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POLITICS

Trump and the Judge: Cynical Politics, Not Law and Not Racism By Andrew C. McCarthy

To hear many commentators tell it, Donald Trump claims that an American-born judge, by dint of nothing other than his Mexican ancestry, should be deemed so biased against him that the judge should be recused from a civil fraud case in which Trump is a defendant. Indeed, Trump is said to have dug himself an even deeper hole last weekend, adding Muslim-American judges to the class of jurists before whom we are to believe he cannot get a fair trial.

For present purposes, I am putting the Muslim judge issue aside because it is hypothetical – i.e., while Trump’s meanderings about the judge of Mexican descent involve a concrete case, I know of no actual case involving the litigious Trump and a judge who happens to be Muslim.

Moreover, to avoid further elongating this column, I will not address whether, in analyzing an actual legal claim of judicial bias, a judge’s race, ethnic ancestry or religious affiliation might become relevant due to that judge’s political activism. Trump surrogates insist that, to the extent the candidate has invoked a judge’s Mexican descent or (hypothetically) Islam, he was not relying solely on ethnic or religious status, but on such status in conjunction with political activism on behalf of Mexican illegal aliens or political Islam’s sharia law agenda. There is a lot to be said for this argument, which reminds us why judges – who are obliged to maintain the objectivity and public integrity of judicial proceedings – should resist political activism. In any event, this is a complex legal issue and it deserves separate consideration.

Instead, the purpose of this column is to focus on two rudimentary questions that I do not believe have been adequately addressed:

First, did Trump do it? That is, has he posited an actual legal claim – a noxious and dangerous one – that mere ethnic heritage can disqualify a judge from presiding over a legal controversy? Or is Trump, as I conclude, making an unsavory political argument?

Second, is Trump’s argument really about the purported bias of the judge in question, Gonzalo P. Curiel of the federal district court in Southern California? Or is Trump, as I conclude, attempting – however cynically – to draw the sting of disclosures regarding the civil fraud case involving “Trump University”?

To cut to the chase: Is Trump trying to discredit the judge, not out of racism or an honest belief that Judge Curiel is violating his due process rights, but in hopes of discrediting the underlying Trump U shenanigans by persuading people that it is a biased judge, rather than damaging evidence, that is making him look bad? Does Trump fear that his critics will otherwise use the Trump U disclosures against him the same way Hillary Clinton’s detractors have exploited disclosures about her email improprieties to damage her presidential bid?

Sufficient evidence exists to require Judge Curiel to recuse himself from any litigation involving Trump By Sierra Rayne

“A lifetime member of an organization that very recently made public calls for a general boycott of the defendant’s businesses.”

The most important argument in favor of forcing U.S. district judge Gonzalo Curiel to recuse himself from the Trump University lawsuits was published today by the Conservative Treehouse.

The Treehouse linked to a copy of Judge Curiel’s “United States Senate: Committee on the Judiciary – Questionnaire for Judicial Nominees” in which, on page four of his response, Judge Curiel states that he is a “Life-time Member” of the “Hispanic National Bar Association [HNBA].”

The HNBA made public a press release in July 2015 that called for the following actions against Donald Trump and his enterprises:

The HNBA calls for a boycott of all of Trump business ventures, including golf courses, hotels, and restaurants. We salute NBC/Universal, Univision and Macy’s for ending their association with Trump, and we join them in standing up against bigotry and racist rhetoric. Other businesses and corporations should follow the lead of NBC/Universal, Univision and Macy’s and take similar actions against Donald Trump’s business interests.

A case can be made that no sitting judge should be aligned with any such activist organization in general, but for a judge to preside over a case involving a defendant’s business whereby said judge is also a lifetime member of an organization that very recently made public calls for a general boycott of the defendant’s businesses is an undeniable stain on the purported impartiality of the judiciary.

The Clinton Restoration Democrats are offering the ethics of the 1990s without the policies.

That was an impressive performance by Hillary Clinton Tuesday, announcing her presumptive presidential nomination as an historic first for womankind and something new and wonderful for American democracy. Watching her arms outstretched like Moses, you could almost forget that she first came to national prominence 25 years ago and is the very soul of the Washington status quo.

The Republican tumult this year has masked that Mrs. Clinton represents the triumph of the Democratic establishment. The party’s interest groups coalesced around her, and her most prominent opponents declined to run, leaving only a 74-year-old socialist to contest the nomination. Democratic elites are getting what they want: Another identity-politics candidacy wrapped around a relentless will to power.
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Yet this attempt to restore the Clinton dynasty is no mere replay of the 1990s. This time America is being offered the familiar Clinton ethics, but without Bill Clinton’s bow to center-right policy. This time we are getting the grasping and corner-cutting of the Clinton entourage with economic policies somewhere to the left of President Obama’s.

This carries no small political risk. Democrats have had to accept the uncertainty of an FBI investigation into her private emails, about which she has lied repeatedly, and Bill Clinton’s fundraising from foreign donors with business before the State Department when she was Secretary. Cheryl Mills, her close aide, said 38 times under oath that she could not “recall” answers to email questions, much as Harold Ickes could remember little about his Teamsters mediation in the 1990s.

All of this has produced unfavorable ratings second only to Donald Trump’s in modern presidential polling, and even a sizable plurality of Democrats think Mrs. Clinton can’t be trusted. Mr. Trump can get away with calling her “Crooked Hillary” because voters know the insult captures a fundamental truth.

Even her claim as a political pioneer is half phony because she rose to power as a spouse. Many other women— Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel—have succeeded on their own account. A woman will become U.S. President, sooner rather than later, which may be why younger women are less motivated by the “first woman” narrative. The question they ask, more wisely than the Baby Boomers, is whether this woman should be President. CONTINUE AT SITE

Trump and Democratic Political Incorrectness If Democrats are truly outraged by Trump, they might want to try looking in a mirror. June 8, 2016 Daniel Greenfield

Remember the time a presidential candidate suggested that Gandhi used to run “a gas station down in St. Louis.” No it wasn’t Trump. That was Hillary Clinton. Had Trump said it, we would still be hearing about it. But since Hillary Clinton was responsible for it, it went down the memory hole.

Along with her more recent “Colored People Time” gag.

And who can forget the time that Trump said, “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.” But that wasn’t Trump. It was actually Vice President Joe Biden.

But still it was indisputably offensive when Trump told the Asian Chamber of Commerce, “I don’t think you’re smarter than anybody else, but you’ve convinced a lot of us you are.”

Then he followed that up by joking, “One problem that I’ve had today is keeping my Wongs straight.”

You would have to be ridiculously politically incorrect or an outright buffoon to say something like that to the Asian Chamber of Commerce. And this is exactly why Trump is… but wait, those lines actually came from Democratic Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid.

Reid recently popped up to call Trump’s comments racist. And he ought to know. Harry Reid believed that Obama was electable because he was “light-skinned” with ”no Negro dialect”.

Memories are short when it comes to Democratic racial and ethnic stereotypes. Not to mention slurs.

Trump is certainly not the only prominent politician who says wildly politically incorrect things. Democrats do it all the time. And they do it in more pointed ways.

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez is running for the Senate. Sanchez is a racist who accused the “Vietnamese” of “trying to take this seat” when running against a Vietnamese-American candidate. Last year she managed to ridicule both Hindus and Native Americans with one slur.

There was the time that Bill Clinton suggested that, Obama “would have been getting us coffee”. Or when Biden described his future boss as the, “first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and nice-looking guy.” Despite two terms in which Republicans were accused of racially stereotyping Obama with secret dog whistles, nothing any major Republican figure said was anywhere as bad as what Obama’s Democratic predecessor and his own Senate ally had said about him.

Democrats actually say politically incorrect things all the time. Trump has become famous because he’s one of the few Republicans who talks like a Democrat and says the sort of things that Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid have no problem saying in private and even in public speeches.

‘The Struggle Continues’: Bernie Going All the Way to Convention By Bridget Johnson

Vowing “the struggle continues,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told a roaring crowd in Santa Monica, Calif., that he’s not dropping out of the Democratic primary and is taking the fight to the Democratic National Convention at the end of July.

Sanders won Montana and North Dakota on Tuesday night, while Hillary Clinton won New Mexico, New Jersey and South Dakota. Clinton was ahead in California.

The senator reminded followers that he has won 22 primaries and caucuses with more than 10 million votes. “Virtually every single state we have won by big numbers the votes of young people,” the 74-year-old noted. “Young people understand that they are the future of America and they intend to help shape that future. I am enormously optimistic about the future of our country.”

“We will not allow right-wing Republicans to control our government and that is especially true with Donald Trump as the Republican candidate,” Sanders continued. “The American people in my view will never support a candidate whose major theme is bigotry, who insults Mexicans, who insults Muslims and women and African-Americans. We will not allow Donald Trump to become president of the United States, but we understand that our mission is more than just defeating Trump — it is transforming our country.”

In an announcement greeted with huge cheers, Sanders said next Tuesday he would “continue the fight in the last primary in Washington, D.C.”

“We are going to fight hard to win the primary in Washington, D.C., and then we take our fight for social, economic, racial and environmental justice to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” he declared.

Sanders added that he’s “pretty good at arithmetic” and knows he faces a “steep fight… for every vote and every delegate we can get.” CONTINUE AT SITE

Can Trump save our infrastructure? Clarence Schwab

I followed with excitement Congress’ efforts to pass legislation in 2008 and 2010 to maintain and upgrade the crumbling U.S. infrastructure. Such infrastructure investment would have generated needed jobs while assisting economic activity for many years to come. But Congress failed to pass that legislation. This greatly disappointed me and many others in the business and investing world, because such investments are critical to supporting a healthy and expanding economy.

Some may have objected to such funding because they equate it with “stimulus spending;” considering it to offer no sustainable benefit and to increase the federal deficit. But infrastructure investment—unlike stimulus spending, which gives benefits only during the time during which funds are spent—would generate, every year for decades, increased economic activity, higher incomes, and greater tax revenues. That revenue would be sufficient to not only pay back the debt initially incurred with interest, but to also generate profit. Once begun, long-lived projects can also create expectations of more economic activity and buoy business and consumer confidence.

Thus, maintaining and upgrading our country’s crumbling infrastructure should be among any candidate’s highest domestic priorities—but which candidate in this presidential election has the best chance to make this happen? So far, only Hillary Clinton has offered a comprehensive proposal to address this critical issue. Only Mrs. Clinton has committed to submitting that proposal to Congress within the first hundred days in office. But here’s the tougher question: which candidate is the best person to get the job done? Here are two key considerations to help us decide:

1) Which of the candidates would more likely fight against the wrongheaded Washington thinking that refuses to allow investment in maintaining our infrastructure, and insist on making such investment a cornerstone of domestic policy?

2) Which of the candidates, if president, would more likely work productively with Congress to enact legislation that supports infrastructure investment?

I do not yet support any candidate, and as a registered Independent in New York, I was not permitted to vote in either primary. However, I know that Mr. Trump has a successful track record building projects and that he mentions in speeches the need to upgrade our infrastructure even if he has not yet offered a written proposal.

Michael Warren Davis How Dare You Make Me Punch You!

The first and most important thing to grasp about the expression of political views and sympathies is that they must not aggravate or annoy anyone on the left. Break that rule, as do Donald Trump supporters by attending his rallies, and you will only have yourself to blame for the bruising consequences.
Things are pretty calm Stateside. Donald Trump hasn’t said or done anything particularly interesting since stitching up the Republican nomination. The Democrats continue their drawn-out bloodbath, ensuring Hillary Clinton will limp into the general election looking like a pre-op Darth Vader. Good news for Trump and anyone else running for president, excluding David French.

Speaking of pre-ops, the head of the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union – a group of left-wing, censoriously PC lawyers roughly comparable to the Human Rights Commission, and sporting an equally Orwellian name – resigned after three drag queens followed her girl-children into the toilet. For those who haven’t been following the transgender bathroom row, the Obama Administration is fighting for sex-changers to have access to all public restroom facilities, with “transgender” defined as … well, it’s not defined per se. Basically, anyone who says they’re a woman can use the women’s lavatory, and ditto with men. This, by the by, includes public school locker rooms. Which has unnerved some parents who aren’t too keen on pubescent ragamuffins being given a warm welcome to the showers where their daughters are washing up after gym class.

This, apparently, includes Maya Dillard Smith, who had to console her daughters after a trio of six-foot-tall men with bulging Adam’s apples and other things took loud, stand-up pees in the stalls next to them, trading cosmetology tips in crooning baritones. Following her resignation, Smith founded a new website (just what we needed!) called Finding the Middle Ground, which promises – couched in the language of political correctness – a “safe space to talk about civil rights for all.” Ho ho! Not likely, Ms. Smith. Having risen through the ranks of the PC Gestapo, you should know there’s not going to be a “safe space” for those who contradict Big Brother’s latest definition of “civil rights”. There’s something quaintly pathetic about the name “Middle Ground”, as though the elites have ever accepted any compromise in their ideological war against decency and common sense.

That’s not to say the rules of political correctness are fixed. They’re not. Take the riots that have erupted outside Donald Trump’s rallies in California. Supporters are being intimidated, egged, and beaten up by vicious young men of Latino extraction who burn the American flag and assert Mexico’s right to reclaim its former territories in the Southwestern United States. Yes, it’s a travesty against free speech, free assembly, human decency, etc. And yes, it’s beneath contempt that anyone would think to condemn the good people of Arizona to Mexican citizenship.

trumpette eggedBut the worst part may be the smug, unironic victim-blaming directed against Trump and his cadre. “At some point Donald Trump needs to take responsibility for the irresponsible behavior of his campaign,” Sam Liccardo, the mayor of San Jose and a Clinton supporter, told the Associated Press afterwards. “It is regrettable that this has become a pattern for cities hosting Mr. Trump across the nation.” One of those who “must take responsibility” is pictured at left — a Trump supporter who was cornered by the mob against a locked door, pelted and assaulted.

San Jose police chief who allowed mob attacks on Trump supporters is affiliated with La Raza By Thomas Lifson

San Jose, California disgraced itself last week, allowing rioters to attack people exiting a political rally for the presumptive Republican nominee for president. Now, thanks to Aleister of Gateway Pundit, we know that the police chief of that city, Eddie Garcia, who admitted that he instructed his officers not to intervene and arrest the attackers, is aligned with an extremist race-based group, La Raza (Spanish for “The Race”):

This is a screen-cap from his Twitter account:

The La Raza Roundtable of California celebrated when Garcia was sworn in.

This is how the Roundtable describes itself:

La Raza Roundtable brings together community organizations, community leaders, elected officials, private and public sector representatives in leadership capacities that can impact positive change for La Raza.

Garcia has released a laughable statement in which he suggests that the police didn’t arrest the violent thugs because it would have just made them angrier.

Trump and the judge – It’s not about race, but the rule of law By Brian C. Joondeph

Watch any cable new show panel discussing Donald Trump, including MSNBC this week, and quite predictably you will hear that Trump is a racist. The latest flap is over the judge overseeing the Trump University lawsuit. The judge is of Mexican heritage and Trump raised concerns as to whether the judge can be impartial based on Trump’s hard line stance against illegal immigration from Mexico.

“I’m building a wall. I’m trying to keep business out of Mexico.” Trump said. “He’s of Mexican heritage, and he’s very proud of it, as I am of where I come from.”

Is this about race? Or judicial fairness?

Regarding race, “Mexican” is not a race. In actuality, the federal government maintains five racial groupings – white, black, Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian/Hawaiian, completely divorced from any anthropological or scientific understanding of race. Mexican is counted by the feds as part of the Hispanic racial group, as are most residents of Central and South America, even though Mexicans racially are 60% Mestizo (mixed Amerindian/Spanish), 30% Amerindian, and 9% European in racial makeup. Trump made no mention of the judge being Hispanic or of any of the racial groups making up Mexico’s population, instead only of his Mexican ancestry. Perhaps a fine distinction, but a difference nonetheless.

Trump’s concern is instead about judicial impartiality. The judge in question, Gonzalo Curiel, is a member of the La Raza Lawyers of San Diego, a group that claims it is not affiliated with the National Council of La Raza, but which lists that group, strongly opposed to the Trump candidacy, on its website as part of its “community.” Even the US Supreme Court acknowledges selective justice based on race. The recently upended the death sentence of a black Georgia man convicted by an all-white jury. Meaning that race or ethnicity might prevent judicial fairness.

To be sure, Donald Trump could have spoken more carefully and clearly, instead of initially referring to Judge Curiel, born in the USA, as Mexican, and relying on his affiliations and his serving on a scholarship selection committee that chose an illegal alien to receive funding to attend law school. So why wouldn’t Donald Trump be concerned about the rule of law being applied fairly?

Because it often is not.

Will the Media Also Examine the Clinton For-Profit Education Scandal?by Roger Aronoff

Is the race for the White House really coming down to which presidential candidate was tied to the less scandal-plagued for-profit school? Not if the media have anything to say about it. They only want you to know about one of them.

We have seen an endless run of articles and TV segments focusing on Trump University. How does it look? Well, a former sales director there said that “…Trump University was only interested in selling every person the most expensive seminars they possibly could.”

Trump claims that “98% of those people liked the school,” and gave it great report cards, according toCNN. There are currently three lawsuits focusing onTrump University, including one by the New York State Attorney General. Trump has pointed to U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s Mexican heritage as a likely factor in the treatment he has received from the class action lawsuits—treatment which he calls unfair. You can read plenty on that issue elsewhere and decide for yourself.

While many Republicans who have reluctantly endorsed Trump view his comments about Judge Curiel as a costly, unforced error that makes it harder for them to publicly defend him, one fact that could play to his advantage is that the law firm behind one of the class action lawsuits has paid the Clintons $675,000 in speaking fees since 2009, which is more than they’ve collected from any other law firm. Politics obviously plays a big part in this saga.

And that’s just the beginning. The real story deals with Laureate Education, whose connection to the Clintons was revealed in Peter Schweizer’s book Clinton Cash. More than $16 million was paid to Bill Clinton through a shell corporation, after which more than $55 million American taxpayer dollars flowed out of Hillary Clinton’s State Department to a non-profit run by Laureate CEO Douglas Becker.