Donald Trump Is Correct To Hit ‘La Raza’ Judge For Latino Identity Politics

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by JOSEPH MURRAY6 Jun 20162062

“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.”

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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.

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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.

Hillary Clinton immediately launched a political advertisement. The ad claimed that Trump’s questioning of Judge Curiel’s impartiality was “the definition of racism.” It also incorporated the growing list of Republicans condemning Trump’s Curiel criticism.

“I don’t condone the comments,” Sen. Bob Corker, another potential Trump VP, said on ABC’s “This Week,” adding Trump is “going to have to change.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stated that he hoped Trump “will change direction” in dealing with Latinos.

But what exactly had Trump done wrong? How was it unreasonable to suggest that a judge belonging to a group pledging to advance Latino interests might be biased against the man who wants to build the wall that hinders the interests of Latino politicians?

Had we not just witnessed Latinos in San Jose throw eggs and sucker punches at Trump supporters, and wave the Mexican flag? Had not McConnell himself, by hoping Trump would change his standard rhetoric, conceded that liberal Latinos – of which Curiel belongs – viewed Trump’s proposals with animus?

If one listened to Hillary and her cabal of Republicans, Trump is a modern day version of Orval Faubus – the Arkansas governor who resisted court ordered integration of schools. But that conclusion is based on left-wing fan fiction that holds any time a white male questions a protected minority the motivation must be rooted in discriminatory animus.

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Judge Curiel’s integrity is not being questioned by Trump just because of his Hispanic heritage. Trump is merely asserting that a person’s heritage does not foreclose a proper inquiry into their political activism and potential biases; he is suggesting that Curiel – a man who supports awarding an illegal alien a scholarship – might not view favorably a man who wants to deport the said scholarship recipient.

Recusal is a common theme when pro-choice advocates run up against pro-life judges. Recently, some scholars wantedJustice Antonin Scalia to recuse himself from McCullen v. Coakley; a case concerning abortion clinic buffer zones. But such requests are rarely viewed in a negative light.

The fact is seeking recusal – even if just discussing it – is a great way to preserve the integrity of the bench. Federal judges are appointed for life, unelected, and reviewed by other unelected judges. It is why Thomas Jefferson warned the federal bench could easily become a “despotism of an oligarchy.”

So why blast Trump for his Jeffersonian view of the judiciary? Democrats know Hillary is in trouble. They know the economic outlook is bleak and for almost 8 years the party has had no answers. It is why Hillary is making much ado about nothing and, frankly, the voters don’t care about the judicial politics of one class action lawsuit.

But this debate is not just about Trump or Trump University; it is about a politically correct double standard that permits liberals to use the faith of pro-life judges to boot them from a case, but calls questioning the ethnicity based activism of a liberal judge racism. And this is a concept the voters understand.

Liberals made Trump’s comments about race because they know a reasonable person might conclude Curiel’s activism creates the appearance of impropriety. The sad thing is Republicans, much like a battered spouse, are so accustomed to the politically correct abuse they accept it as the new normal.

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By validating Hillary’s race card, Republican leaders have exhibited one of the worst examples of Stockholm syndrome. And when the dust settles, Newt will see that he and his fellow Republicans are the ones who made the “inexcusable” mistake.

Joseph R. Murray, II, is a civil rights attorney, former campaign official for Pat Buchanan, and author of “Odd Man Out”. He can be reached at jrm@joemurrayenterprises.com.

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2016 Presidential Race, Immigration, 2016 campaign, Donald Trump, federal judiciary,immigration

BREAKING: CLINTON CAMP MELTDOWN

Clinton weighs staff shake-up after New Hampshire

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The talk of shake-up echoes what happened in 2008 – when Hillary Clinton was on the verge of sacking her campaign manager and several top communications officials – before her surprise win here bailed out her beleaguered staff. | Getty

'The Clintons are not happy, and have been letting all of us know that,' one Democrat says.

By Glenn Thrush and Annie Karni

02/08/16 02:04 PM EST

Updated 02/08/16 02:18 PM EST

Hillary and Bill Clinton are so dissatisfied with their campaign’s messaging and digital operations they are considering staffing and strategy changes after what’s expected to be a loss in Tuesday’s primary here, according to a half-dozen people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The Clintons -- stung by her narrow victory in Iowa -- had been planning to reassess staffing at the campaign’s Brooklyn headquarters after the first four primaries, but the Clintons have become increasingly caustic in their criticism of aides and demanded the reassessment sooner, a source told POLITICO.

The talk of shake-up echoes what happened in 2008 – when Clinton was on the verge of sacking her campaign manager and several top communications officials – before her surprise win here bailed out her beleaguered staff. Over time, however she slowly layered over top officials, essentially hiring old hands – like Hillaryland stalwart Maggie Williams and pollster Geoff Garin – to run the campaign while the previous staff were quietly relegated to subsidiary positions.

It’s not clear if that will happen again, but several people close to the situation said Clinton would be loathe to fire anyone outright and more inclined to add new staff.

“The Clintons are not happy, and have been letting all of us know that,” said one Democratic official who speaks regularly to both. “The idea is that we need a more forward-looking message, for the primary – but also for the general election too… There’s no sense of panic, but there is an urgency to fix these problems right now.”

Ultimately, the disorganization is the candidate’s own decision-making, which lurches from hands-off delegation in times of success to hands-around-the-throat micromanagement when things go south.

At the heart of problem this time, staffers, donors and Clinton-allied operatives say, was the Clinton’s decision not to appoint a single empowered chief strategist – a role the forceful but controversial Mark Penn played in 2008 – and disperse decision-making responsibility to a sprawling team with fuzzy lines of authority.

“There’s nobody sitting in the middle of this empowered to create a message and implement it,” said one former Obama 2008 aide. “They are kind of rudderless… occasionally Hillary grabs the rudder, but until recently she was not that interested in [working on messaging]… Look, she going to be the nominee, but she’s not going to get any style points and if she isn’t careful she is going to be a wounded nominee. And they better worked this shit out fast because who ever the Republicans pick is going to be 29 times tougher than Bernie.”

The focus of their dissatisfaction in recent days is the campaign’s top pollster and strategist Joel Benenson, whom one Clinton insider described as being “on thin ice,” as the former first couple vented its frustrations about messaging following Clinton’s uncomfortably close 0.25 percent win in last week’s caucuses. Benenson, multiple staffers and operatives say, has been equally frustrated with the Clintons’ habit of tapping a rolling cast of about a dozen outside advisers – who often have the candidate’s ear outside the official channels of communication.

The result is a muddled all-the-above messaging strategy that emphasizes different messages – and mountains of arcane policy proposals – in stark contrast to Bernie Sanders’ punchy and relentless messaging on income inequality.

“He’s a good pollster, and they promised him a lot more authority… but, you know, we are talking abut the Clintons,” said one veteran operative who acts as a surrogate with the campaign.

In President Obama’s two successful campaigns, access to the candidate was carefully monitored by campaign manager David Plouffe and other top advisers to ensure that the messaging and communications teams had coherent and cohesive short- and long-term plans. So far Clinton ’16 – which is supposed to be modeled on the Obama efforts – has functioned sloppily, with the Clintons absorbing off-the-books advice – even strategy memos – from family friends and advisers like Sidney Blumenthal, branding expert Roy Spence, current Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and even Penn, who speaks exclusively to the former president, according to multiple sources.

In recent days, Hillary Clinton has tasked her campaign manager Robbie Mook – an expert at field organizing who commands the nearly unanimous loyalty of his staff – to expand his role from primary-and-caucus-state ground game logistics to messaging, with an additional emphasis on beefing up the campaign’s underperforming digital operation, which is seen as a key to challenging Sanders’ primacy with Democrats under 30.

The pressure on Mook comes at a time of what was arguably his greatest triumph: The 35-year-old campaign manager ran, what was by all accounts, a first-rate ground operation in the caucuses that maximized Clinton’s voter turnout in rural areas and among older voters — an effort that was barely able to beat back the overwhelming support the Vermont socialist senator got on Iowa’s college campuses and among the state’s cadre of progressive voters.

Moreover, several staffers told POLITICO Mook’s data and analytics operation was so well run, he was able to tell Clinton herself that she had won — even as the networks were declaring the race too close to call. “Get over to the hotel now!” he told the former secretary of state, according one aide who was at campaign headquarters on caucus night. “We need to beat Bernie!” — a mad rush to declare victory before Sanders took the stage to declare the contest a draw. Eight years ago, Mook played the same role when he ordered then Sen. Clinton to declare victory in the Indiana primary over Barack Obama — despite network projections that she might lose the state.

As the new year began, Clinton operatives were eager to take credit for the lack of internal drama; many credited Mook and the loyalty he inspires among his staffers with creating a leak-proof and seemingly functional team -- there had been no stories chronicling the internal turmoil, split factions, public spats and overhauls that defined Clinton’s dysfunctional 2008 campaign team.

But from the beginning, there have been deeper issues simmering within the cheerfully-decorated Brooklyn headquarters -- and much of that had to do with a disconnect between the candidate and her campaign. Over the summer while her campaign was bogged down in the email controversy, Clinton was deeply frustrated with her own staff, and vice versa. The candidate blamed her team for not getting her out of the mess quickly, and her team blamed Clinton for being stubbornly unwilling to take the advice of campaign chairman John Podesta and others to apologize, turn over her server, and move on. The entire experience made her a deeply vulnerable frontrunner out of the gate, and underscored a lack of trust between Clinton and her operatives, many of whom were former Obama staffers that she didn't consider part of her inner circle of trust.

Her advisers were also frustrated by having to play roles they hadn’t been hired for and were ill-suited for. From the beginning, Benenson was frustrated that he was forced to split his time between defending his boss on emails and defining a path for her candidacy. Clinton, meanwhile, longed for a chief strategist in the Mark Penn mold who could take on a more expansive role than playing pollster.

Insiders said the problem remains her message. “The message is, she’s fighting. She’s fighting for you,” said one ally. “We have to drive that.”

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Glenn Thrush is POLITICO's chief political correspondent.

COMMENTS

Backlash From Hispanics Against Hillary Clinton: #NotMyAbuela

#NotMyAbuela

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

by JOHN HAYWARD23 Dec 20151,140

Hillary Clinton’s clumsy pandering to racial groups, and her campaign theme of portraying herself as America’s Grandma-in-Chief, collided in a website post inviting Hispanic voters to think of her as their abuela, or grandmother.

The mockery greeting this post–#NotMyAbuela–isn’t the reaction Clinton’s campaign was hoping for.

The post is entitled “7 things Hillary Clinton has in common with your abuela.” (It was originally called “7 ways Hillary Clinton is just like your abuela,” but her tone-deaf campaign team hastily changed it after the backlash began.) Those seven things, as described by the vast army of highly-paid political consultants this particular abuela employs, include:

She worries about children everywhere.Because no one else running for President worries about children.

She knows what’s best. (This point wins extra creepy totalitarian points by citing Clinton’s enthusiasm for climate change as an example of “knowing what’s best.” The climate change movement is increasingly focused on asserting that democracy ends where their theology begins, and unquestioning compliance with their demands is mandatory.)

She reacts this way when people le faltan el respeto. In other words, when people fail to show respect. This probably isn’t the right tack for a gazillionaire aristocrat noted for her arrogance to present herself to voters.

The Clinton campaign demonstrated how she reacts to people who don’t show respect with a GIF of Clinton looking exasperated at a congressional hearing – a moment from the Benghazi hearing, perhaps? Double clueless points for campaign staff if so. Too bad Clinton didn’t show the men who died in Benghazi some respect, isn’t it?

She reads to you before bedtime. Yes, this is seriously a point the Clinton campaign thinks will sell a presidential candidate to Hispanic voters. Enjoy being patronized, folks!

She isn’t afraid to talk about the importance of el respecto (especially when it comes to women). Well, except for women who accuse her husband of sexual harassment or assault, that is. The example of Clinton’s soaring respect for women is her lecturing Donald Trump about daring to say he “cherishes” them, which is pretty weak tea for a woman running as Feminist Numero Uno.

She likes to highlight accomplishments. The example provided is a GIF of Clinton saying she has “met and worked with DREAMers.”  What about all her “accomplishments” as Secretary of State?

.. And she had one word for Donald Trump. The word is basta, or “enough.”

This couldn’t be more patronizing if it had been whipped up by Trump’s campaign as a phony website to make Hillary Clinton look bad.

The Hill collected responses on Twitter that mocked the super-rich, whiter-than-white Clinton for daring to presume she knows anything about being a Hispanic grandmother:

Hillary is #NotMyAbuela but I bet she pays someone like my abuela does her hair.

— Mary Sue ⭐ (@MarySueRenfrow)December 22, 2015

Besides very accurately dismantling how the Clinton-bot’s programming operates, this last post mocks Clinton for wrapping up her abuela list with a photo of herself and singer Marc Anthony, gushing “Everybody loves abuela – even this guy.”

It will be fun to watch Hillary claim she’s a better Hispanic grandmother than the grandmothers of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). If either of them is the Republican candidate, it looks like we’ll be in for another round of Democrats claiming that racial identity is defined by strict obedience to left-wing political dogma – you’re only an authentic member of your demographic group if you vote Democrat, and their elderly white candidates are more “authentic” than Republicans who actually belong to the demographic in question.

It would be very dismaying to think this kind of absurdly heavy-handed pandering worked with any American demographic. So far, it doesn’t look like Hispanic voters are going for it.  

History should have taught Americans of every background to be extremely suspicious of any politician who runs as the National Father or Mother.

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Big Government, 2016 Presidential Race,Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton, 2016 campaign, Hispanic Voters