch supporter of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz before he ended his campaign.
“I’m still, I say, undecided,” Becker said.
On the Democratic Party side, a hard-fought delegate battle is hitting the final torrid stretch between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The Associated Press delegate count gives Clinton a 1,769 to 1,497 lead over Sanders as of Thursday. When superdelegates are factored in Clinton’s lead grows to 2,309 to 1,539; a total of 2,383 delegates are needed to secure the party’s nomination although a contested national party convention is expected.
The Democrats have six remaining states with delegates up for grabs June 7 including North Dakota. Sanders made multiple stops in the state earlier this month including Bismarck. Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, has also visited the state as well as other supporters of her campaign.
Texas and 10 other states filed suit Wednesday against the Obama administration over its directive on transgender student access to public school facilities, firing the first shot in what is likely to be a protracted and messy legal battle over that guidance.
The suit was filed in a Texas federal court in response to the directive handed down to schools earlier this month that said transgender students should be able to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the lawsuit at a Wednesday news conference, saying the directives represent an attempt by the administration to rewrite the law.
“This represents just the latest example of the current administration’s attempts to accomplish by executive fiat what they couldn’t accomplish through the democratic process in Congress," Paxton said.
Joining Texas in the suit were: Alabama, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Tennessee, Arizona's Department of Education, Maine Gov. Paul LePage, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Utah and Georgia.
“Defendants have conspired to turn workplaces and educational settings across the country into laboratories for a massive social experiment, flouting the democratic process, and running roughshod over commonsense policies protecting children and basic privacy rights,” the lawsuit says.
Conservative states had vowed to defy the federal directive, calling it a threat to the safety of students. Texas' lieutenant governor has previously said the state is willing to forfeit $10 billion in federal education dollars rather than comply.
"President Obama has excluded the voice of the people. We stand today to ensure those voices are heard," Paxton said.
The directive from the U.S. Justice and Education departments represents an escalation in the fast-moving dispute over what is becoming the civil rights issue of the day.
While the letter does not have the force of law, it does warn that schools that do not abide by the administration’s interpretation of civil rights under the Title IX law may face lawsuits or loss of federal aid.
"There is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex," Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement when the guidlines were announced earlier this month.
The guidance was issued after the Justice Department and North Carolina sued each other over a state law that requires transgender people to use the public bathroom that corresponds to the sex on their birth certificate. The law applies to schools and many other places.
Supporters say such measures are needed to protect women and children from sexual predators, while the Justice Department and others argue the threat is practically nonexistent and the law discriminatory.
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The former secretary of state's light campaign schedule has fed speculation that Clinton was perhaps meeting with the feds in her free timeClinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill told DailyMail.com today that it is 'still true' that Clinton has not been interviewed, thoughA report earlier this month said the FBI would question her in the 'coming weeks' as part of its investigation into the security of her private serverState Department Inspector General report released today said Clinton disregarded guidelines and never sought approval for the arrangement
Hillary Clinton has not been interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation about her emails yet.
The former secretary of state's light campaign schedule over the last few weeks has fed speculation that Clinton was perhaps meeting with the feds in her free time.
Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill told DailyMail.com today that it is 'still true' that Clinton has not been interviewed, though.
Hillary Clinton has not been interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation about her emails yet, her campaign said today. She's pictured above at a rally this morning in Buena Park
A CNN report earlier this month said the FBI would question her in the 'coming weeks' as part of its investigation into the security of her private server that she kept in the basement of her Chappaqua, New York home, and emails.
Clinton said days later that she had not been personally contacted by the FBI, however.
CNN suggested the FBI had been in touch with her lawyers, or soon would be, to schedule the interview for a time Clinton could escape her travelling press corps without raising suspicion.
The Democratic candidate has taken several days off since then, sometimes to fundraise. Other times her schedule has been blank.
Clinton has an 'insurmountable' lead over Bernie Sanders in her party primary, her campaign says, and has shifted focus to the general election, holding events in states that have already voted in addition to taking full days off from campaigning.
The FBI has already interviewed top Clinton State Department aides, including Huma Abedin, who now works on Clinton's campaign and is often seen at her boss' side.
A State Department Inspector General report released this morning said Clintondisregarded guidelines when she set up the server in her home and revealed that she never sought approval for the arrangement.
Had she asked senior information officers for permission, the request would have been denied, the independent watchdog agency said, because the set up presented a security risk.
Clinton wasn't the only secretary of state to use a personal email address, it acknowledged.
But they, too, were 'slow to recognize and to manage effectively the legal requirements and cybersecurity risks associated with electronic data communications, particularly as those risks pertain to its most senior leadership.'
The IG report also dinged Clinton for waiting to turn over her work-related emails for 22 months after her she retired in 2013.
'At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service and, because she did not do so, she did not comply with the Department’s policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act,' it said.
Clinton, Abedin and other advisers close to the cabinet official also refused meetings with the Inspector General's office as it investigated the matter, it opined.
A State Department Inspector General report released this morning said Clinton disregarded guidelines when she set up the server in her home and revealed that she never sought approval for the arrangement
A protester holds a sign outside of a campaign rally for Hillary Clinton at Harrell College this afternoon. Clinton was due to speak in Salinas later in the day on Wednesday
The FBI has already interviewed top Clinton State Department aides for its investigation, but Clinton is yet to take her turn
Wednesday morning Clinton's campaign dismissed the report's negative findings.
It said 'while political opponents of Hillary Clinton are sure to misrepresent this report for their own partisan purposes, in reality, the Inspector General documents just how consistent her email practices were with those of other Secretaries and senior officials at the State Department who also used personal email.'
Her campaign contended that the report showed recordkeeping issues were 'longstanding and that there was no precedent of someone in her position having a State Department email account until after the arrival of her successor.
'Contrary to the false theories advanced for some time now, the report notes that her use of personal email was known to officials within the Department during her tenure,' a statement read, 'and that there is no evidence of any successful breach of the Secretary's server. We agree that steps ought to be taken to ensure the government can better maintain official records, and if she were still at the State Department.'
(Credit: Reuters/Rick Wilking/Mike Segar/Photo montage by Salon)
Donald Trump has fired his first shots of the general election campaign. Predictably, they have nothing to do with anything that matters. In a new video released on Instagram, Trump features audio interviews with women who’ve accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault. Against the backdrop of shadowy audio clips, the accompanying text asks if Hillary Clinton is “really protecting women.”
We hear the voices of Monica Lewinsky, Kathleen Wiley, and a clip from a 1999 Dateline interview with Juanita Broaddrick. Near the end, as the sound of Hillary Clinton’s cackle fades, the words “Here we go again” flash on the screen.
I’m no great defender of Bill Clinton. He was a competent president and did a lot of things well, but he’s also received a paats on a number of fronts. The triangulating, the serial lying, the capitulations to white Southerners – it was all transparent and nauseating. But here’s the thing: Bill Clinton isn’t running for president, and what he did with his penis 30 years ago is irrelevant.
Hillary Clinton is the nominee. To the extent that she’s aligned herself with her husband on policy issues, it’s fair game. But all the noise about Bill’s philandering is a ruse, and you can expect to hear more of it. “The Clintons collectively have dodged many, many, many bullets,” said Trump surrogate Roger Stone. “So much that was suppressed is going to get re-analyzed. So many of the things that they slipped by on will get reexamined. That’s something they should’ve counted on before getting into the race.” Translation: The goal is to make this campaign a referendum on Bill Clinton and the ’90s rather than a debate about the future.
This is a diversion. Worse still, we’ve been down this road already. As Rep. Peter King (R-NY) noted, “We’ve been here before, and for most it’s probably old news that people get a little squeamish about. Especially when he [Trump] brings it up in the abstract, he risks making the same mistake that Republicans made in 1998 when we got caught up in this stuff.” People are free to dig into Bill’s background all they want. But his sordid history has nothing to do with this election. If Trump is talking about Monica Lewinsky instead of his ethno-nationalist rhetoric or his incoherent policy positions, he’s winning.
The media has an obligation not to countenance this. This is what Trump does: stoke controversy, divert the media, control the narrative. It’s a rather naked attempt to avoid the issues. Trump blankets his opponents with insults and white noise in order to force them into the mud, where he’s most comfortable. It’s a brutally simple but effective tactic. Naturally, he lies about his motivations. “They [the Clintons] said things about me which were very nasty. And I don’t want to play that game at all. I don’t want to play it – at all,” Trump told The Washington Post. “But they said things about me that were very nasty. And, you know, as long as they do that, you know, I will play at whatever level I have to play at.”
Nonsense. Trump is a one-trick pony. He knows only one level, one tone, one style. He’s a bully, and that’s all he is. A candidate who references his penis on a presidential debate stage isn’t interested in civil discourse. Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said Monday that Trump’s latest attack was part of a “strategy to try to distract from an issues-based campaign,” and he’s absolutely right. Trump founders when forced to defend his half-baked proposals; talking about Vince Foster or some other conspiracy theory ensures he doesn’t have to.
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Trump will drag this debate to the floor and hope it stays there. There’s no other way forward for him. The Clinton campaign would do well not to play this game with Trump – it’s a no-lose proposition for him. The media, for their part, has to push back. Every time Trump mentions Bill or some sexcapade from the past, the response should be: Ok, but how will you build that wall? Or what does it mean to make America great again? Or why did you lunge into presidential politics by embracing birtherism? Or explain how you can cut a deal with Kim Jong-un? Or how can you undo the process of globalization without starting a trade war?
These are the issues that matter. Trump will do everything possible not to talk about them. If he wants to be president, the media must force him to.
Sean Illing is a USAF veteran who previously taught philosophy and politics at Loyola and LSU. He is currently a staff writer for Salon. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter. Read his blog here.
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Syrian refugees arrive aboard a dinghy after crossing from Turkey to the island of Lesbos, Greece, on Sept. 10, 2015. (Associated Press) more >
The State Department admitted 80 Syrian refugees on Tuesday and 225 on Monday, setting a new single-day record, as President Obama surges to try to meet his target of 10,000 approvals this year — sparking renewed fears among security experts who say corners are being cut to meet a political goal.
Officials insisted they’re moving faster because they’re getting better at screening, and say they’re still running all the traps on applicants.
But the new spike in numbers is stunning, with more people accepted on Monday alone than were approved in the entire months of January or February.
“The Obama administration is on full throttle to admit as many people as possible before the time clock runs out on them,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies. “This is the classic scenario when political expediency trumps prudence, and someone slips through who shouldn’t have, and tragedy ensues.”
Powerless to stop the civil war in Syria, Mr. Obama has instead offered the U.S. as a safe haven for those fleeing the conflict, promising to accept 10,000 refugees between Oct. 1 and Sept. 30. As of Tuesday evening, he’d approved 2,540 — an average of about 10 applications a day.
To meet the 10,000 goal, that pace will have to spike to nearly 60 approvals a day.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency charged with vetting the applications, declined to comment on the surge, referring all questions to the State Department, which gives final approval. Officials there insisted they can meet Mr. Obama’s goal without sacrificing security.
From February to April, the department deployed extra staff to Jordan, where some 12,000 applicants referred by the U.N. were interviewed. The department is also conducting interviews of Syrians in Lebanon and Iraq, and said everything is going according to plan.
“Increases in processing capacity have improved our capacity to meet the 10,000 target for Syrian refugee admissions for this fiscal year. As such, we expect Syrian refugee arrivals to the U.S. to increase steadily throughout the fiscal year,” an agency official said.
The department says refugees undergo the most checks of anyone applying to enter the U.S., and Syrians are getting as much scrutiny as possible.
But pressure to speed up the process is growing. Last week Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, fired off a letter saying other countries are approving refugees at a quicker pace, and demanding the administration catch up.
“Refugees are victims, not perpetrators, of terrorism,” the Democrats wrote in their letter.
That’s not always the case, however, as two men who arrived as part of the refugee program were charged with terrorism-related offenses in January.
One of those, Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab, an Iraqi-born man, was living in Syria when he was admitted as a refugee in 2012. The State Department counts him against its Iraqi refugee program, not against the Syrian refugee program.
The Obama administration has repeatedly cited the Iraqi program as evidence that it can safely admit refugees from Syria. But security experts say the U.S., by dint of the long war in Iraq, has access to government databases, and a presence on the ground, to assist in checking out would-be refugees’ stories.
No such access exists in Syria, where the U.S. considers the current regime an enemy and much of the country is occupied by the very terrorist forces from Islamic State that the U.S. is fighting.
Critics say the Obama administration has been too heavily focused on Muslim refugees, while hundreds of thousands of Christians are left behind. The latest statistics show only a dozen Christian refugees from Syria have been accepted so far — a rate of less than half of one percent.
The overwhelming majority — more than 97 percent — are Suni Muslims.
Congressional Republicans have called for a slower approach to admitting refugees, but have been powerless to stop Mr. Obama. Democrats filibustered a proposal to require the chiefs of Homeland Security, intelligence and the FBI to sign off on every refugee’s application.
The House will take another step Wednesday, as the Judiciary Committee votes on legislation requiring USCIS to check the social media profiles of all applicants seeking visas from suspect countries.
States have also tried to block Mr. Obama, renouncing agreements to work with the administration to resettle refugees within their borders. Texas even sued to try to bar resettlement, but a federal court rejected the lawsuit, saying the state didn’t have standing.
Transportation Security Administration administrator Peter Neffenger says an increase in passenger numbers is one reason for long lines at airport security checkpoints. (Reuters)
Greetings, my friends, El Rushbo behind the Golden EIB Microphone here at the distinguished, the prestigious Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. 
RYAN: It was a productive phone call. Like I said, we've had these conversations, our staffs have been meeting. We had a very good and very productive phone call. So I'll leave it at that. What I'm most concerned about is making sure that we actually have real party unity, not pretend party unity, real party unity because we need to win this election in the fall.
There are people who tell Trump, "You've gotta change, now. You have won the nomination. It's not the primaries. It's the general. You have to change." And what that means is: "You have to tone it down! You have to dial it back. You have to become more presidential." Whatever the advice is, it will consist of people thinking that Trump now has to grow in stature, in office, and drop whatever it is that worked during the primaries because they're over now, and we're on to the general, and it's not a whole slate of opponents. It's one opponent, and there's all kinds of money involved now. 
Others are saboteurs. And the fact that Trump... This is not about Wiley. I don't even know him. What I'm about to say here is not intended personally about Rick Wiley. I don't know him. I'm speaking to you, really, using my own experiences, which are overwhelming in number. Let me just... Folks, let me put it to you this way to set this up. I have been doing this radio program... If you count the 3-1/2 years that I did in Sacramento before I went national 1988, I've been doing this program over 30 years. 
Let me translate this for you. Rick Wiley -- and I'm just picking this up from Politico -- tried a power play, and these are common in these organizations. So much of this stuff, I feel like I'm reliving it in a sense, when I hear about these things. This guy, Wiley, tried a power play, on Trump's female manager, Karen Giorno. She's the Florida campaign chairwoman. And Wiley, an associate of Paul Manafort's, who Trump had hired, attempted a power play to get her out and to take over her job as he was attempting to amass power within the Trump organization. And Trump, when hearing about this, sided with the woman, in no uncertain terms, and so Rick Wiley is out. 
What is unnatural, what makes no sense whatsoever -- ladies in this audience, when you hear all these news reports about how Trump hates women, stop and think what kind of sense that has. They've said that about every conservative in the context of feminism. "Well, he's anti-female." No. There's no anti-female. Anti-liberal, maybe, anti-feminist ideology. Trump doesn't hate women. That's one of the stupidest allegations I've ever heard. 
Donald Trump is following his instincts, and he has a deeper bond and connection with his voters than any candidate in this race, including Bernie. And it's self-evident why. And, by the way, that threatens traditionalists, too. "Well, we've gotta bust that up. We can't have that deep a connection, it's not healthy. We'll call it a cult, that's what we'll do, we'll call Trump's supporters a cult," as the attempt to impugn them ratchets up. 
TRUMP: Poor Mitt Romney. Poor Mitt. I have a store that's worth more money than he is. I helped him. I raised for him. I endorsed him. He wanted my endorsement -- he begged for my endorsement -- and now all he does is bad mouth. I understand losers. You can make a lot of money with losers. I said, "Mitt cannot run. He choked like a dog. He's a choker. Once a choker, always a choker." So now, as retribution, "Donald Trump shouldn't run, blah, blah, blah," and he walks like a penguin onto the stage. You ever seen?
KRISTOL: I think the leading possibility -- the real maybe the last chance here -- is with Mitt Romney, who has said "no," but I think is thinking seriously about it. I think he thinks that maybe he is the right person to do it. I think we might have a shot at Mitt Romney doing it.
CROWD: U! S! A! U! S! A!
