Awakening from the Trump spell? Too little, too late
I noticed that a prominent Trump facilitator and a prominent Trump shill are rather unhappy with Trump’s recent comments about Judge Gonzalo Curiel.
The facilitator is Joe Scarborough:
After months of amiable interviews and a report that their “friendship” was making NBC executives uncomfortable, [Scarborough] and [Trump] have recently been bickering on Twitter. And now the feud has ratcheted up another level, with Scarborough on Monday ripping Trump’s “racist statement” that a federal judge of Mexican descent is inherently biased against him…
Scarborough went on to suggest that he had tried to reason with Trump all this time to give him the benefit of the doubt in hopes that he would eventually see the light.
“That’s what I was hoping, that perhaps we could put pressure on him to back down and change that policy,” he said. “Instead, Al, he’s doubled down. And now it’s people that may have ”” what is it, one-16th Mexican blood? If you’ve got one-16th Mexican blood that maybe you can’t be a judge. One-16th Muslim blood? I mean, this is unbelievable. He is getting worse, not better.”
This is a good example of a self-serving media personality (Scarborough was once a politician, but no more) trying to have it both ways. He never was an outright Trump supporter, and always was somewhat critical of him. But his Trump interviews were very chummy, and he gave Trump tons of air time and friendly publicity, too. So Scarborough preserved the plausible deniability of being somewhat critical, at least intermittently, while helping Trump at the same time. That way he probably thought he was protected whichever way the nomination and general election went.
Newt Gingrich is the shill who has talked Trump up and helped to give him huge legitimacy. And Gingrich doesn’t like Trump’s Curiel remarks, either:
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said on Sunday that presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump should not have attacked a California judge regarding his “Mexican heritage.”
“This is one of the worst mistakes Trump has made,” Gingrich said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“I think it’s inexcusable.”
Ah, but I don’t think that word “inexcusable” means what you think it means—because believe me, Gingrich will excuse it. In fact, he already seems to be doing so, or poised to do so:
“Trump has got to, I think, move to a new level,” he said.
“He’s got to move his game up to the level of being a potential leader.”
Still, Gingrich said he’s been “amazed” by how fast Trump has grown and how fast the presumptive GOP nominee learns from his mistakes.
Mistakes? Learn? I’d love Gingrich to describe what those “mistakes” have been, and how Trump’s behavior has changed as a result of that “learning.” I don’t see it. I see a person whose every conventionally bad move has led to more votes and more adulation, and who has changed absolutely nothing as a result, and why should he? I suppose his followers would say that’s one of his big strengths.
I continue to believe that Trump will do poorly in the general, although I’ve revised my predictions from his having about a 1 in 100 chance of winning to his having about a 1 in 5 chance of winning. But I really wonder how people like Scarborough and Gingrich can keep a straight face when they say what they say. I suppose that’s one of those skills politicians have that many ordinary people lack—the ability to sound sincere no matter what. And if Scarborough is actually being sincere when he says he thought his own reasoning could change Trump, then he’s even more of a fool than I think he is.
[NOTE: By the way, just to clarify, Trump’s “racist” comment about the judge was to say that he had “an absolute conflict” because he was “of Mexican heritage” and a member of a Latino law association. Had Trump merely said that the judge was a member of La Raza or a Hillary-supporter (for example), and therefore biased against Trump, it would have caused some furor but nowhere near as much. It’s a question of Trump’s attacking someone’s identity as a member of an ethnic group rather than sticking to that person’s specific beliefs.
Trump also mentioned that he thought the judge had a conflict of interest:
The New York businessman also alleged the judge was a former colleague and friend of one of the Trump University plaintiffs’ lawyers. The judge and the lawyer once worked together as federal prosecutors, but the lawyer, Jason Forge, in an interview said he had never seen the judge socially.
Leaving aside for now the question of whether such a slight association many years ago really does represent a conflict, that’s at least a valid type of point to raise, unlike that of the judge’s ethnic origins.]
that’s at least a valid type of point to raise, unlike that of the judge’s ethnic origins.
Sotomayor – the “wise, empathetic latina” – was nominated and confirmed solely on the basis of her ethnicity and “empathy (i.e. predisposed to rule in accordance with her ethnicity and minority status). I think that makes the ethnic argument valid for other judges. Our courts have been running on bean-counting racial and ethnic skews for a long time now, too. They have considered such arguments “valid” for a good while, already, and if the courts consider such arguments valid then a case against a sitting judge based on that court-accepted valid argument (though Trump’s was based on the more substantial evidence of the judge’s clear and obvious bias) is just fine.
progressoverpeace:
No, it does NOT make the ethnic argument VALID.
Unless, of course, you’re a leftist. The identity argument is an argument of the left, and it is invalid.
Of course when the right makes a similar identity argument (as Trump did; whether or not he’s a person of “the right”), the left attacks it. But that’s the left for you.
Trump phrased his criticism poorly, but he fully has the right to criticize.
Usually federal judges are the best of the best but there are exceptions. Obama has gone out of his way to appoint the politically correct to the federal bench. And I can assure you that there were better qualified candidates for many of these slots.
This judge belongs to the LaRaza lawyers association of San Diego. What if he belonged to the White lawyers association of San Diego? And that same white association asserted that whites were a superior race? Or he belonged to a country club that excluded blacks?
He appointed as class counsel a law firm that donated big six figures to the Clintons. He had wide discretion in making that decision. They only get paid if they win.
We need to stop kidding ourselves. The federal bench is no longer populated by saints and it is fully political. It started with Bork.
The above being said, the matter is an unforced error by Trump. It reinforces the meme that he is a racist and that is the worst thing you can say about someone today. BTW, I don’t think Trump is a racist.
Every day Tom Wolfe is right. It is Back to Blood.
SS is a perfect example. But for her sex and Hispanic background, no way she gets the nod. She was undistinguished in the district court. Her decisions at SCOTUS prove she was a politically correct appointment.
And I well recall how the Left attacked Clarence Thomas as unqualified. He was unqualified only because he is conservative. He was Alpha Sigma Nu at Holy Cross and I can assure you that is not handed out by the Jesuits based upon race. His opinions at SCOTUS proves his nomination was proper.
Loose cannon. Just what we need at this point, eh?
I guess Gingrich learned that he was not going to be the VP choice after all, and he had a moment of spite. Then he realized that he better not burn his bridges ahead of himself; so why not quibble with your own statement?
Scarborough is just being himself.
ProgressoverPeace, what the hell does that mean? Glad to see you weighing in with your two cents for Trump. Just proves the narrative–he can do no wrong in the eyes of some; no matter how cheezy. However, he seems determined to get HRC elected, no matter what. The relatively small number of people who tout Trump no matter what, think they will win over the Democrat machine vote, I have the proverbial waterfront property available. In the meantime he will turn off large segments of the everyday Americans who do not want a loose cannon with any control over their lives.
As Glenn Reynolds so wisely notes today on twitter
“Everything everyone else does is Trump’s fault.”
Gingrich is an egomaniac who thought he could get Trump to bend to his superior intellect. Isn’t it funny that the more modest people like Neo and her commenters were much better at sizing up Trump from day one?
The only thing I think Trump should have prefaced his statements with is the phrase, “there’s a chance”.
For example, if you are white and you somehow got arrested and charged with raping an 8 year old black girl, even if you were completely innocent and even if there was no evidence that remotely tied you to the crime, would you feel confident that you were going to get (correctly) ruled innocent if you had an all-black jury?
Trump is still a chump.
Nothing has changed, other than the numbers of those who chose to vote him as presumptive candidate.
Never liked him. And he continues to affirm the reasons why.
That said, ABC; Anyone But Clinton
Readers might find this Omaha story interesting. GHWB appointed one of my former neighbors to the federal bench. He was not all that political but also marginally qualified. GHWB got to know him when he was lobbying for someone else. He was, however, an acceptable pick.
Sen JJ Exon put a block on him because he ostensibly had no criminal law experience. True but not a per se disqualification.
Bill Clinton then appoints another neighbor who was the head of the Nebraska Democrat party. The two guys literally lived three blocks away from each other. (And a young Warren Buffett lived two blocks away from both men.)
The Dem also had no recent criminal law experience but he did start out as a public defender. Confirmed. He later struck down NE’s ban on SSM in an early case but was reversed by the Eighth Circuit. The Republican guy never would have made such a finding.
In matters large and small in all but the most prosaic, the federal bench is becoming more political.
If the judge is actually a member of La Raza then Trump has absolutely nothing to apologize for. In fact he should escalate it.
In fact if the judge is a member of La Raza, that breaks all bonds of civil association in my book.
I cannot stand Trump and can hardly believe we have gotten to the point wherein I am defending Trump’s antagonism toward someone.
But if the miscreant sons of bitches are shooting at you, you have every right to shoot right back.
Which I predict will literally happen at one of these Trump rallies as a some lunatic leftist seeking martyrdom and a nice spot in hell, begins battering a rally attendee who has a firearm.
Then watch “our” society come apart at the seams. And not a day too soon.
DNW
It is the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association.
Check this out: http://sdlrla.com/the-name/
Kind of like explaining the word “jihad.”
Don’t diminish your own judgment and intelligence by defending stupid actions by Caesar-Lite.
All the thing he could have said, should have said, things that were legally corrects, nope he played the race card, essentially “The judge is a “Mexican” so he can’t be fair to me.”
And by the way why does Caesar-Lite rails so much about the world is unfair to him. Or how he is being treated badly. Most folks know the world is not “fair.” Pretty rich coming from a gasillionaire.
Cornhead, DNW:
But that’s my point.
If Trump had talked about La Raza membership, and described La Raza and what they stand for, that would have been a different approach and much more acceptable.
He did not.
Instead, he talked about the judge’s “Mexican heritage” and about the judge’s membership in “a club or society which is very strongly pro-Mexican.”
The GOP is very worried about what all this is doing to the down ballot races:
The “stupid s— like this” includes his recent attacks on Gov. Susana Martinez. Bye-bye Latino vote.
IMO, Cornhead @4:17 has the right of it.
DNW,
The San Diego LA Raza Lawyers Association disavow any connection with La Raza. That said, the associations actions strongly support La Raza’s goals and positions.
I for one find the idea that coincidence explains the shared La Raza designation to strain credulity.
Does the fact that the Trump U case has nothing to do with immigration play a role here? Seems the judge shouldn’t have to recuse himself because his parents were from Mexico, but maybe I just can’t savvy Trumpian logic.
I think Trump’s motivation here is that, due to his narcissistic disorder, he can’t stand the thought of losing this case, and he will never accept that he’s done anything wrong so it has to be because the judge in the case might, in Trump’s mind, be biased against him.
I don’t think it’s a great mystery about why Trump went after the judge in the way he did. Hillary started making a lot noise about Trump University, and so Trump tried to get the focus off himself and to rally his supporters — and he found a handy “Mexican” for just that purpose.
As Glenn Reynolds so wisely notes today on twitter
“Everything everyone else does is Trump’s fault.”
And nothing that happens is ever Trump’s fault. To Trump at least.
The issue is his inability to back down, and always double up on attacks, as he did here. Once President he will be under attack from all quarters. Is he really going to spend every day launching attacks at everyone? Because that’s what he does.
He attacks the party he is running for, the media, Conservatives, foreign leaders. And that’s the people he needs to be on his side.
He will have no friends and no allies. And he is meant to run the country?
Funny… but last i heard, the first amendment protected everyone and they used to be able to say things anyway they wanted, even if offensive.
yeah… he doesnt play the cards clean nor does he think of how to couch things so as to play some word game. oh well… get used to it…
this is not a communist state where being offensive, or waht not is not legal. is it?
which asks the question, even if not established by law and force, if we live it, are we not equivalent to communism through social control and fear of what we can or cant say?
excuse me… my popcorn is done and a nice cold mikes hard lemonade is waiting in the chair as i watch this bs circle around the bowl till it comes to something that really matters, not something peoples lives are so shallow about they have to manufacture what matters.
i guess if the crap really hits the fan in the china sea, and there is some conflict and lack of shipping suddenly our values will snap to attention and we will wonder just how we walked around in huge hair, bell bottoms, shoes with fishes in the heels and much more, and didnt notice that either. at least not till later when the spell lifted and we could look and say polyester? 🙂
Of course djt is not going to make a coherent, astute response about the judge’s association with La Raza. He reacts with all the finesse of a 3 year old spoiled brat. He is incapable of anything remotely nuisanced. And as Ann notes above, he is a disaster down ticket. I have been nervous about the down ticket since the South Carolina primary.
The donald can deliver a double play in November, a democrat wins at the head of the ticket and down ticket a demolition derby that swears in a democrat senate majority in January. Someone please tell me why I am mistaken.
neo @5:51,
Yes, that is the approach Trump should have taken.
However, I find the criticisms from Gingrich, McConnell and Ryan, etc. interesting, rather than investigating indications of possible bias by the judge, they instead pile on Trump. Knives in the back are always the most harmful. This won’t be the last time either.
parker,
That is indeed the most disastrous political possibility.
neo-neocon Says:
June 6th, 2016 at 4:16 pm
progressoverpeace:
No, it does NOT make the ethnic argument VALID.
My point was that the courts accept such arguments as valid. And not merely valid, but our courts have made such ethnic considerations foundational in the system, throughout. Sotomayor was EXPLICITLY nominated and confirmed based on her alleged powers of empathy (which, in three millenia of Western jurisprudence, has no place in any court). Therefore, as applies to the courts, they have to accept their own sorts of arguments.
Now, it’s certainly not unusual for leftists to deny their own arguments. They do it all the time. Cognitive dissonance is where the leftists live. But my point is that in a court system (all of our court systems) where racial and ethnic considerations carry serious weight, in and of themselves, and are accepted, routinely, as legitimate arguments, no reasonable person should find that any such arguments about a judge presiding over a case is anything out of the ordinary for our contemporary judicial system. And, in this case (as all have noted) there were real and substantial problems (also closely related to ethnicity) with this judge.
I didn’t force, or even condone, the leftists to institute tribalism at the highest levels of our governmental architecture, but since they have it has to be dealt with as such. It cannot be ignored. Ignoring leftist idiocy and nihilism is what got us here, in the first place.
In the meantime, Trump’s comments pale in comparison to the actual conduct of his possible opponent, Hillary Clinton, who has been the subject of numerous legal cases and political scandals for her entire career, and who is right now being investigated by the FBI for her secret e-mail server.
I hope we can keep a sense of perspective here. The real problem is the utter corruption and many falsehoods of the Clintons.
Parker, I wouldn’t be surprised to find we have the lowest voter turnout ever in November, on both sides.
Though not enough third party to go Article 12.
As for Trump abandonment, add Laura Ingraham.
On a local radio station who’s owner is all in for Trump, a number of the other show hosts are more and more pulling back and actually agreeing with me about Trump, finally.
The owner has seen fit to continue attacking me for not being in for Trump, as if I’m the equivalent of a traitorous Clinton supporter.
Every day of his life, Newt wakes up, brushes his teeth, gets called a racist, goes to the store, stops off for a bite to eat, gets called a racist, does some laundry….
He’s gone through it every day for twenty years, all the while just trying to do what’s best for the country. Same with Rush. Then Trump comes along, gets called a racist, and says that he’s trying to do what’s best for the country. Rush and Newt believe him, because they’ve stopped checking checking for racism.
Oops.
Maybe the Mexican judge helped Ted’s father try to kill JFK.
Yankee,
Yes, the corrupt clinton clan is a major threat; but from my POV the YUGE problem is that a nominee lacking in conservative principles, who behaves like a narcissitic buffoon, and who has no sense of restraint and discipline is going to be toast against any democrat nominee and the msm cabal.
That my friend is the primary problem thanks to those who voted to place djt at the head of the ticket instead of others such as Walker, Fiorina, or Cruz.
What is Trump’s spell? I’d figure it the question should be applied to “as opposed to Cruz”.
I’ve said it before: Cruz ran as a far better way to do things the usuial way. Trying to sell the proposition that doing things the usual way is the cure for the results of having done things the usual way was a non-starter for a lot of folks.
As Insty says, we need a straight, white, republican male in the WHite House so the media will pay attention to government overreach.
Jennifer Rubin asks a question that’s been on my mind as well — “So why ISN’T Mitt Romney running?”
KLSmith,
You have written the front page headline of the next issue of the National Enquirer. I see a great future for you in ‘journalism’.
Ann:
I have thought about that question and I think the answer is that he is aware that his time has passed and that he would act as a spoiler. It has to be someone fresh and new in some way, not one of the 2016 candidates or the 2012 candidate. I think he probably has done polling that tells him that.
Also, his family is probably also strongly set against it, and he may have made a promise to them about that.
Richard Aubrey:
The usual way of doing things is why Cruz was so successfully opposed by McConnell, Boehner, and FOX news. The usual way is go along and get along with the democrats for the most part.
Despite his bluster and buffoonery Trump is pretty comfortable with the usual way (pay offs, crony deals….). “It will be great, Wall Wall Wall, its so unfair…..”
Ann said:
“Trump tried to get the focus off himself and to rally his supporters – and he found a handy “Mexican” for just that purpose.”
Which tells us several disturbing things about his supporters, or at least what Trump thinks of them, as well as Trump.
Trump is no conservative. He has the same opinion of conservatives as liberals do. They’re all knuckle-dragging moronic racists. As many have pointed out he could have talked about this judge’s leftist ties, particularly to La Raza. And despite what some people seem to think he is articulate enough to make that argument. It isn’t a matter of Trump not being a seasoned politician, either. You, me, anybody could have. So could Trump. So why didn’t he?
Because he thinks this will work better with those knuckle-dragging moronic racist conservatives. Or as Obama would have but it, those “bitter clingers” with their Bibles and their guns and most importantly in this case their xenophobia.
It’s appropriate that the two cases before Judge Curiel, Low v. Trump University, LLC and Cohen v. Trump, are fraud/RICO act violation cases. Because Trump has been running his campaign as one big fraud. And this over the top language he uses is pretty much what he describes in “Making the Deal.” He talks about creating an illusion and using hyperbole. In other words, a con.
Just to keep it simple, I’ve seen videos of these people defrauded by Trump and when asked why they invested money with Trump U. or various fraudulent Trump properties (slightly modified version of the Trump U. scam; Trump puts his name on a project and is the center of a multimillion dollar add campaign saying it’s his baby start to finish, but in reality he had nothing to do with except the add campaign and collecting his cut) they say exactly the same things as Trump supporters say when asked why we need Trump as President.
So, candidate Trump is a fraud, too. If I’m right, then you can forget about that list of conservative SCOTUS candidates Heritage put together for him to help him con the RNC. Once he no longer needs it, like everything else he’ll forget it. He’s not going to nominate Constitutional conservative judges. Look at how he’s treating Curiel. Curiel, as far as I can tell, hasn’t been unfair to Trump. I’ve read many of the briefs filed in these cases. Curiel hasn’t given Trump everything he wanted, but then most of Trump’s motions have resulted in partial victories for Trump at least, and partial defeats for the plaintiffs.
That’s not enough for Trump. He’s a serial litigator, and I would say a vexatious one. He uses the courts as a bludgeon to beat up his enemies. He wants judges that give Donald Trump everything he wants, and judges who give his opponents nothing.
Does that describe a Constitutional conservative judge? No, of course not.
Riddler riddle me a riddle.
All the political pros, the media veterans, the polling gurus, the astute political analysts (I include Neo in this group) said that Trump had no chance in the primaries. And yet by about the second debate he had the center podium in the debates.
He kept committing campaign killing gaffes. The pros said “that’s the one that’s gonna kill him, sayonara Donald” and he’s at the center podium.
He insults the halt and the lame and so many minorities that they become majorities. Center podium.
Oh blasphemy of blasphemies, he insulted a Federal Judge. Surely he will be struck by a bolt from the heavens. He clinches the nomination.
He attacks the sexual mores of a beloved ex-President. He strikes low blows against the presumptive Democratic nominee who claims about 98% of the loyalty of all the girl type people. His polls go up.
Not so much a riddle as maybe a paradox or a dissonance.
Maybe the Russkies slipped a virus into the water to make everybody stupid. Maybe the rye got infected with ergot. Or maybe..
Or maybe the pros have been talking to each other so long that forgot about talking to the people.
Neo – The British bettors agree with you; as I write, they are giving Trump a 23 percent chance of winning the general election, which is close enough to 1 in 5
Steve57 – Thanks much for that informative commen.
It is an interesting question as to which has committed the most crimes, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Trump boasts that he ahs bribed politicians; Clinton has accepted bribes, but doesn’t boast about it.
One of the most interesting Trump cases is when he was working with his father. The Justice Department sued them for discriminating in housing — and got a big settlement that looks like a confession to me. (Wikipedia has some details, for the curious.)
At that time, Trump was partly acting as the front man for his father, because his father had been in such serious legal trouble.
I was slow to see that Trump’s contradictions helped him in the primary campaign. Those who want to support him can always find something he has said, some time, that justifies their support.
And then the usual confirmation bias takes care of the rest, and they ignore the fact that he has said the opposite, too.
Roy Lofquist:
You couldn’t be more wrong about me.
Very early on I said that Trump DID have a chance of winning in the primaries, and I became very perturbed about it. You make an assertion about me that is just plain wrong.
In fact, I wrote a post about my predictions, here. You will see if you read it that even as early as the summer of 2015 I had became seriously worried about the possibility of Trump winning.
Please try to do your homework before you make false assertions.
One answer to why Trump is attacking this judge, besides the probability that Trump has a serious narcissistic disorder and should never be let anywhere near the levers of power and the nuclear codes, is he’s hoping his antics will slow things down so the ruling comes after the election, not before.
Heaven help the court if Trump is elected before the ruling. If the ruling displeases him, he will bring the full weight of the phenomenal cosmic power the people mindlessly have given him to destroy the people involved, especially the judge. And he’s letting them know now, ahead of time.
That’s his game. At least that’s what I think. We’ll long for the restraint of Obama.
Neo, mea culpa.
I think you might have misread or I wasn’t very careful in my construction. I did not mean to imply that you had made such predictions. What I meant was that I consider you to be a member of the group of astute political analysts.
I just reread that sentence very carefully. I was right! A CODASYL certified COBOL 85 compiler would have parsed that sentence as I intended.
Damn, I’ve got to get out more.
I know one thing. If the Dems when in November I will be CRUSHED and we are DOOMED.
Until Nov 3rd, I’m not giving up the idea that there is some other solution than Trump or Unindicted Hillary.
I’m not. Even if my brain busts from thinking about it.
Roy Lofquist Says:
June 6th, 2016 at 11:12 pm
Neo, mea culpa.
I think you might have misread or I wasn’t very careful in my construction. I did not mean to imply that you had made such predictions. What I meant was that I consider you to be a member of the group of astute political analysts.
I just reread that sentence very carefully. I was right! A CODASYL certified COBOL 85 compiler would have parsed that sentence as I intended.
Damn, I’ve got to get out more.
***
Had to laugh at that one — COBOL syntax is not people syntax.
Ex-FORTRAN-jock here: I speak in GO-TOs.
A new ad produced by a Clinton SuperPac deals with Trump’s mocking the disabled reporter. It’s very effective. Can’t imagine anyone not being moved by it.
AesopFan,
I’ve been in the game since the steam powered days. I have written in assembler and actually keyed in the binary from the control panel on a number of different machines. Every so often I try to remember all the languages in which I have written programs. I go to the historical lists and a number of the languages aren’t listed. I guess CADOL and QIC never got popular enough for anybody to remember them.
When the minis first came on the market everybody and their brother in law tried to get into the business. The Singer Sewing Machine Company had a line of 3 or 4 different models. It was like the early days of automobiles. Take a look some time and you’ll see a bunch of them with names that nobody remembers.
I’ve been retired for 10 or 12 years but my head is still wired into talking to the damned things.
maybe you’re looking at the wrong bookies,
http://nypost.com/2016/06/05/when-it-comes-to-donald-trump-trust-these-bookies-over-pundits/
why is romney not running, because he was an embarasment, he couldn’t defend his own wife from scum like hilary rosen, and he kept insisting obama was in over his head, no he was dunking the country underwater, that’s not the same thing,
Under this administration, the death panels, the IPAB, administers the spartan solution to the disabled, lets forget about that shall we.
the restraint of obama, this is standup comedy now, the damage that he has been permitted to wreak on this country, not merely in political terms, but at the foundational institutions of this country, is incalculable, in part because he has an entire infrastructure, at his beck and call, from media to bureaucracy
to the educational networks,
well it’s not surprising, the tories with a few exceptions like gove and johnson, think this paradigm where the right can gnaw at the timbers but not alter the edifice,
If you voted for djt in the primaries and then in the general, you, on a persanal basis, own your vote and you own your allegiance to the donald. Perhaps forehead tattoos should be required to prove your fealty to the destruction of the last chance to preserve a republic. That way I can identify you from the hrc voters, making you a secondary target when TSHTF. BTW, I am not kidding. Stay out of my corner of Iowa.
But seriously, a choice between hrc or djt is a choice of which cancer kills the future of your grandchildren sooner.
I voted for cruz, fwiw, practically none of the honorable men of the senate came to his aide,
as if that will matter,
https://joelhirst.wordpress.com/2016/06/04/venezuelas-discovery-of-hunger/
Serious question, not snarking… who would have listened if he *had* made the “content of character” argument against the judge instead of what he did?
I submit he’s not talking to conservatives, he’s playing to the so-called alt-right and the grievance peddlers in the squishy middle that has inexorably slouched to the left. It seems to me that he’s not running to woo conservatives, and really, why would he? We’ll either vote to prevent HRC or go elsewhere in protest… but not to the D side. We’re not necessarily in his camp, but we’re not defecting, either.
I think he’s playing to his base and trying to coopt the victicrats.
On bookies:
Most people don’t understand that the bookies don’t set the odds except at the very start of the betting. They balance the bets so they always win.
Take football for example. You bet 11 to win 10. You win the bookie pays you the 11 you already gave him plus 10. You lose and you give the bookie 11 and get nothing. If he balances his bets properly he always make a buck for each 2 bets. It doesn’t matter who wins.
The reason the odds change is that if the bookie gets too many bets on one side he changes the odds or adjusts the over/under to get bets on the other side.
The bettors determine the odds. The bookie is just a broker. If it’s Englishmen betting on an American election you can be sure it’s screwy. Just read the Brit press. Those guys haven’t a clue as to what is happening on this side of the pond.
J S fell for the Left’s Journolist propaganda once. He’ll do it again, count on it. Trash like that isn’t worth much, not even for blackmail.
Roy Lofquist/AesopFan,
I may be a decade or so behind you but I remember the heady days of the early microcomputer revolution, the CP/M versus MSDOS days, etc. Keyed binary into PDP-11, wrote in assembler right down on the bare metal 🙂
Still working, nowadays heavy in data, Oracle, PL SQL, but have programmed over the years in Fortran pascal, C, C++, Java, plus a lot of Web Development (php, html 5 stuff with Javascript, jQuery, etc). I was blogging way back in the day before Facebook, Twitter, snapchat, etc kind of spoiled that, and back when comments threads were more civil. This blog is now the only one I read – still maintains that civility for the most part (reflection of the hostess)
I dropped out of several others when they became too Trumpy for my tastes…
Anyway, nice to see some old veterans who remember the earlier days of computing!
OM. Trump may be prepared to do things the usual way. That’s not the point. He looks, as one writer put it, like a human wrecking ball headed for DC. Whatever he does when he gets there is a separate issue.
The human wrecking ball headed to DC is what attracts people who can’t see any progress made, except the wrong kind, in the usual way.
Look at the VA, for example. Their excuse is, we’re federal employees so there’s not a G. D.thing you can do about it so screw you. Which appears to be a pretty accurate description of the situation.
What’s Trump going to do about it, if anything? Nobody knows, but the implication that he’s going to blow the whole thing up, along with its 350k dues-paying unionized government employees/drones/grafters is one example of what may be his spell.
Could you see Cruz doing that? No. He’d have done something but consider what crap Reagan got when he killed the air traffic controllers union. Point is, you couldn’t see Cruz doing that.
Then there’s the IRS. The EPA unleashing the sludge into the Animas River, possibly to contaminate that which the locals don’t want to be a Superfund site.
What can be done about those things in the usual way?
I’m practically convincing myself here….
Translated, “la raza” means “the race.” Imagine the outcry if white attorneys from Mississippi, such as this author, started a a legal association called “The Race” with the stated mission to promote the interest of white, Southern communities. Hollywood stars and entertainers, such as Bryan Adams, would boycott the state in perpetuityDonald Trump Is Correct To Hit ‘La Raza’ Judge For Latino Identity Politics
trump
Getty Images
by Joseph Murray6 Jun 2016
3,490
“This is one of the worst mistakes Trump has made. I think it’s inexcusable.”
Those words were spoken by Newt Gingrich — a man believed to be on Donald Trump’s Vice Presidential shortlist — during an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”
SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER
What mistake had the presumptive Republican nominee made that he earned the rebuke of an ally?
Trump had questioned the impartiality of a federal judge.
The controversy erupted when Trump told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Gonzalo Curiel — the judge in the Trump University class action lawsuit — might not give him a fair shake because of the judge’s connection to Mexican political activism. After critics bemoaned such an accusation as racism, Trump doubled down on “Face the Nation.”
“[Judge Curiel] is a member of a club or society, very strongly pro-Mexican, which is all fine,” Trump told CBS’s John Dickerson. “But I say he’s got bias.” The club Trump was referring to was La Raza Lawyers; an organization with the stated mission “to promote the interests of the Latino communities throughout the state.”
Translated, “la raza” means “the race.” Imagine the outcry if white attorneys from Mississippi, such as this author, started a a legal association called “The Race” with the stated mission to promote the interest of white, Southern communities. Hollywood stars and entertainers, such as Bryan Adams, would boycott the state in perpetuity.
advertisement
Trump’s suggestion that a Hispanic judge may treat him unfairly because of Trump’s border security proposals, such as the wall, challenges the claim that liberal judges engaged in identity politics are never biased against non-liberals. And while Democrats were enraged by Trump’s challenge, Trump struck fear into the hearts of establishment Republicans not accustomed to challenging the politically correct code to which they have previously surrendered.
This idea that Trump is virtuous because he challenges “political correctness” is one of the more irritating and ridiculous things to come out of this irritating and ridiculous election season.
For example, mocking the disabled is not standing up against political correctness. It’s being a cruel jerk
Questioning a judge’s fitness to preside over a trial that has nothing to do with immigration because he is of Mexican heritage and might have a grudge against Trump because of that heritage is not standing up against political correctness. It’s racism.
The harder work would have been to prove the judge has a grudge because of things he’s said, other actions he’s taken in reference to either Trump himself or regarding the Trump U case which the trial is about.
What’s strange to me is that just now some Republicans are starting to notice – “hey, this guy’s unfit for office” – something anyone with eyes and ears knew almost a year ago.
Anyone lacking impulse control so much that he mocks the disabled in public, on video, in 2016 doesn’t have the mental maturity to be President.
I’m hoping the stupid tide is turning, but I’ve kind of quit hoping and trusting in the wisdom of the American electorate.
Judge and law firm bringing Trump U case both tied to La Raza
the San Diego firm paid $675,000 to the Clintons for speeches, and the firm’s founder is a wealthy San Diego lawyer who served a two-year sentence in federal prison for his role in a kickback scheme to mobilize plaintiffs for class-action lawsuits.
The San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association is a member of the La Raza Lawyers of California, affiliated with the Chicano/Latino Bar Association of California.
[Mecha?]
On the website of the La Raza Lawyers Association of California, at the bottom of the “Links & Affiliates Page,” the National Council of La Raza is listed.
The website of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association is joint-listed as San Diego’s Latino/Latina Bar Association.
[didnt know spanish people had their own bar association to favor spanish peiople passing the bar over unprotected classes who are not allowed to like their heritage as we are now all german nazis, even if we fought against them]
On the “endorsements” page, the combined website lists the National Council of La Raza as part of the “community,” along with the Hispanic National Bar Association,, a group that emerged with a changed name from the originally formed La Raza National Lawyers Association and the La Raza National Bar Association tracing its origin back to 1971.
Further, while the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association and the National Council of La Raza are legally separate incorporated entities, the two groups appear to have an affiliation that traces back to the emergence of MEChA, the Moviemento Estudiantil Chicanos de Atzlé¡n.
MEChA is a 1960s radical separatist student movement in California that espoused the mythical Aztec idea of a “nation of Aztlé¡n,” comprising much of the southwestern United States, including California.
As David Horowitz points out on his website Discover the Networks that La Raza, Spanish for “the race,” also has roots in the early 1960s with a “united front” organization, the National Organization for Mexican American Services, NOMAS. The group initially was funded by the Ford Foundation, and subsequently by George Soros’ Open Society Institute and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
In 1968, the Southwest Council of La Raza was organized with Ford Foundation funding. In 1972, the group changed its name to the National Council of La Raza and opened an office in Washington, D.C.
go ahead. let another front like the weatherman judicate racially..
and see what you get..
FLASHBACK: Sotomayor said judges’ ethnicity ‘will make difference in our judging’… MAY 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/15judge.html?_r=0
In her speech, Judge Sotomayor questioned the famous notion – often invoked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her retired Supreme Court colleague, Sandra Day O’Connor – that a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding cases.
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor, who is now considered to be near the top of President Obama’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees.
a video surfaced of Judge Sotomayor asserting in 2005 that a “court of appeals is where policy is made.” She then immediately adds: “And I know – I know this is on tape, and I should never say that because we don’t make law. I know. O.K. I know. I’m not promoting it. I’m not advocating it. I’m – you know.”
“Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences,” she said, for jurists who are women and nonwhite, “our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”
“And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society.”
Richard Aubrey – “Blow the whole thing up” is a meaningless phrase. A president has to formulate a concrete plan before he can implement it. Even then, he can only do so much.
Wish I could.
@Bill – “The harder work would have been to prove the judge has a grudge because of things he’s said, other actions he’s taken in reference to either Trump himself or regarding the Trump U case which the trial is about.”
Right. Isn’t that a big part of the point with Trump as a whole? (he asks rhetorically)
When faced with disagreement, criticism, or opposition (all real or perceived by Trump), he’d rather use innuendo, rumor, and ad hominem to attack someone’s character and motive rather than argue facts, logic and ideas.
Sadly, it works with too many people.
References to Sotomayor doesn’t cut it. To follow that type of “logic” to it’s conclusion, anyone who is of German heritage would by definition be Nazi sympathizers.
It is just another form of identity politics. The precise thing that the left, Obama, and even statements like Sotamayor’s are designed to drive and divide us all by.
Of course people naturally do have biases – we are not robots.
But, if we want to make a claim about it, we ought to have specific incidents to the individual concerned we can point to vs make a claim based on their heritage.
All that serves to do is obscure the real facts of the case.
Follow the shiny object.
This is how Trump operates and why there is so much uncertainty (but plenty of hints at downside risk) around what Trump actually would do if he were President.
“Richard Aubrey — “Blow the whole thing up” is a meaningless phrase.”
Yes, and it’s also very reckless. I get that people are dissatisfied. But we STILL live in a country with systems that work. They work amazingly. We need a better political class, certainly – which just adds to the irony of the dissatisfaction of our time spawning the most horrific political class of our lifetimes, featuring that two headed hydra of horribles, HRC and DJT.
Our system is not perfect, but it works really, really well. It needs adjustment. It doesn’t need to be “blown up”. What you get after something blows up is a lot of debris, collateral damage, and – frankly – nice things like riots, economic collapses, martial law and kristallnachts.
Yes, things need to be better. Here’s a crazy idea: let’s elect better leaders. In addition, let’s teach our kids how our government works. Let’s help each other more and quit relying on the government for everything. Let’s quit dividing our society into warring subgroups of grumbling miscreants. Quit the identity politics – we are all, every one of us, created in God’s image. This is going to be hard work, long work. But we have to start. The path we’re on is taking us to dark, dark places.
For starters, don’t vote for arsonists.
And to head off (maybe) the disbelief (and abuse 🙂 ) I’m going to get by claiming our system works pretty well: I suggest we compare it to the alternatives. Want to go back to the 1930s in the US? Or almost any other country at almost any other time in human history.
Things need to be better. We are losing our culture, authoritarianism and statism is on the rise (for BOTH parties), the economy is sluggish, our job picture is changing for the worse, etc. etc. etc. But we still as a society, even among many of our poorest, are in general well fed, housed, smart-phoned, connected, and with enough leisure time to sit around on the internet and grouse about how the world’s ending…
@Lofquist, AesopFan, Bill – Programmers – Interesting!
Any of you use APL?
Back in college days, long ago, before spreadsheets, used APL in financial analysis.
It was a mind numbing combination of multi-dimensional array mathematics and greek symbols to program them.
What a way to learn programming! Ugh!
De-bugging was probably much harder on Assembler and the Machine Code output (had a buddy who coded programmable chips). So my respect, Bill.
(Nod to AesopFan and Lofquist too:
Never heard of CADOL and QIC, but seems they might be barely a step up from Assembler, considering the time frame and the nature of their use, right?
Supporting legacy COBOL – from the early days of “spaghetti code” – was/is itself rather challenging, no doubt)
Fortunately, APL was rather compact coding.
Even more fortunately, it was only required over one year in back to back courses.
“And to head off (maybe) the disbelief (and abuse 🙂 ) I’m going to get by claiming our system works pretty well: I suggest we compare it to the alternatives. Want to go back to the 1930s in the US? Or almost any other country at almost any other time in human history.”
Bill, don’t even need to take a history lesson to know.
Most of the world today STILL does not offer the opportunity, wealth, and freedom available to all who live here.
Most folks don’t realize it because they have never been anywhere else, are not interested in programs that show these other countries (nor hear any news about anywhere else, for that matter), and are not interested in studying any place else, nor world history.
Having had the good fortune to work in Europe and, especially, South America, the impact is almost immediate.
We have problems that most of the rest of the world wished they had.
We take SO MUCH for granted, that our first world problems take monumental proportions. (e.g. Transgendered bathrooms? Safe spaces? Micro-aggressions? Should a zoo gorilla have been shot? What is Kim Kardashion wearing today?).
Even within the US, folks should visit Mount Vernon, then ask themselves if they’d rather have what George Washington had (Being one of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals of his time, he was lacking many things: clean running water, latrine, refrigeration, air conditioning, instant communication, extremely slow/uncomfortable transportation, primitive medicine, etc, etc) vs even being poverty line to lower middle class today.
A large element on all sides in society have lost perspective.
This lack of perspective and the willingness to gamble on a man, who is showing all kinds of red flags, to “burn it all down” is how we fastpath our loss of liberty.
The outcome of leaders/approaches like that is rarely what those supporters imagine it to be, and they usually lose way more than they could have hoped to have gained.
What can be done about those things in the usual way?
I’m practically convincing myself here….
Sending crusaders to DC to clean them up is the Usual Way, and it has failed almost always. People’s ignorance about how powerfully connected DC is, is showing itself now more than ever.
Jeffrey Lord
Trump Is Right: The Shame of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell
The race-driven San Diego La Raza Association is exactly what’s wrong with the legal system.
http://spectator.org/trump-is-right-the-shame-of-paul-ryan-and-mitch-mcconnell/
Hating whites is so normalized that we think its not racism to play favorites, take jobs away, negate hate laws being applied, forbid them tohave organizations or groups wihtout making them out to be neo nazi, ignore their immigrant heritage and contributions, negate them from going to school, negate scholarships (go ahead, i bet you $100 you cant find a scholarhsip similar to the NAACP ones), and a whole lot more… (inclyuding no outrage when farakhan said kill white babies in the hospitals)
Note. The group supports “equality, empowerment and justice” not for all attorneys in San Diego – only for “Latino attorneys.”
your SOOL if you want the same and your from latvia, estonia, lituania, italy, germany, hungary, slovakia, czech republic, romania, holland, sweden, and more.
Note well goal number two – “Encourage and support Latino and Latina judicial candidates to apply to the bench.” In other words? The group wants to put not qualified attorneys of any color or gender on the bench. No, the insistence is a racially-oriented drive to put only one group – a group pre-selected by ethnic heritage on the bench. (Can you imagine the uproar if the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had belonged to a “white attorneys association”? Answer: Yes, you can.) Why might this be? The answer is obvious.
much more at link
“Sending crusaders to DC to clean them up is the Usual Way, and it has failed almost always. People’s ignorance about how powerfully connected DC is, is showing itself now more than ever.”
How do you know?
Yes, DC is connected. Guess what – we elect all of the elected officials there, who do all the appointments, etc. We have the power to – in a civilized, orderly, non-bloody, non-radical way – replace our government every few years.
You’d think we’d use that power to elect better leaders. But instead a lot of people have broken the glass and decided to go with the “scuttle the ship” approach, hoping that somehow out of the ensuing chaos our problems will be solved.
We need to elect better leaders. But instead we are reaching for authoritarian statists. This makes no sense. It will not end well.
Don’t vote for bad leaders. It starts there.
Because of such policies, i was told i will never have a raise or promotion for the rest of my life. put in horrid work conditions…
my indonesian wife and i will never have a baby together because i am white and this is policy. same wiht loans, SBA help, Home loans, scholarships, and more.
people are quite fed up…
after 12 years of service i have been denied raises that everyone else in the administration has, locked in a 100 degree room till i had a stroke, being worked now without breaks or lunches under fear of homelessness, son had to quit honros genetics without phd degree and join the military, and more
Me – some assembly language, Fortran, Cobol, Basic, QuickBasic, a little VisualBasic, Sas, SQL. I’ve seen a few others.
California Supreme Court that ruled, as reported by Fox News, this:
California’s Supreme Court voted Friday to prohibit state judges from belonging to the Boy Scouts on grounds that the group discriminates against gays.
The court said its seven justices unanimously voted to heed a recommendation by its ethics advisory committee barring judges’ affiliation with the organization.
yes thats right… state judges cant be a part of the boyscouts for their position on gay groop leaders (worryng about pederasty), but you CAN be on race based organizations as a judge, so long as they are not white, cause all whites, male and female are NAZI (and so should be exterminated outright if legal, democide if not)
Artfldgr
You’re making a case, whether it’s good or not, against minority professionals joining groups that exist to promote minority professionals. All well and good.
What you’re not doing is proving how the individual in question (Judge Curiel) is unqualified to hear the fraud case regarding Trump U. You have to prove that he is biased against Trump and that this bias will sway him to render something less than justice.
If the argument is that liberal judges can’t be fair to conservatives (Trump’s not one, btw, but I digress), well, that goes both ways doesn’t it? Couldn’t we just as well argue that conservative judges are biased against liberals?
If the argument is that Judge Curiel is a supporter of open borders (not sure if that’s established, but let’s say it is) – that might be an argument for him recusing himself in a case that had to do with border security or immigration. But the Trump U case has nothing to do with immigration.
If the argument is that people of Mexican descent are monolithic in their disdain for Trump’s wall and therefore can’t be trusted to provide justice to him regardless of whether the point in question has to do with said wall (he also said Muslims will be biased against him as well), then we’re talking about a person (Trump) who shouldn’t be elected President of the United States of America because he’s a racist. Because that’s the argument he’s making and it’s a racist argument.
Who does it work for, ask tom delay, ask Paul walker, how about senator Ted Stevens, but it may take a while to answer.
Ask George Zimmerman when he’s not doing a Richard kimball impression. One might inquire about the victims of Benghazi and the levick group that freed the organizer if the attack,
No the judge is part of an organization, national bar association, that sponsored a boycott of trump properties, conflict of interest, much.
Art:
Locked in a room? Exaggerate a little? None the less I appreciate your son’s service to our country.
“Trump has inferred bias from [the judge’s] decisions, not his race. … Racism goes from race to conclusion about the person. … This algorithm went from a conclusion about the person first — the judge is biased! — and then seeks a premise to support it. … Very different thing.” – ACE of Spades.
Wrong. Like Ace, “I gotta say, it’s bullshit..” back at him.
I see the point, but then the logical thing is to point at the evidence of bias (everybody is biased, so it is really about what their bias is based upon), not go fishing for some reason and settle on race, without anything more to support that conclusion, than declaring ” this guy is biased because of his decisions”. That is circular logic.
Not saying there wouldn’t be the possibility of the judge being bias based on his ethnic identification, but I don’t know that, so we’d have to trust Trump’s “judgement” on this.
And that is the point. We also have to take the context and source in mind, before we consider Trump to be “speaking the truth” and merely not being “politically correct”.
He has a track record of using innuendo, rumor, and ad hominem to attack those who he has even a minor perceived disagreement with.
So, has Trump nailed it, with his thorough, thoughtful, and objective analysis of the situation, or is he throwing gas on the fire as he usually does?
I know there is a line between the two possibilities, and that too many people on the right kowtow to the left’s PC narratives, but come on, we don’t have to twist logic to understand what Trump is doing here, do we?
WRT the judge: I don’t know what Trump thinks he’s doing, but one thing he is doing, purposely or not, is to make the ethnicity/bias argument back at the people who make it every day. Either they expect Sotomayor to find for ethnicity and empathy instead of that nasty, technicality law, or they reproach thomas for not doing so.
Now cometh Trump who’s throwing it back in their faces. Libs figured they had the franchise on that.
Certainly, Curiel’s associations, were they on the conservative side or its equivalent, would have justified, the libs would think, howls to heaven.
As to blowing things up: Sure we can elect better leaders. But we haven’t. Even good guys like Cruz don’t look as if they could get through the deadlock in Congress, the politicized DoJ, the corrupt EPA, the biased media.
I mean, look. Al Franken lost the senate election until something like 394 votes were found in somebody’s trunk–and 1100 felons voted illegally–and so we have another clown in the senate. As has been said, it it’s not close, they can’t cheat. But how much distance can cover the cheating? That presumes the Franken contest was clean up until the end.
The IRS. See the John Doe investigation in Wisconsin.
It’s not enough to have sufficient votes in an ideal situation. You have to be able to overcome the system, either by a landslide, or by fighting it out legally and justly in a close election. The latter doesn’t seem to be an option. Landslides are rare, by their nature. Might be on in Virginia, now that 300k felons will be allowed to vote.
So, for the frustrated, blowing things up, whatever they think Trump is going to do, seems like the only thing left.
I preferred Cruz. The folks who voted for Trump infuriate me. Trump or Clinton; awful choice.
Lastly, I suggest that the opposite of blowing things up would be Hillary’s wrapping the entire thing up in a tyranny of politicized departments and co-opted police and an enabling media.
Artfldgr, Big Maq, Bill:
As Big Maq and Bill said (and as I believe I said in my post “Note”), if that’s the case the Trump was trying to make, he has to actually make it. He did not.
Say what the judge has done that is biased. Ruling against the Great Trump is not enough. Say exactly what organization the judge is part of and mention some of the biased positions it holds. Describe how the two tie in. It wouldn’t take long to do it; doesn’t have to be a book. But unless it’s done, and if you say it’s due to the judge’s “Mexican heritage,” or just some Latino organization that “supports Mexico,” you haven’t done the job and you open yourself to charges of racism that seem very very plausible.
It’s what the left does—condemns people for being white, or male, or whatever, and implies bias. It’s wrong whichever side does it and only preaching to the choir.
With Trump, it just depends how big his choir is. I don’t think it’s so big that he will win in the general, as I’ve repeatedly said. And in fact I think these statements about Judge Curiel have hurt him more than most of the things he’s said in the past. You know why? Because the subject he’s talking about is not a principle such as immigration or PC speech or the like, it’s about a case—that of Trump University being accused of fraud—in which he already is looking bad. To imagine a judge ruling against him without being biased against him is not the least bit difficult.
Well, if Trump winning means things get blown up . . . then I hope he loses because I don’t think our system needs to be destroyed.
More likely, though, Trump winning just means the authoritarian statist shoe is on the other foot. Does anyone (anyone?) seriously think Trump won’t use the power of the executive branch to go after his “enemies”? Does anyone think Judge Curiel will survive the first 100 days of a Trump presidency with his career intact unless he rules in favor of Trump? Regardless of what’s right and just? What about anyone else who’s ever crossed him? Think he’s going to be spending his time doing what’s best for the country, or rather unleashing his grudges? The man is probably to have a narcissistic disorder – he’s not going to spend time doing things that aren’t about enhancing himself and punishing his enemies.
It’s all well and good when the arsonist is *your* arsonist, until he isn’t.
How about we just elect better leaders. I’m tired of the apocalyptic, hopeless talk. Elect better leaders. The reason it “doesn’t work” is so many people are stuck in the “lesser of two evils”, “oh well, I’ll vote for the person with the “R” (or “D”) after his/her name, what choice do I have?” mentality. We reward these cr@ppy candidates and their cr@ppy parties with our votes, then complain the system doesn’t work.
Vote for better leaders. Refuse to vote for bad ones.
As Insty says, the Blob will be keeping an eye on Trump they wouldn’t if Clinton were POTUS, so we have that protection. Could be big.
“I think these statements about Judge Curiel have hurt him more than most of the things he’s said in the past. … Because the subject he’s talking about is not a principle such as immigration or PC speech or the like, it’s about a case–that of Trump University being accused of fraud–in which he already is looking bad.”
Astute point.
I believe it is an attempt at misdirection – shiny object politics – something Trump excels at.
“How about we just elect better leaders. I’m tired of the apocalyptic, hopeless talk. Elect better leaders. The reason it “doesn’t work” is so many people are stuck in the “lesser of two evils”
Actually, I’d take it a step or two further.
Folks have ignored politics for so long, that they’ve left it to others to do the work. For many, their “duty” begins and ends at the ballot box (if that). No surprise then that we see a system reflecting and operating to the benefit of those most active.
Eric calls it activism, but that seems to connote something more negative / leftish / Alynskyite than I think he intends. I simply call it involvement.
The process starts in recruiting and vetting candidates. Then, supporting them through candidacy and election. Finally, in holding elected officials accountable.
There is much more to it than that (e.g. making the case in our communities, convincing others to buy in, organization, etc. – I’m sure Eric can articulate a huge list here), but the above is the foundation, IMHO.
Liberty is a Responsibility, not a Right.
As Insty says, the Blob will be keeping an eye on Trump they wouldn’t if Clinton were POTUS, so we have that protection. Could be big.
It’s more of a vain hope, I think, that Trump won’t be a disaster because of “X”.
X can be any number of things:
– the media will watch him. True, as far as it goes. For me, I want a boring president who’s not IN MY GRILL 24/7 the way Trump will be. Too much to ask?
– he’ll get impeached (seriously, I’ve seen people say that will keep him in check)
– he’ll hire the best people, top people. Terrific people (no evidence of this so far)
– he’ll become more presidential once he’s nominated (people were really hanging on to this one a month or two ago – anyone still think this?)
– he’ll suddenly morph into Ronald Reagan because . . . polls from 1980. This is plausible. Also, maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt…
Well said Big Maq.
Yesterday June 6th, 2016 at 9:24 pm I said this about Trump’s choice to focus on the fact that Curiel is of Mexican descent over and above, almost to the exclusion, of his political/professional associations with possibly shady leftist groups. :
“As many have pointed out he could have talked about this judge’s leftist ties, particularly to La Raza. And despite what some people seem to think he is articulate enough to make that argument. It isn’t a matter of Trump not being a seasoned politician, either. You, me, anybody could have. So could Trump. So why didn’t he?
Because he thinks this will work better with those knuckle-dragging moronic racist conservatives. Or as Obama would have but it, those “bitter clingers” with their Bibles and their guns and most importantly in this case their xenophobia.”
Today we receive confirmation this assessment was, in fact, correct.
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-statement-regarding-trump-university
“…I do not feel that one’s heritage makes them incapable of being impartial, but, based on the rulings that I have received in the Trump University civil case, I feel justified in questioning whether I am receiving a fair trial.
Due to what I believe are unfair and mistaken rulings in this case and the Judge’s reported associations with certain professional organizations, questions were raised regarding the Obama appointed Judge’s impartiality.”
Why, it’s almost as if right up until he wrote this press release Trump had never accused Curiel of being a Mexican, and it’s an inherent conflict of interest because “I’m building a wall between the US and Mexico.”
Confirmed: Trump always could have taken issue with Curiel without ever mentioning his Mexican heritage once, as in this press release. But he didn’t; Trump chose to emphasized Curiel’s Mexican heritage. Because, again, Trump thinks his supporters are stupid and racist.
One could make the case that this isn’t a matter of Curiel being of Mexican descent, but of Curiel being of Mexican descent hearing a case concerning a guy who’s talking bad stuff about Mexicans coming here, about a wall, about Mexico paying for it.
Different issue.
Oh, yeah. WRT the KKK analogy. Point is not whether La Raza is worse than, better than, the same as, or completely different from the Klan.
Point is, if it were the Klan, or a Klan-lite, the person making Trump’s claim would be considered to be speaking Truth.
Some affiliations qualify and some don’t. No particular reason which is which, except to convenience liberals.