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Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump speaks at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck, North Dakota, to deliver his major energy policy and climate speech, on May 26. (Photo: Reuters)

Thursday, May 26, 2016 – Donald Trump unveiled an “America first” energy plan during a policy speech at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck, N.D., which consisted of an “all-of-the-above” approach. The presumptive Republican nominee also revealed his plan to expand the general election map, putting the battleground state number at 15 rather than 7 to 9.

FULL TRANSCRIPT OF TRUMP ENERGY SPEECH

I’m delighted to be in North Dakota, a state at the forefront of a new energy revolution.

Oil and natural gas production is up significantly in the last decade. Our oil imports have been cut in half.

But all this occurred in spite of massive new bureaucratic and political barriers.

President Obama has done everything he can to get in the way of American energy. He’s made life much more difficult for North Dakota, as costly regulation makes it harder and harder to turn a profit.

If Hillary Clinton is in charge, things will get much worse. She will shut down energy production across this country.

Millions of jobs, and trillions of dollars of wealth, will be destroyed as a result.

That is why our choice this November is so crucial.

Here’s what it comes down to.

Wealth versus poverty.

North Dakota shows how energy exploration creates shared prosperity. Better schools. More funding for infrastructure. Higher wages. Lower unemployment.

Things we’ve been missing.

It’s a choice between sharing in this great energy wealth, or sharing in the poverty promised by Hillary Clinton.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Just listen to Hillary Clinton’s own words. She has declared war on the American worker.

Here is what Hillary Clinton said earlier this year: “We are going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of work.”

She wants to shut down the coal mines.

And if Crooked Hillary can shut down the mines, she can shut down your business too.

Let me tell you how President Obama Undermined Our Middle Class

President Obama’s stated intent is to eliminate oil and natural gas production in America.

His policy is death by a thousand cuts through an onslaught of regulations.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s use of totalitarian tactics forces energy operators in North Dakota into paying unprecedented multi-billion dollar fines before a penalty is even confirmed.

Government misconduct goes on and on:

  • The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against seven North Dakota oil companies for the deaths of 28 birds while the Administration fast-tracked wind projects that kill more than 1 million birds a year.
  • The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service abuses the Endangered Species Act to restrict oil and gas exploration.
  • Adding to the pain, President Obama now proposes a $10-per-barrel tax on American-produced oil in the middle of a downturn.At the same time President Obama lifts economic sanctions on Iran, he imposes economic sanctions on America. He has allowed this country to hit the lowest oil rig count since 1999, producing thousands of layoffs.

America’s incredible energy potential remains untapped. It is a totally self-inflicted wound.

Under my presidency, we will accomplish complete American energy independence.

Imagine a world in which our foes, and the oil cartels, can no longer use energy as a weapon.

But President Obama has done everything he can to keep us dependent on others. Let me list some of the good energy projects he killed.

He rejected the Keystone XL Pipeline despite the fact that:

  • It would create and support more than 42,000 jobs.
  • His own State Department concluded that it would be the safest pipeline ever built in the United States.
  • And it would have no significant impact on the environment.
  • Yet, even as he rejected this America-Canada pipeline, he made a deal that allowsIran to transport more oil through its pipeline that would have ever flowed through Keystone –with no environmental review.


President Obama has done everything he can to kill the coal industry. Here are a few of President Obama’s decrees:

Regulations that shut down hundreds of coal-fired power plants and block the construction of new ones.

A prohibition against coal production on federal land.

Draconian climate rules that, unless stopped, would effectively bypass Congress to impose job-killing cap-and-trade.

President Obama has aggressively blocked the production of oil & natural gas:

  • He’s taken a huge percentage of the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve off the table
  • Oil and natural gas production on federal lands is down 10%.
  • 87% of available land in the Outer Continental Shelf has been put off limits.
  • Atlantic Lease sales were closed down too – despite the fact that they would create 280,000 jobs and $23.5 billion in economic activity.
  • President Obama entered the United States into the Paris Climate Accords – unilaterally, and without the permission of Congress. This agreement gives foreign bureaucrats control over how much energy we use right here in America.

These actions have denied millions of Americans access to the energy wealth sitting under our feet.

This is your treasure, and you – the American People – are entitled to share in the riches.

President Obama’s anti-energy orders have also weakened our security, by keeping us reliant on foreign sources of energy.

Every dollar of energy we don’t explore here, is a dollar of energy that makes someone else rich over there.

If President Obama wanted to weaken America he couldn’t have done a better job.

As bad as President Obama is, Hillary Clinton will be worse.

  • She will escalate the war against American energy, and unleash the EPA to control every aspect of our lives.
  • She declared that “we’ve got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels,” locking away trillions in American wealth.
  • In March, Hillary Clinton said: “by the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place.” Keep in mind, shale energy production could add 2 million jobs in 7 years.

Yet, while Hillary Clinton doesn’t want American energy, she is strongly in favor of foreign energy. Here is what she told China as Secretary of State:

  • “American experts and Chinese experts will work to develop China’s natural gas resources. Imagine what it would mean for China if China unleashed its own natural gas resources so you are not dependent on foreign oil.”

Hillary Clinton has her priorities wrong. But we are going to turn all of that around.


A Trump Administration will develop an America First energy plan. Here is how this plan will make America Wealthy Again:

  • American energy dominance will be declared a strategic economic and foreign policy goal of the United States.
  • America has 1.5 times as much oil as the combined proven resources of all OPEC countries; we have more Natural Gas than Russia, Iran, Qatar and Saudi Arabia Combined; we have three times more coal than Russia. Our total untapped oil and gas reserves on federal lands equal an estimated $50 trillion.
  • We will become, and stay, totally independent of any need to import energy from the OPEC cartel or any nations hostile to our interests.
  • At the same time, we will work with our Gulf allies to develop a positive energy relationship as part of our anti-terrorism strategy.
  • We will use the revenues from energy production to rebuild our roads, schools, bridges and public infrastructure. Cheaper energy will also boost American agriculture.
  • We will get the bureaucracy out of the way of innovation, so we can pursue all forms of energy. This includes renewable energies and the technologies of the future. It includes nuclear, wind and solar energy – but not to the exclusion of other energy. The government should not pick winners and losers. Instead, it should remove obstacles to exploration. Any market has ups and downs, but lifting these draconian barriers will ensure that we are no longer at the mercy of global markets.


A Trump Administration will focus on real environmental challenges, not phony ones:

  • We will reject Hillary Clinton’s poverty-expansion agenda that enriches her friends and makes everyone else poor.
  • We’ll solve real environmental problems in our communities like the need for clean and safe drinking water. President Obama actually tried to cut the funding for our drinking water infrastructure – even as he pushed to increase funding for his EPA bureaucrats.
  • American workers will be the ones building this new infrastructure.


Here is my 100-day action plan:

  • We’re going to rescind all the job-destroying Obama executive actions including the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule.
  • We’re going to save the coal industry and other industries threatened by Hillary Clinton’s extremist agenda.
  • I’m going to ask Trans Canada to renew its permit application for the Keystone Pipeline.
  • We’re going to lift moratoriums on energy production in federal areas
  • We’re going to revoke policies that impose unwarranted restrictions on new drilling technologies. These technologies create millions of jobs with a smaller footprint than ever before.
  • We’re going to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement and stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs.
  • Any regulation that is outdated, unnecessary, bad for workers, or contrary to the national interest will be scrapped. We will also eliminate duplication, provide regulatory certainty, and trust local officials and local residents.
  • Any future regulation will go through a simple test: is this regulation good for the American worker? If it doesn’t pass this test, the rule will not be approved.

Policy decisions will be public and transparent. They won’t be made on Hillary’s private email account.

We’re going to do all this while taking proper regard for rational environmental concerns. We are going to conserve our beautiful natural habitats, reserves and resources.

In a Trump Administration, political activists with extreme agendas will no longer write the rules. Instead, we will work with conservationists whose only agenda is protecting nature.

From an environmental standpoint, my priorities are very simple: clean air and clean water.

My America First energy plan will do for the American People what Hillary Clinton will never do: create real jobs and real wage growth.

According to the Institute for Energy Research, lifting the restrictions on American energy will create a flood of new jobs:

  • Almost a $700 billion increase in annual economic output over the next 30 years.
  • More than a $30 billion increase in annual wages over the next 7 years.
  • Over the next four decades, more than $20 trillion in additional economic activity and $6 trillion in new tax revenue.

The oil and natural gas industry supports 10 million high-paying Americans jobs and can create another 400,000 new jobs per year. This exploration will also create a resurgence in American manufacturing — dramatically reducing both our trade deficit and our budget deficit.

Compare this future to Hillary Clinton’s Venezuela-style politics of poverty.

If you think about it, not one idea Hillary Clinton has will actually create a single net job or create a single new dollar to put in workers’ pockets.

In fact, every idea Hillary has will make jobs disappear.

Hillary Clinton’s agenda is job destruction. My agenda is job creation.

She wants to tax and regulate our workers to the point of extinction.

She wants terrible trade deals, like NAFTA, signed by her husband, that will empty out our manufacturing.

During her time as Secretary of State, she surrendered to China – allowing them to steal hundreds of billions of dollars in our intellectual property.

She let them devalue their currency and add more than a trillion dollars to our trade deficit.

Then there was Libya.

Secretary Clinton’s reckless Libya invasion handed the country over to ISIS, which now controls the oil.

The Middle East that Clinton inherited was far less dangerous than the Middle East she left us with today.

Her reckless decisions in Iraq, Libya, Iran, Egypt and Syria have made the Middle East more unstable than ever before.

The Hillary Clinton foreign policy legacy is chaos.

Hillary Clinton also wants totally open borders in America, which would further plunge our workers into poverty.

Hillary’s open borders agenda means a young single mom living in poverty would have to compete for a job or a raise against millions of lower-wage workers rushing into the country, but she doesn’t care.

My agenda will be accomplished through a series of reforms that put America First:

  • Energy reform that creates trillions in new wealth.
  • Immigration reform that protects our borders and defends our workers.
  • Tax reform that brings millions of new jobs to America.
  • Regulation reform that eliminates stupid rules that send our jobs overseas.
  • Welfare reform that requires employers to recruit from the unemployment office – not the immigration office.
  • Trade reform that brings back our manufacturing jobs and stands up to countries that cheat.

There is one more thing we must do to make America wealthy again: we have to make our communities safe again.

Violent crime is rising in major cities across the country. This is unacceptable. Every parent has the right to raise their kids in safety.

When we put political correctness before justice, we hurt those who have the least. It undermines their schools, slashes the value of their homes, and drives away their jobs.

Crime is a stealth tax on the poor.

To those living in fear, I say: help is coming. A Trump Administration will return law and order to America. Security is not something that should only be enjoyed by the rich and powerful.

By the way, I was endorsed by the National Rifle Association, and we are not going to let Hillary Clinton abolish the 2nd amendment, either.

My reform agenda is going to bring wealth and security to the poorest communities in this country.

What does Hillary have to offer the poor but more of the same?

In Chicago, for instance, one-fourth of young Hispanics and one-third of young African-Americans are unemployed.

My message today to all the people trapped in poverty is this: politicians like Hillary Clinton have failed you.

They have used you.

You need something new. I am the only who will deliver it.

We are going to put America back to work.

We are going to put people before government.

We are going to rebuild our inner cities.

We are going to make you and your family safe, secure and prosperous.

The choice in November is a choice between a Clinton Agenda that puts Donors First – or a new agenda that puts America First.

It is a choice between a Clinton government of, by and for the powerful – or a return to government of, by and for the people.

It is a choice between certain decline, or a revival of America’s promise.

The people in charge of our government say things can’t change.

I am here to tell you that things have to change.

They want you to keep trusting the same people who’ve betrayed you.

I am here to tell you that if you keep supporting those who’ve let you down, then you will keep getting let down for the rest of your life.

I am prepared to kick the special interests out of Washington, D.C. and to hand their seat of power over to you.

It’s about time.

Together, we will put the American people first again.

We will make our communities wealthy again.

We will make our cities safe again.

We will make our country strong again.

Ladies and Gentlemen: We will make America Great Again.

Donald Trump unveiled an “America first” energy

Trump-Energy-Speech-Bismarck-North-Dakota

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump acknowledges the crowd after giving an energy speech at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference, Thursday, May 26, 2016, in Bismarck, N.D. (Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press)

Donald Trump has long claimed he could make a play for states other GOP candidates could not dream to compete it. On Thursday, during an energy policy speech at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck, N.D., the presumptive Republican nominee revealed his plan to do just that and expand the general election map.

While he unveiled an “America first” energy plan in prepared remarks to a stadium packed with thousands, which consisted of an “all-of-the-above” policy approach, he went off scripted topic in typical Trump fashion.

He vowed to focus on making a play for 15 states, such as California and others that Republicans have long ignored. PPD has confirmed that paid and volunteer staff have already been assembled and dispatched to Rust Belt states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Mr. Trump believes his working class message focusing largely on energy, trade and immigration will enable him to carry states Democrats didn’t expect to have to defend.

“She’s declared war on the American worker,” Mr. Trump said of Mrs. Clinton.

While those who underestimated the New York businessman in the Republican primary are now among those criticizing him for moving to expand the map, the actual voting data suggest his populist message is resonating with Rust Belt voters. Polls show Mr. Trump topping Mrs. Clinton in the battleground state of Ohio and running even in Pennsylvania, a state he won with roughly the same number of votes as the likely Democratic nominee.

“Donald Trump received more votes in Ohio when he lost the Buckeye to the governor than Hillary Clinton received when she won it against Sen. Bernie Sanders,” said PPD’s senior political analyst Richard Baris. “He did it by winning steel workers in the Southeastern region of the state and other traditionally Democratic voting groups.”

Worth noting, there are also a number of New England states in which Mr. Trump is running surprisingly strong, whether he will carry them or not come November. For more than two weeks, Mr. Trump has led Mrs. Clinton in Maine by a margin anywhere from 2 to 6 points in PPD tracking.

During an energy policy speech at the

Hillary Clinton

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton participates in a round-table discussion with HIV/AIDS activists at her campaign headquarters in New York, in this May 12, 2016, file photo. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, has responded to Donald Trump’s attacks following a damning report by the inspector general at the State Department. Mr. Trump seized on internal audit conducted by the IG concluded Mrs. Clinton intentionally broke federal records-keeping rules while serving as secretary of state.

“Well I think the report is consistent with what I have been saying,” Mrs. Clinton said in Las Vegas on Thursday. “The use of personal email was a practice by other secretaries of state and the rules were not clarified until after I left.”

Not only is that statement, alone, not consistent but neither is her interpretation of what she actually said when it was first revealed that she used a home brew personal email server to conduct official state business. While it’s true other previous secretaries of state were also cited in the report for poorly managing email, other computer information and slowly responding to new cybersecurity risks, Mrs. Clinton is the first and only one to refuse to 1) cooperate with investigators conducting the review and 2) to have kept her email on a private non-secure server.

It is also not the case that the rules were not clarified until after her tenure. Mrs. Clinton signed a legal document attesting to knowledge of the very same rules she broke and a laundry list of emails showing employees who challenged her on the setup were chastised. Further, the former secretary of state has repeatedly and falsely claimed that she cooperated with investigators, something the IG said neither she or her staff would agree to do.

In response to the report, Mr. Trump said it was “not good” and served as further evidence the nickname “Crooked Hillary” is appropriate. The 78-page report steered clear of speculating as to why Mrs. Clinton intentionally hid her emails, but others have said she w. Nevertheless, intent is not the legal standard for criminal activity, another false claim Mrs. Clinton repeated on Thursday.

“The Inspector General’s findings are just the latest chapter in the long saga of Hillary Clinton’s bad judgment that broke federal rules and endangered our national security,” Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement. “This detailed inquiry by an Obama appointee makes clear Hillary Clinton hasn’t been telling the truth since day one, and her and her aides’ refusal to cooperate with this probe only underscores that fact.”

Federal investigators are nearing the final phases of their own investigation into “gross negligence” on the part of Mrs. Clinton. She also again characterized the criminal probe as a “security review.”

James Comey, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), pushed back on that assertion recently by stating flat-out he didn’t know what a security review even meant. Mr. Comey made clear that FBI conducts criminal investigations, not fictional security reviews. As PPD previously reported, the investigation has expanded into whether there was “public corruption” relating to the Clinton Foundation.

Basically, more than 50 agents are looking into whether Mrs. Clinton was peddling influence, or selling governmental favors to the foundation’s donors, a lucrative list that includes foreign governments and non-nation state actors.

“Although Clinton has long claimed her practices were like those of other Secretaries of State and allowed, the report states she was in clear violation of the Federal Records Act,” RNC Chair Priebus said added. “And her incredible 2010 email exchange with a top aide ruling out a State Department email address only further underscores her motivation was secrecy, not convenience.

Meanwhile, Romanian hacker Guccifer–who recently claimed he hacked Clinton’s server–pleaded guilty in federal court on Wednesday to separate hacking charges. Worth noting, the State Department is now backpedaling on a claim that the server was never hacked into.

Under a deal struck with the federal government, he has agreed to cooperate with federal authorities in the future. The plea agreement does not mention the FBI investigation of Clinton’s email practices or his claims that he accessed her private server in March 2013. Such agreements typically do not stipulate how a defendant will aid the government.

Hillary Clinton responded to Donald Trump's attacks

Hillary-Clinton-HIV:AIDS-Roundtable-New-York

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton participates in a round-table discussion with HIV/AIDS activists at her campaign headquarters in New York, in this May 12, 2016, file photo. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Hillary Clinton has been groping around for a campaign slogan. She’s just unveiled her seventh meaningless catchphrase. How about “Still lying and breaking all the rules”?

That one probably wouldn’t help her campaign much — though with leftist voters these days, you have to wonder — but it has the virtue of being more accurate than her latest mealy-mouthed rallying cry, “Stronger together” — as if anyone, anywhere considers her unifying.

It seems the more this campaign moves forward the less popular Clinton is — even to Democratic voters, as polls show Bernie Sanders now in a statistical tie with her in California. This does not make me sad, but it should scare the pantsuits off Democrats.

There’s ample reason for Clinton’s unpopularity. She’s dishonest, unlikable, corrupt, arrogant and so much more. Can you imagine being so smug from a lifetime of unpunished misconduct that you feel legally immune and politically invincible? But her fate could finally change.

At issue is Clinton’s use of her personal email account to conduct official business while secretary of state, a practice she has casually passed off as routine.

The State Department inspector general issued an audit report blistering Clinton for flouting federal records “rules” and cybersecurity guidelines and for refusing to cooperate with the IG’s investigation. Though the report acknowledges “longstanding, systemic weaknesses” in the State Department, it singles Clinton out for far more serious violations.

The report says that Clinton’s server was “attacked” and that she refused to be interviewed for the audit. It says she never even bothered to seek approval to use her personal account for government work, despite signing and sending a cable June 28, 2011, to all diplomatic and consular posts warning against the security risks involved and ordering them to “avoid conducting official Department business from your personal e-mail accounts.” Fox News reports that at one point (March 2009), after Clinton’s refusal to use the secure government smartphone supplied to her, a top official sent her a classified memo about her use of the BlackBerry. Damningly, she responded to the official that she understood yet continued to use the device.

The report said there were two other examples of staff members using personal accounts for official state business. One was former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and the other was then-Ambassador to Kenya Scott Gration.

As for the extremely limited personal email activities of Powell, who, unlike Clinton, didn’t have a private server for his State Department emails, even NBC’s Andrea Mitchell said his actions were “aboveboard” and “not, in fact, violating a rule that was put in place under Clinton.”

Concerning Gration, the department initiated disciplinary action against him before he resigned, which, according to the IG report, was how such misconduct was normally handled. By the time Clinton took her position, internal guidance was “considerably more detailed and more sophisticated.”

Team Clinton, scrambling to defend Her Highness, is employing the same old tactics used by Team Bill Clinton for many years: Counsel disbelief of your lying eyes; downplay; deny; and then viciously attack your opponents. Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon issued a statement claiming that her practices were not unique and lambasting her political opponents, who “are sure to misrepresent this report for their own partisan purposes.”

Though some of the usual partisan Democratic suspects are attempting to dismiss Clinton’s practices as “nothing to see here,” many of her reliable media allies are not jumping to her defense. Mitchell said Clinton’s story “doesn’t hold up” and there are “so many inconsistencies.” Mika Brzezinski, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” said: “I really don’t want to be the one delivering this, but I got to tell you, this is really hard to believe. It feels like (Clinton’s) lying straight out” in saying all along that use of her server was allowed by the State Department. NBC’s Chuck Todd opined that the only reason there isn’t more “hand-wringing” and “panic” among Democrats over this scandal is Donald Trump’s candidacy. He expressed doubt that Clinton could be confirmed if appointed to be attorney general.

The Washington Post editorial board, under the headline “Clinton’s inexcusable, willful disregard for the rules,” wrote that the IG “justifiably criticized” Clinton’s conduct as “an error of judgment,” and the board agreed that it was “not a casual oversight,” as “Clinton had plenty of warnings to use official government communications methods, so as to make sure that her records were properly preserved and to minimize cybersecurity risks. She ignored them.” Further, “there is no excuse for the way Ms. Clinton breezed through all the warnings and notifications,” which was “disturbingly unmindful of the rules.” The board went on to urge the FBI to expeditiously conclude its investigation “so all information about this troubling episode will be before the voters.”

At this point, Democrats had better hope the FBI does its job of purging Hillary Clinton before it’s too late, because the party bosses haven’t yet shown the courage. She should not be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office again.

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Hillary Clinton has been groping around for

pending-home-sales-sale-sign

Home for sale sign (Realtors) and potential exiting and pending home sales contract. (PHOTO: REUTERS)

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said Thursday contracts to buy previously-owned homes rose 5.1% last month, higher than the median forecast. The Pending Home Sales Index,* a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, climbed to 116.3 in April from an upwardly revised 110.7 in March.

It is now 4.6% higher than it was in April 2015 (111.2).  Following last month’s gain, the index has now increased year-over-year for 20 consecutive months. Economists had anticipated a much smaller 0.6% gain.

“The ability to sign a contract on a home is slightly exceeding expectations this spring even with the affordability stresses and inventory squeezes affecting buyers in a number of markets,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors. “The building momentum from the over 14 million jobs created since 2010 and the prospect of facing higher rents and mortgage rates down the road appear to be bringing more interested buyers into the market.”

The PHSI in the Northeast climbed 1.2 percent to 98.2 in April, and is now 10.1 percent above a year ago. In the Midwest the index fell slightly by 0.6% to 112.9 in April, but it still clocked in 2.0% higher than April 2015.

Pending home sales in the South climbed 6.8% to 133.9 in April and are now 5.1% higher on a year-over-year basis. The index in the West jumped 11.4% in April to 106.2, and is now 2.8% above the prior year.

“Even if rates rise soon, sales have legs for further expansion this summer if housing supply increases enough to give buyers an adequate number of affordable choices during their search,” Mr. Yun added.

However, as PPD previously reported on Thursday, the National Mortgage Risk Index (NMRI) found purchase loan volume surged 16% in April from a year earlier, fueled by an 18% jump for first-time buyers. The NMRI for Agency purchase loans came in at 12.59% in April, up 0.56% on a year-over-year basis and 1.27% from April 2014. The Agency purchase NMRI has increased year-over-year in every month since January 2014.

So, while upbeat data from the housing market is welcome news, it should be put into context along with the Pending Homes Sales Index and other surveys conducted by the National Assocation of Realtors. The NAR is a top housing market lobby in Washington, D.C., and is little concerned about the increased share of loan risk in the housing market.

“Of the estimated 1½ million first-time buyers in our data over the past year, more than a million bought homes with a downpayment of 5 percent of less,” said Stephen Oliner, the other co-director of AEI’s International Center on Housing Risk. “The sheer scale of this number shows that many, many households are buying their first homes with little money down.”

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said

Donald Trump Holds Campaign Rally In Dallas

DALLAS, TX – SEPTEMBER 14: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets supporters during a campaign rally at the American Airlines Center on September 14, 2015 in Dallas, Texas. More than 20,000 tickets had been distributed for the event. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

Who would have thought that the Republican nomination would be wrapped up before presumptive frontrunner Hillary Clinton secured the Democratic nomination? Before April, the answer is just about nobody. However, Donald Trump on Thursday secured the magic number of delegates needed to clinch the Republican nomination for president.

Including unbound delegates who said they will be supporting him at the convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, The Donald now has 1,239 delegates. That’s two more than the needed majority. With five more states still waiting to vote, it is likely Mr. Trump will accumulate more than 1,400 delegates by the time the primaries are over on June 7 and hold a substantial popular vote record.

PPD also reported earlier this month that he now holds the record for the candidate with the most popular votes received in a Republican Party primary. The previous record, which set in 2000 and held by former President George W. Bush, was broken on May 10 with Mr. Trump’s big wins in West Virginia and Nebraska.

The number of pledged earned delegates on the PPD Delegate Count & Tracker stand at 1,210.

Donald Trump on Thursday secured the magic

durable-goods-reuters

American workers at a manufacturing plant for long-lasting durable goods. (PHOTO: REUTERS)

The Commerce Department said durable goods orders, or demand for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods, rose 3.4% in April fueled largely by transportation. Still, continued weakness in business spending plans clearly indicate the manufacturing crisis is far from over.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast durable goods orders and core capital goods orders rising 0.5% and 0.4% last month, respectively. However, non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft–which is a closely watched gauge for business spending plans–fell 0.8% after an upwardly revised 0.1% decline during the prior month. These so-called core capital goods orders have now declined for three consecutive months.

Core capital goods were previously reported to have fallen by 0.8% in March. Overall, durable goods orders in March were revised to show 1.9% gain, up from a previously reported 1.3% rise.

The manufacturing sector, which still accounts for 12% of the U.S. economy, is basically on life support and has become a top issue in the 2016 presidential election. The lingering effects of the dollar’s relative strength and weak overseas demand is helping to highlight massive trade imbalances and poorly negotiated trade deals.

The Commerce Department said durable goods orders

Bernie-Sanders-Rally-California-San-Diego-Reuters

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders holds a campaign rally in San Diego, California. (Photo: Mike Blake/Reuters)

Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders has erased Hillary Clinton’s lead in the Golden State, according to the latest poll of the California Democratic primary. The results, which are in stark contrast to another recent survey showing Mrs. Clinton leading Sen. Sanders by double-digits, finds the former secretary of state with a statistically insignificant 2-point lead.

The new PPIC Poll survey conducted from May 13 to May 22 showed Mrs. Clinton polling at 46% to 44% for Sen. Sanders, who has been campaigning hard in state. The Sanders campaign has been confident they would win the Golden State, where Mrs. Clinton was expected to win big. She leads the self-described socialist by 6.7 percentage points on the PPD average of California Democratic primary polls.

That is a far smaller margin than the 57% to 39% lead in the SurveyUSA Poll, though primary polling in the state has been known to be volatile. In 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama led on the average of polls by a little more than 1 point, though Mrs. Clinton won by 9.6%.

Poll Date Sample Obama Clinton Spread
Final Results 42.3 51.9 Clinton +9.6
PPD Average 02/01 – 02/04 44.0 42.8 Obama +1.2
SurveyUSA 02/03 – 02/04 872 LV 42 52 Clinton +10.0
Reuters/CSpan/Zogby 02/03 – 02/04 895 LV 49 36 Obama +13.0
SurveyUSA 02/02 – 02/03 853 LV 41 53 Clinton +12.0
Reuters/CSpan/Zogby 02/01 – 02/03 967 LV 46 40 Obama +6.0
Suffolk 02/01 – 02/03 700 LV 40 39 Obama +1.0
Rasmussen 02/02 – 02/02 798 LV 45 44 Obama +1.0
Reuters/CSpan/Zogby 01/31 – 02/02 1141 LV 45 41 Obama +4.0
Mason-Dixon 01/30 – 02/01 400 LV 36 45 Clinton +9.0
Field 01/25 – 02/01 511 LV 34 36 Clinton +2.0
Rasmussen 01/29 – 01/29 807 LV 40 43 Clinton +3.0
SurveyUSA 01/27 – 01/27 888 LV 38 49 Clinton +11.0
Politico/CNN/LAT 01/23 – 01/27 690 LV 32 49 Clinton +17.0
USA Today/Gallup 01/23 – 01/26 779 HT 35 47 Clinton +12.0
Field 01/14 – 01/20 377 LV 27 39 Clinton +12.0
PPIC 01/13 – 01/20 543 LV 28 43 Clinton +15.0

Worth noting, again, both SurveyUSA and PPIC polled the race more accurately when many pollsters were likely guilty of mirroring, or the practice of pollsters essentially copying other pollsters’ results. While the former was more accurate, nearly pegging Mrs. Clinton’s margin exactly, the final survey by PPIC was conducted more than a week before the primary and was still relatively close.

Also worth noting, the PPIC survey has been relatively stable, with Sen. Sanders nipping at the frontrunner’s heels.

“We haven’t seen much change over time in our polling results among California’s Democratic Presidential Primary likely voters,” PPIC pollster Mark Baldassare said. “In the March PPIC Survey, 48% supported Clinton and 41% supported Sanders. In the May PPIC Survey, 46% supported Clinton and 44% supported Sanders.”

Still, while both the polls can be construed as good news for Mrs. Clinton in the short-term–though not if it’s indicative of a trend–they also demonstrate her general election weakness against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. The PPIC Poll finds Mrs. Clinton is only ahead of Mr. Trump 49% to 39%, while found a larger but still-weak 52% to 38%. These are very poor showings for a Democratic presidential candidate in a state a Republican hasn’t carried on the presidential level since the 1980s.

There are a total 548 delegates up for grabs in the California Democratic primary, including 317 in the congressional districts. Another 105 are at large, 53 are Pledged PLEOs and 73 Unpledged PLEOs.

“This may be the end of the road for the Sanders campaign,” said PPD’s senior political analyst Richard D. Baris. “They don’t believe these numbers and actually feel that they have a good shot to defeat Mrs. Clinton in the Golden State. It wouldn’t be the first primary this cycle where the polling was grossly off.”

“But if it’s the end of a longer-than-anticipated road for Bernie, it looks like the beginning of a tough road for Mrs. Clinton.”

Meanwhile, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown is still above water, with 50% approving and 39% disapproving of the job he is going. Those who disapprove include 67% of Republicans, 27% of independents and 20% of Democrats, with the latter groups breaking big for Donald Trump in a general election.

Findings are based on a survey of 1,704 California adult residents, with 50 percent interviewed on landline telephones (853 interviews) and 50 percent
interviewed on cell phones (851 interviews). Interviews took an average of 19 minutes to complete. Interviewing took place on weekend days and
weekday nights May 13–22, 2016.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders erased a once

Weekly-Jobless-Claims-Graphic

Weekly Jobless Claims Graphic. Number of Americans applying for first-time jobless benefits.

The Labor Department said Thursday weekly jobless claims, or the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits, fell by 10,000 for the week ending May 21. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast initial claims falling to 275,000 in the latest week.

While the number moved back to near-cycle lows and below 300,000 for 64 straight weeks–a threshold associated with a strong job market–the long-term unemployment number shrinks the pool of eligible applicants for jobless benefits. On the surface, the labor market appears healthy and tightening even as the economy struggles to regain momentum after the first quarter.

The report does mark the longest stretch since claims have been below the threshold since 1973. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits declined to a seasonally adjusted 268,000 and claims for the prior, much-weaker week were unrevised.

Still, as the two consecutive weeks of decline help to erase some of the jump in claims between late April and early May, the trend has become even less favorable.

The four-week moving average–which is widely considered a better measure as it irons out week-to-week volatility–increased by 2,750 from the previous week’s unrevised average of 275,750. There were no special factors impacting this week’s initial claims and no state was triggered “on” the Extended Benefits program during the week ending May 7.

There were 7,754 former Federal civilian employees claiming UI benefits for the week ending May 7, a decrease of 812 from the previous week. Newly discharged veterans claiming benefits totaled 13,556, an increase of 178 from the prior week.

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending May 7 were in Alaska (3.5), Wyoming (2.9), West Virginia (2.6), Puerto Rico (2.5), New Jersey (2.4), California (2.3), Connecticut (2.2), Pennsylvania (2.2), Illinois (2.0), and Massachusetts (2.0).

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending May 14 were in Missouri (+4,153), California (+1,645), Indiana (+658), Iowa (+430), and Kansas (+406), while the largest decreases were in New York (-15,881), Michigan (-3,654), Tennessee (-1,561), Illinois (-703), and Pennsylvania (-668).

 

Weekly jobless claims, or the number of

Obama-Abe-AP

President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visit one of Japan’s holiest sites. (Photo: Toru Hanai/AP)

Speaking on Thursday Japan, President Barack Obama said world leaders are worried about presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump becoming president. Obama said in Ise Shima world leaders are worried about an “ignorance of world affairs or a cavalier attitude.”

He said Trump has “an interest in getting tweets and headlines instead of actually thinking through what is required of keeping America safe, secure and prosperous and what’s required of keeping the world on an even keel.”

While it’s obvious that the president, as well as his party’s likely presidential nominee, both want to paint Mr. Trump as unfit for the job, it isn’t at all clear whether Hillary Clinton’s so-called experience will result in more support from voters. Mr. Trump now leads Mrs. Clinton on the PPD average of polls and voters seem to want more of an insider this cycle.

“Voters in the U.S. could care less what global leaders want or think this cycle,” PPD’s senior political analyst Richard Baris said. “This is not the cycle to tout your globalist experience to voters.”

The comments were a bit ironic and come just one day after Mr. Obama received a less-than excited welcome on the Island. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe publicly lectured the president over the slaying of a 20-year-old Japanese woman in Okinawa, a crime allegedly committed by a former U.S. Marine.

In fact, Prime Minister Abe sounds much more like Donald Trump than Barack Obama, in that the two men share a similiar view of the world and foreign policy. Prime Minister Abe will not allow Syrian refugees–or, any refugees from Islamic countries for that matter–to be relocated to Japan. While he has cited the nation’s sluggish economy, it is widely known and believed in Japan that the Islamic culture is not all that compatible with Japanese culture.

Until native procreation rates increase, it is an actual policy of the Japanese government to not allow entry for Islamic migrants in an effort to preserve their culture. As does Mr. Trump, he also wants the Japanese people to take a more responsible role in their won national defense.

President Obama and Prime Minister Abe, who have a tenuous relationship, met separately before meeting with other G7 leaders. The world leaders used shovels to plant trees on the grounds of one of Japan’s holiest sites today just a day after their very awkward joint news conference.

Speaking on Thursday Japan, President Barack Obama

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