Patrick Buchanan writes: Before the lynching of The Donald proceeds, what exactly was it he said about that Hispanic judge?
Stated succinctly, Donald Trump said U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is presiding over a class-action suit against Trump University, is sticking it to him. And the judge’s bias is likely rooted in the fact that he is of Mexican descent.
Can there be any defense of a statement so horrific?
Just this. First, Trump has a perfect right to be angry about the judge’s rulings and to question his motives. Second, there are grounds for believing Trump is right.
On May 27, Curiel, at the request of The Washington Post, made public plaintiff accusations against Trump University — that the whole thing was a scam. The Post, which Bob Woodward tells us has 20 reporters digging for dirt in Trump’s past, had a field day.
And who is Curiel?
An appointee of President Obama, he has for years been associated with the La Raza Lawyers Association of San Diego, which supports pro-illegal immigrant organizations.
Set aside the folly of letting Clinton surrogates like the Post distract him from the message he should be delivering, what did Trump do to be smeared by a bipartisan media mob as a “racist”?
He attacked the independence of the judiciary, we are told.
But Presidents Jefferson and Jackson attacked the Supreme Court, and FDR, fed up with New Deal programs being struck down, tried to “pack the court” by raising the number of justices to 15 if necessary.
Abraham Lincoln leveled “that eminent tribunal” in his first inaugural, and once considered arresting Chief Justice Roger Taney.
The conservative movement was propelled by attacks on the Warren Court. In the ’50s and ’60s, “Impeach Earl Warren!” was plastered on billboards and bumper stickers all across God’s country.
The judiciary is independent, but that does not mean that federal judges are exempt from the same robust criticism as presidents or members of Congress.
Obama himself attacked the Citizens United decision in a State of the Union address, with the justices sitting right in front of him.
But Trump’s real hanging offense was that he brought up the judge’s ancestry, as the son of Mexican immigrants, implying that he was something of a judicial version of Univision’s Jorge Ramos.
Apparently, it is now not only politically incorrect, but, in Newt Gingrich’s term, “inexcusable,” to bring up the religious, racial or ethnic background of a judge, or suggest this might influence his actions on the bench.
But these things matter.
Does Newt think that when LBJ appointed Thurgood Marshall, ex-head of the NAACP, to the Supreme Court, he did not think Marshall would bring his unique experience as a black man and civil rights leader to the bench?
Surely, that was among the reasons Marshall was appointed.
When Obama named Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, a woman of Puerto Rican descent who went through college on affirmative action scholarships, did Obama think this would not influence her decision when it came to whether or not to abolish affirmative action?
“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,” Sotomayor said in a speech at Berkeley law school and in other forums.
Translation: Ethnicity matters, and my Latina background helps guide my decisions.
All of us are products of our family, faith, race and ethnic group. And the suggestion in these attacks on Trump that judges and justices always rise about such irrelevant considerations, and decide solely on the merits, is naive nonsense.
There are reasons why defense lawyers seek “changes of venue” and avoid the courtrooms of “hanging judges.”
When Obama reflexively called Sgt. Crowley “stupid” after Crowley’s 2009 encounter with that black professor at Harvard, and said of Trayvon Martin, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” was he not speaking as an African-American, as well as a president?
Pressed by John Dickerson on CBS, Trump said it’s “possible” a Muslim judge might be biased against him as well.
Another “inexcusable” outrage.
But does anyone think that if Obama appointed a Muslim to the Supreme Court, the LGBT community would not be demanding of all Democratic Senators that they receive assurances that the Muslim judge’s religious views on homosexuality would never affect his court decisions, before they voted to put him on the bench?
When Richard Nixon appointed Judge Clement Haynsworth to the Supreme Court, it was partly because he was a distinguished jurist of South Carolina ancestry. And the Democrats who tore Haynsworth to pieces did so because they feared he would not repudiate his Southern heritage and any and all ideas and beliefs associated with it.
To many liberals, all white Southern males are citizens under eternal suspicion of being racists. The most depressing thing about this episode is to see Republicans rushing to stomp on Trump, to show the left how well they have mastered their liberal catechism.
COMMENTS:
* It’s not “inexcusable” to bring up the racial or ethnic background of a jury, though. That’s practically de rigeur these days. In fact, the ethnic or racial composition of jury members can serve as “grounds” for an appeal.
* I’ve spent some time at a site for those laid off from Intel. It’s very instructive. Many are angry about the H1B visas. This is called “hate” by those with H1B visas. Yet those same people gloat about the destruction of whites and say they deserve it because they are lazy and stupid. “Ha, ha. You’re losing your country,” the so-called guest workers say. Oddly, they do not see this as hateful or racist stereotyping as many POC don’t think racism can ever be attributed to them.
I think this is all going to plan as far as the one world orders plans for a 1-world sweatshop, but if we are to have any debates in this election about what is best for our country, it needs to begin with the recognition that bigotry is an equal opportunity employer.
* You are right on all counts. Trump should not back down.
I have extensive personal experience with judges and can say that they are arguably worse than elected politicians. They are even more arrogant because they don’t face even a slight chance of being removed from office, which at least some of our elected politicians do.
Judges typically do not even pretend to know and follow the constitution. They legislate without the honesty to acknowledge that’s what they’re doing, without the guts to run for office, and with supreme confidence that they are equipped to dictate how the rest of us inferior people should live. Dems and republican alike, judges strongly tend to side with expansion of state power and with government thugs, whether police or irs agents or dea agents.
And I’ve seen judges be obnoxious, sarcastic, demeaning, insulting, and threatening to their staff and to attorneys many, many, many times in a number of States over the last quarter century or so. Both dems and republicans, but the worst offenders were democrats.
We need term limits for federal judges, an end to guaranteed full-salary pension, and a mandate that congress publish and publicly consider comments by the public, litigants, attorneys, and court staff about how the various judges treat people.
Our judicial system is a disgrace and a comfortable home for america’s enemies.
* In some Commonwealth countries, criticism of the judiciary, as well as criticism of judgments can be prosecuted under the concept of “scandalization of the judiciary.” i.e. creating an air of scandal around a judge or the courts.
It appears that the same impulses drive those who would tell Trump to shut up and not criticize a sitting Federal judge for possibly being biased as a result of his ethnicity. This is not a good trend in a free society.
* “Hispanic” is a misnomer applied by the US Census Bureau. It is a ridiculously broad thing that only leads to confusion.
The majority of Latin American people, including most of those invading the United States, are heavily Native American, which is a race.
Conquistadores like Judge Curiel and other political leaders of the invasion are primarily European, Spanish. Their people have subjugated and exploited the Native American race as a lower class in Latin America since arriving there five centuries ago.
They are perfectly happy to see the United States become part of their two-class, Latin world and serve as a relief valve for Latin America’s economic and social problems.
* The term “La Raza” began in an era when people of mixed heritage (usually indigenous native American i.e. Aztec, Maya, Tarahumara, etc and Spanish, generically speaking) were looked down upon as ‘less than’ so they took the term la raza and redefined it as a positive when compared to the Spanish concept of pureza de raza, usually meaning no jewish or quasi Islam background) often viewed as negative. A lie, this pureza de sangre (pure ‘blood’) when many of these people had jewish ancestry and were actually conversos trying to escape the tyranny of their Spanish/Portuguese brethren. The High Priest of the Inquisition, Torquemada was at the top of the food chain, having to be more Catholic than the Pope. imagine that.
Not unlike the N word (at best, the tonal quality of the descriptive) when compared to the Southern pronunciation and its past context of US apartheid at its best.
La Raza, meaning US , nosotros, la gente (we the people) and positive acceptance of mixed ethnicity. Nothing more or less is meant with the use of the term La Raza. In context, it is Mexican so La Raza Lawyers Organization is just a lawyers group of Mexican American formed when they were not welcomed in the white lawyers organizations!
