‘Latinos for Trump’ co-founder warns of ‘taco trucks on ever corner’ if Republicans lose

WASHINGTON -- If the United States fails to crack down on immigration, according to the Donald Trump camp, the nation will be inundated with criminals, illicit drugs and job-stealers.

And tacos.

The popular Mexican dish that includes a tortilla shell filled with meat, vegetables and cheese is the latest threat facing Americans if the Republican presidential candidate loses, the co-founder of Latinos for Trump told MSNBC.

"My culture is a very dominant culture. It is imposing and it's causing problems," Marco Gutierrez said Thursday.

"If you don't do something about it, you're going to have taco trucks (on) every corner."

The earnest warning unleashed a flurry of social media activity, with many Americans relishing in the idea of life in a country where taco trucks rule the streets.

"A chicken in every pot, a car in every garage, & #TacoTrucksOnEveryCorner," comedian and actor Orlando Jones tweeted, using a hashtag that quickly went viral.

"If this is wrong. Then I don't want to be right. #ImWithHer," tweeted another user, using Clinton's campaign slogan.

The post included an image of breakfast tacos, a Texas morning staple that often includes eggs and chorizo sausage.

Gutierrez's alert came the night after Trump delivered a fiery speech outlining his harsh immigration plan, which would include stepping up deportations, cancelling President Barack Obama's executive orders protecting millions of undocumented migrants, and blocking federal funding to so-called "sanctuary cities" that bar discrimination against the undocumented.

His rival Hillary Clinton has expressed support for a pathway to citizenship for most of America's undocumented.

Her campaign called Trump's plan part of his "campaign of hate."

"In his darkest speech yet, Donald Trump doubled down on his anti-immigrant rhetoric and attempted to divide communities by pitting people against each other and demonizing immigrants," it said in a statement.

#TacoTrucksOnEveryCorner is not the first time the internet has had a field day with taco symbolism this campaign season.

On May 5 -- the Cinco de Mayo holiday that commemorates Mexican resistance -- Trump posted a photograph of himself tucking into a taco salad, a dish of American origin.

Under the picture the billionaire wrote: "Happy #CincoDeMayo! The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics!"

Many considered the tweet a weak attempt at wooing the important Hispanic-American voting bloc, which Trump has largely alienated.

source: interaksyon.com

Clinton attacks Trump's foreign policy as a threat to US safety

WASHINGTON - US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton lambasted Donald Trump's foreign policy platform as "dangerously incoherent" in a speech on Thursday that cast her Republican rival as both a frightening and laughable figure.

In remarks that at times resembled a comedy roast, Clinton unleashed a torrent of polished zingers and one-liners to attack Trump's policies and character, suggesting Trump might start a nuclear war if elected to the White House simply because "somebody got under his very thin skin."

"Donald Trump's ideas are not just different, they are dangerously incoherent," she said to a room of supporters in San Diego, California. "They're not even really ideas, just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies."

Clinton, the front-runner in the race to become the Democratic presidential nominee, delivered her speech as she seeks to shift her attention to the Nov. 8 election against likely rival Trump and away from Bernie Sanders, a US senator from Vermont, who is continuing his long-shot bid for the nomination.

Clinton was speaking in San Diego ahead of California's June 7 primary election.

Democratic Party leaders have fretted about how to best oppose Trump, who managed to knock out all 16 rivals for the Republican nomination in part with his uninhibited style of assailing them with personal insults. Trump revels in referring to Clinton as "Crooked Hillary" and dredging up the infidelities of her husband, Bill Clinton, the former president.

Clinton's remarks were intended in part to show she would not be cowed and that she could go toe-to-toe with him in scornful put-downs.

"He says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the Miss Universe pageant in Russia," she said as the crowd guffawed, and she suggested Trump would run the US economy "like one of his casinos."

During her speech, Clinton predicted Trump, who has been deeply critical of Clinton's foreign policy record, would take to his Twitter account to insult her, and he did.

"Bad performance by Crooked Hillary Clinton!" ran one posting during the speech, which included a typo. "Reading poorly from the telepromter! She doesn't even look presidential!"

Trump has said previously that Clinton is distorting his actual policies.

Two visions

Amid the laugh lines, Clinton cited her own experience as secretary of state, in particular her role advising President Barack Obama during the mission to kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, to suggest her approach to foreign policy was the more serious.

"He praises dictators like Vladimir Putin and picks fights with our friends, including the British prime minister, the mayor of London, the German chancellor, the president of Mexico and the pope," Clinton said, listing some of the allies with whom Trump has verbally sparred in the last year.

Obama, who has also been repeatedly mocked by Trump, has criticized Trump as being ignorant or cavalier about world affairs and has said that Trump's rise has "rattled" foreign leaders.

Trump has talked tough on foreign policy. He has said he would bring back waterboarding and other brutal interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects that are widely regarded as torture and were discontinued by Obama.

Trump has also vowed to renegotiate trade deals, called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, and said he would ask members of the 28-nation NATO alliance to "pay up" or "get out." He has said he would sit down with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to try to stop Pyongyang's nuclear program.

Clinton derided these and other positions, promising she would do a better job keeping the United States safe. Standing in front of a backdrop of 19 large US flags, an unusual abundance even by the standards of presidential campaign events, Clinton painted the election as a choice between "two very different visions."

"One that's angry, afraid and based on the idea that America is fundamentally weak and in decline," she said, summing up Trumpism. "The other is hopeful, generous and confident in the knowledge that America is great, just like we always have been."

Trump has criticized Clinton for her handling of foreign policy during her 2009-2013 stint as secretary of state, including the Sept. 11, 2012, attack by Islamist militants on a US diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the US ambassador and three other Americans.

He cites Clinton's support for the war in Iraq, launched by former Republican President George W. Bush, as another example of her shortcomings.

Democratic challenger Sanders echoed Clinton's concerns about Trump after her speech, though he also criticized Clinton's foreign policy. "I agree ... that Donald Trump's foreign policy ideas are incredibly reckless and irresponsible," Sanders said in a statement.

In criticizing Clinton, Sanders cited her vote for the war in Iraq, calling it "the worst foreign policy blunder in modern American history," and said "she has been a proponent of regime change, as in Libya, without thinking through the consequences."

In assailing each other's suitability for the White House, Clinton and Trump are reflecting a negative voter mood ahead of next month's party conventions that will choose the presidential nominees.

Both Clinton and Trump are facing record-low favorability ratings. A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken Friday through Tuesday shows half of Trump supporters say the primary reason they are going to vote for him is "I don't want Hillary Clinton to win," while 41 percent of Clinton supporters cite their primary reason as not wanting Trump to win. (Additional reporting by Chris Khan in New York and Ginger Gibson in Washington)

source: interaksyon.com

Trump, Clinton win pivotal New York primary

NEW YORK -- Manhattan billionaire Donald Trump and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton won the New York primary on Tuesday, galvanizing their bids to win the Republican and Democratic nominations for the White House.

US networks called the race for the Republican frontrunner seconds after the polls closed in the country's fourth most populous state, signaling a crushing victory over his rivals.

"I have to say to the people that know me the best -- the people of New York -- when they give us this kind of a vote it's just incredible," the 69-year-old businessman told a victory party at Trump Tower in Manhattan.

Trump, whose campaign has appalled the Republican establishment, led on 65.1 percent to 13.7 percent for his evangelical rival Ted Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich on 21.2 percent, with nine percent of the vote counted CNN said.

He told supporters his campaign was going to "get a lot more delegates than anyone projected even in their wildest imagination."

Clinton was declared the winner over Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders around 40 minutes after the polls closed.

The former first lady and New York senator had 60.5 percent of the vote, against 39.5 percent for Sanders, CNN said based on nearly half of precincts reporting.

Clinton had banked on victory in her adopted home state to stall the momentum generated by her self-styled democratic socialist rival and get a needed shot in the arm after losing seven out of the eight previous nominating contests.

It was New York's most decisive primary in decades and Trump's victory in the state, which has 95 Republican delegates in play, will bolster his quest to sew up the nomination before party grandees can swing behind another candidate at the convention in July.

While New York City is largely Democrat, Republicans in rural areas and fallen manufacturing cities upstate warmed to Trump's populist message, despite his insults towards women, Mexicans and Muslims.

'A great time'
A relaxed and confident-looking Clinton, 68, dressed in a colorful tunic, voted earlier on Tuesday with husband, former president Bill Clinton, in the leafy Chappaqua suburb they call home.

"I had a great time going around the city in the last couple of days just seeing a lot of old friends, meeting new people," she said.

The three main candidates also claimed New York as home: Trump, who has never lived anywhere else; Clinton, who was twice elected the state's US senator; and Sanders, who was raised in Brooklyn.

The 74-year-old Sanders -- who has galvanized a youth movement with his call for health care as a right, free college education and campaign finance reform -- was hoping for a win or a close margin to keep alive his White House dreams.

Clinton currently leads with 1,791 compared to 1,115 for Sanders, according to a CNN tally -- putting her on course to clinch the 2,383 delegates needed to secure the party's presidential nomination.

It was not immediately clear how many of the 247 Democratic delegates and 44 superdelegates up for grabs in New York will be accorded to Clinton.

There had been deep frustrations over New York's strict rules governing the vote, particularly among independent voters not allowed to participate and who could have been expected to favor Sanders.

Only New York's 5.8 million Democrats and 2.7 million Republicans who registered by last October -- four months before the nation's first caucus election in Iowa -- are eligible to vote.

Voters and rights monitors reported numerous errors on voting lists in Brooklyn, including the purging of entire buildings and blocks of voters from the electoral roll.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has endorsed Clinton, called on the board of election to rectify the lists.

"The perception that numerous voters may have been disenfranchised undermines the integrity of the entire electoral process and must be fixed," he said.

Turnout was brisk at polling stations visited by AFP in Manhattan and Brooklyn, where a string of Democrats said they had voted for Clinton, who would make history if elected as America's first woman president.

"I think she's got the record across all of the issues that matter to me," said Rachel Karpf, 30, an arts producer who works in theater and lives in Brooklyn.

"I thought about Bernie Sanders quite a bit but I felt more comfortable voting for someone who has already a track record," she said.

source: interaksyon.com

Google search for 'completely wrong' yields page of Romney photos

(CNN) -- To the amusement of Mitt Romney's critics, a Google Image search for the phrase "completely wrong" on Wednesday returned a page nearly full of images of the Republican presidential candidate.

A Google spokesman said the gallery of photos is the unintentional result of normal Google analytics, which produce images associated with popular phrases in news headlines and search terms, and not the result of any effort to skew the results.

In this case, Google's algorithms picked up on news coverage of Romney saying last week he was "completely wrong" when he made controversial statements last spring that 47% of Americans were "victims" and dependent on government. Romney took some political heat for the original comments, which were captured by a hidden camera at a private fundraiser in May and made public last month.

The former Massachusetts governor, speaking last Thursday on Fox News, disavowed his earlier statements.

"Clearly in a campaign with hundreds if not thousands of speeches and question-and-answer sessions, now and then you're going to say something that doesn't come out right," Romney said, "In this case, I said something that's just completely wrong."

The Google results page of Romney photos was noticed Wednesday by tech blog Mashable, a CNN.com content partner, and other news sites.

A Romney campaign spokeswoman declined to comment.

The episode recalls past examples of "Google bombs," or intentionally skewed Internet search results, for politicians' names. In perhaps the most famous case, pranksters in the mid-2000s created large numbers of links that caused Google to reference President George W. Bush (and later President Barack Obama) in response to searches for "miserable failure." Google later tweaked its analytics to discourage the practice.

Another bombing campaign by opponents of former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum produces a fake definition for a sexual byproduct when Internet users search Santorum's name.

Google says it tries not to handle strange search results on case-by-case, opting instead for making improvements to the search algorithms themselves.

source: CNN