The only thing that can save the Republican party from a Donald Trump takeover is Indiana.
On the heels of Trump’s resounding win in five states on Tuesday night, anti-Trump Republicans need Ted Cruz to take the Hoosier State to stop the frontrunner from accumulating the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination and avoid a contested convention this summer.
There are now just 10 states left in the Republican primaries, five of them voting on the final critical night of Tuesday 7 June. Of the five states going to the polls in May, Indiana has the biggest delegate haul.
Indiana’s demographics make it appealing to both Trump and Cruz. Its industrial north-west borders Chicago, and as in parts of Illinois manufacturing jobs have slowly disappeared over the past 30 years. In the largest city in the region, Gary, nearly 20% of the population did not have a high school diploma or GED in 2010. In southern Indiana, conservative politics dominate, and the legacy of “Copperheads” – Indianans who fought for or sympathized with the Confederacy – is still felt around the region.
Trump may also face awkward questions about his personal legacy in the state. The businessman once owned a riverboat casino in Gary, an industrial town on Lake Michigan, and the region briefly viewed him as a potential economic savior. He created some jobs with the casino, which he sold in 2005, but never followed through on a promise to renovate a crumbling hotel in the city’s downtown area.
“There certainly have been some critical articles about Trump’s business practices in the north-west part of the state, certainly with the casinos,” said Tom Wheeler, a member of Cruz’s state team. But he was not sure if that history would make a difference: “I don’t know how many people read that.”
Public polling in Indiana has Cruz about seven points behind Trump, 33% to 40%. The third candidate in the race, John Kasich, accounts for roughly 20% of the vote, despite a pact he made with Cruz to vacate the state in the hope of consolidating anti-Trump support.
The stakes in Indiana are so high that Cruz made a desperate gamble this week to lure conservatives away from Trump by declaring Carly Fiorina would be his running mate. The announcement of a running mate nearly three months before the convention is unprecedented in modern US history and represents a throw of the dice to try to capture media attention and boost Cruz in the polls.
Trump isn’t taking a victory lap. On Wednesday, at a rally in Indianapolis, he rolled out the endorsement of Bobby Knight, the beloved but controversial former coach of the Indiana University basketball team. The coach of three national championship teams, Knight became nearly as famous for his violent outbursts as his coaching: he was fired amid allegations of assault and once threw a chair on to the court in the middle of a game. Trump basked in this endorsement from “a winner” and dismissed Cruz.
“Cruz can’t win, what’s he doing picking a vice-president?” Trump asked a crowd of several thousand. “On television they say he has no path to victory. He’s mathematically eliminated.”
Without much of a choice, the Texas senator has embraced the role of David to Trump’s Goliath. On Tuesday night, he held a rally in the high school gym where the basketball movie Hoosiers was filmed, and Cruz cast himself as a scrappy underdog who overcomes huge odds. “That basketball ring here in Indiana is the same height as it is in New York City,” he said, incorrectly quoting an inspirational line about basketball hoops from the film.
Cruz blamed the media for promoting Trump and felt confident that beginning in Indiana, “this campaign moves back towards more favorable terrain”. He tried to lump Trump with Hillary Clinton, calling them “New York liberal[s]” who believe “grown men should use the little girls’ restroom”, an allusion to a controversial North Carolina law that overturns rules about discrimination against transgender people.
Anti-Trump Republicans have questioned the businessman’s conservative beliefs for months, to little avail, but Cruz is hoping that Indiana is conservative enough to make the strategy work. In 2012 voters there elected a Tea Party challenger over a six-term senator, in part because of a push from the party’s right wing, and pro-Cruz forces are hoping to rekindle that spirit. They have combined to spend over $4m on ads against Trump, compared to $960,000 spent by the frontrunner on television ads.
Advertisement
Pressure by anti-Trump forces led the state’s governor, Mike Pence, to endorse the Texas senator on Friday, albeit with little enthusiasm. In a radio interview, Pence said: “I’m not against anybody, but I will be voting for Ted Cruz in the Republican primary.”
Facing his own re-election bid in November, Pence took pains to make positive comments about Cruz’s top rival. “I particularly want to commend Donald Trump,” Pence said. He singled out the frontrunner highlighting the decision of air conditioning manufacturer Carrier to move jobs from Indiana to Mexico.”
“Indiana is crucial to the outcome of the race,” David McIntosh, the president of a major conservative political action committee, Club for Growth, told the Guardian. A former Indiana congressman, McIntosh said the primary has “consolidated into a two-man race. That gives Cruz a very good chance to win it.”
In McIntosh’s view, the candidates need two steps – victories in Indiana and California – to have any chance at the nomination. “Trump’s claim to be a winner just isn’t true, he’s got 35-40%” of the vote, he said. “Trump needs to win Indiana to nail it down on the first ballot.”
A leader in the Republican cause against Trump, Club for Growth has also been running anti-Kasich ads in Indiana since before the Cruz-Kasich pact. The group argues that a vote for Kasich is a vote for Trump, and said it would “continue to be making that point” while also criticizing Trump for “not being a conservative”. Thanks for reading.
REVEALED! Why Electricity Blackout Would Not End Anytime Soon – Fashola
Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola (SAN) has said that the inadequate electricity supply rocking the country “would take a little more time”.
In an interview monitored by Us, Fashola likened the country’s electricity power source to the popular Generator set which wouldn’t work without petrol or diesel.
He affirmed that Nigeria’s power source needed fuel which the county lacks, to produce regular power supply. According to Fashola, most of the Gases produced in Nigeria are technically termed as associated Gas.
The Minister Said: “Producing power is not different from the Generators that you have at home, they are only bigger. So they need fuel. Today most of the fuel source for our power out of about 25 power plants that we have, 20 are filled with Gas.
“Most of the gas that is produced in Nigeria today is what is termed technically as associated gas. That is Gas produced when we are producing crude oil. So we need to have constant fuel to power those Generators. And then we can begin to talk about generation of power.
Fashola further stated that, “This is a difficult time that we are all going through and its happening in the midst of an energy crisis. Nobody could have wished this at all – fuel shortages that people can’t even power their alternative sources if the public power source is failing.
“We are working very hard, my colleagues and me under the leadership of the President and vice President. We are doing everything humanly possible. It would take a little more time. But I am sure that there will be glorious done at the end of all of these”. Thanks for reading.
You Can’t Stop Us, Fulani-Herdsmen Tell Igbo Groups
Following call by some groups that Herdsmen should vacate the Southern part of the country over indiscriminate attacks on host communities, herdsmen have fired back, saying they will graze in whatever part of the country they want. Nuru Abdullahi, chairman of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association in Plateau state, told a Daily that Fulani herdsmen could not be “deprived” of their constitutional right of freedom of movement. “Why would they ask them not to go to the southern part of the country? It is their constitutional right to move freely as guaranteed by the laws of the land,” he said.
“What the various governments and security agencies should do is to prevent attacks and counter-attacks and such things that breed violence like cattle rustling and trespassing into farmlands.” Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari and Solomon Arase, the inspector general of police, have ordered an investigation and prosecution for those found guilty. Thanks for reading
BREAKING: UK Warns Citizens Against Visiting Nigeria!
Just a day after eminent Nigerians graced the Queen’s 90th birthday party celebrations in Lagos along with the British High Commissioner, Paul Arkwright, the government of the European country has named Nigeria as one of the countries that its citizens should avoid visiting.
According to reports in The Sun UK on Saturday morning, the British Foreign Office just released the 18 most dangerous countries to visit for citizens and the 45 which are partially dangerous.
Nigeria was named as one of the 45 partially dangerous alongside other West African countries like Burkina Faso and Mali and a host of other African countries. The office also released a new map for British citizens showing the dangerous countries. While the 18 most dangerous are in red colour, the 45 partially dangerous countries are in yellow. The popular tabloid reports that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has urged British travellers to avoid these danger hotspots when looking for potential holiday locations.
One region highlighted is the north Sinai area in Egypt, where the Russian commercial plane crashed after taking off from family favourite Sharm el-Sheikh. Back here in Nigeria, with the military fighting hard against Boko Haram insurgents (the deadliest terrorists in the world) who are still using suicide bombers on so-called ‘soft targets’ in the North, armed Fulani herdsmen massacring other tribes across the country and almost daily explosions from vandalized gas pipelines and fallen oil trucks, may be Nigeria should be grateful not to be in the red zone. Full List The 18 most dangerous countries to avoid: Afghanistan Burundi Central African Republic Chad Democratic Republic of the Congo Guinea Iraq Libya Mauritania Niger Palestinian territories Sierra Leone Somalia Somaliland South Sudan Syria Tunisia Yemen Countries deemed to be partially dangerous: Algeria Angola Armenia Azerbaijan Bangladesh Burkina Faso Burma (Myanmar) Cambodia Cameroon Colombia Djibouti Ecuador Egypt Eritrea Ethiopia Georgia Haiti India Iran Israel Ivory Coast Japan Jordan Kenya Kosovo Lebanon Madagascar Malaysia Mali Nepal Nigeria Pakistan Philippines Republic of Congo Russia Saudi Arabia Sudan Tajikistan Thailand Turkey Uganda Ukraine Venezuela Western Sahara. Thanks for reading.
Nigeria was named as one of the 45 partially dangerous alongside other West African countries like Burkina Faso and Mali and a host of other African countries. The office also released a new map for British citizens showing the dangerous countries. While the 18 most dangerous are in red colour, the 45 partially dangerous countries are in yellow. The popular tabloid reports that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has urged British travellers to avoid these danger hotspots when looking for potential holiday locations.
One region highlighted is the north Sinai area in Egypt, where the Russian commercial plane crashed after taking off from family favourite Sharm el-Sheikh. Back here in Nigeria, with the military fighting hard against Boko Haram insurgents (the deadliest terrorists in the world) who are still using suicide bombers on so-called ‘soft targets’ in the North, armed Fulani herdsmen massacring other tribes across the country and almost daily explosions from vandalized gas pipelines and fallen oil trucks, may be Nigeria should be grateful not to be in the red zone. Full List The 18 most dangerous countries to avoid: Afghanistan Burundi Central African Republic Chad Democratic Republic of the Congo Guinea Iraq Libya Mauritania Niger Palestinian territories Sierra Leone Somalia Somaliland South Sudan Syria Tunisia Yemen Countries deemed to be partially dangerous: Algeria Angola Armenia Azerbaijan Bangladesh Burkina Faso Burma (Myanmar) Cambodia Cameroon Colombia Djibouti Ecuador Egypt Eritrea Ethiopia Georgia Haiti India Iran Israel Ivory Coast Japan Jordan Kenya Kosovo Lebanon Madagascar Malaysia Mali Nepal Nigeria Pakistan Philippines Republic of Congo Russia Saudi Arabia Sudan Tajikistan Thailand Turkey Uganda Ukraine Venezuela Western Sahara. Thanks for reading.
Oshiomhole INCREASES Minimum Wage For Edo Workers
Edo state Governor Adams Oshiomhole on Sunday announced the increment of the National Minimum Wage from N18,000 to N25, 000 with immediate effect, for employees in the State Public Service.
He also promised prompt payment of outstanding arrears of salary to the staff of Local Government Councils in the state.
Oshiomhole who made the announcement on Sunday at the grand finale of activities to mark the 2016 Workers Day, said that plans had also been concluded to pay staff of Egor Local Government Council who were being owned 13 months arrears of salary, within the next two weeks.
Explaining why the council was omitted from the bailout to local government councils in 2015, he gave the assurance that the Edo Government had been meeting with the Central Bank of Nigeria and that within the next two weeks, the funds would be released and staff of the council would be paid in full.
He also explained the reason behind the non -appointment of Caretaker Committees for the 18 local government councils in the state, after the end of the tenure of the immediate-past local government chairmen.
According to him, “rather than appoint caretaker committees for the councils and pay them because they are politicians, we directed the Heads of Personnel Management in the councils to hold forth, so that those monies would be used to run the councils and pay salaries,’’ he said.
The governor said even if the price of oil goes to zero per cent, Edo workers would get their salary alerts before the end of every month.
He assured that he would not use his office to put hardship on any of his workers.
Earlier, the State Chairman of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Mr Orhue Marshall, appealed to government to enlist workers in the state in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
According to him, this would enable them to have access to quick and cheap medical facilities, like their colleagues in the Federal Public Service
Thanks for reading.
Our Challenges In Providing Adequate Power Supply, Fashola Speaks
Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babtunde Raji Fashola (SAN) has attributed the poor distribution of power rocking the country to obsolete equipment’s – Transformer, power theft, among others.
According to the Minister, in an interview monitored by Us, there is a metering problem at the distribution end of the Power sector.
Admitting that the Federal Government hasn’t built enough transition lines to enhance power generation, Fashola stated that these problems would last longer than expected.
He said: “In terms of transition, we have not build enough transition lines. We have more power available now than the transition lines can carry. The transition lines are like the passenger, transport system.
“This year’s plan, we have identified where there is power waiting and the need to supply transition is part of the programmes in the Budget. These are some of the problems that have slowed down the delivery of service.
“We have power plants built, there was no gas for them. So, they are hanging. It’s like you buying a generator and don’t plan fuel supply, It won’t work. I think these are problems that can be solved and they would be solved”.
The former Governor of Lagos State lamented that President Muhammdu Buhari-led Government inherited a “broken system”, affirming that it was impossible to discuss the way forward without going backward.
Fashola said: “There are problems in every sector and perhaps the way to define the problem is that – since about 1960 that we’ve been producing power, we’ve never had enough. And it was because there were problems that Nigerians started agitating that Government should privatise the power sector.
“It was a broken system. And it is impossible to discuss the way forward without going backward. And this is not blaming anybody, or previous administration. We have been Ministers for just a little over four months, and we have inherited problems that have defiled solutions essentially in 16 years. It’s going to take a little longer to fix those problems.
“There is a metering problem at the distribution end. Government is intervening through an agency called NERC. NERC is a product of a law made by parliamentarians representing Nigerians. It’s a good law but there is no perfect law.
“Distribution problems, metering, old equipment’s – Transformers, power theft, among others. They have happened in other countries and they have been overcome and Nigeria will overcome it as well”.
Fashola added, “What the President is trying to do is that, if we solve a problem today, it must stay solved and that requires some very detailed planning, understanding the errors that have been made in the past and developing a very robust and sustainable solution that will endure”. Thanks for reading
You’re All Suffering From PDP’s Mess, Tinubu Tells Nigerians
The National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has attributed the country’s economic crisis (Fuel scarcity) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP’s) 16 years misrule.
While addressing Journalists in Lagos, Tinubu stated that PDP had destroyed Nigeria during its 16-year rule. He said the PDP refused to pursue what was necessary for the growth and development of the country.
He said, “We want to stay focused and redirect Nigeria. We want to reverse the decay of 16 years. We are hearing comments from the PDP left and right. We are saying we want to clear the mess they created. For 16 good years, the PDP destroyed the country. We should not be lamenting over petrol queues today if they had seen what was necessary and done what was necessary for this country.
“We can’t be emotional and live in self-denial. They should have done the Awolowo Road and the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway. If they put priority on our railroad, if they put priority on electricity generation and distribution, we will not be in this mess today.”
