Category Archives: Law

UPDATED: Judge Alberto Gonzales For Trump Vs. Judge Gonzalo Curiel For La Raza

Criminal Injustice, Donald Trump, Justice, Law

Judge Gonzalo Curiel is a picture of judicial impropriety, claims Alberto R. Gonzales, “White House counsel and U.S. attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, dean and Doyle Rogers Distinguished Professor of law at Belmont University College of Law in Nashville, Tenn.”

Yet not one anti-Trump, indignant journo—from Megyn Kelly (Fox News) to Chris Matthews to Katy Tur to Joe Scarborough to Chris Hayes (MSNBC) to Don Lemon to Erin Burnett (CNN) to Trump’s proliferating, less-than-competent female surrogates, to the domesticated Republicanscondemning the candidate—has mentioned Gonzales’ name or the incriminating facts he divulged about Justice Curiel’s unfitness to sit in judgment of Donald Trump.

Gonzales wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post titled “Trump has a right to ask if Judge Gonzalo Curiel is fair”:

“… An independent judiciary is extremely important. But that value is not the only one in play here. Equally important, if not more important from my perspective as a former judge and U.S. attorney general, is a litigant’s right to a fair trial. The protection of that right is a primary reason why our Constitution provides for an independent judiciary. If judges and the trials over which they preside are not perceived as being impartial, the public will quickly lose confidence in the rule of law upon which our nation is based. For this reason, ethics codes for judges — including the federal code of conduct governing Curiel — require not only that judges actually be impartial, but that they avoid even the “appearance of impropriety.” That appearance typically is measured from the standpoint of a reasonable litigant. …”

“… Certainly, Curiel’s Mexican heritage alone would not be enough to raise a question of bias (for all we know, the judge supports Trump’s pledge to better secure our borders and enforce the rule of law). As someone whose own ancestors came to the United States from Mexico, I know ethnicity alone cannot pose a conflict of interest.”

“But there may be other factors to consider in determining whether Trump’s concerns about getting an impartial trial are reasonable. Curiel is, reportedly, a member of a group called La Raza Lawyers of San Diego. Trump’s aides, meanwhile, have indicated that they believe Curiel is a member of the National Council of La Raza, a vocal advocacy organization that has vigorously condemned Trump and his views on immigration. The two groups are unaffiliated, and Curiel is not a member of NCLR. But Trump may be concerned that the lawyers’ association or its members represent or support the other advocacy organization. Coupled with that question is the fact that in 2014, when he certified the class-action lawsuit against Trump, Curiel appointed the Robbins Geller law firm to represent plaintiffs. Robbins Geller has paid $675,000 in speaking fees since 2009 to Trump’s likely opponent, Hillary Clinton, and to her husband, former president Bill Clinton. Curiel appointed the firm in the case before Trump entered the presidential race, but again, it might not be unreasonable for a defendant in Trump’s position to wonder who Curiel favors in the presidential election. These circumstances, while not necessarily conclusive, at least raise a legitimate question to be considered. Regardless of the way Trump has gone about raising his concerns over whether he’s getting a fair trial, none of us should dismiss those concerns out of hand without carefully examining how a defendant in his position might perceive them — and we certainly should not dismiss them for partisan political reasons. … .”

MORE: “Trump has a right to ask if Judge Gonzalo Curiel is fair.”

The Statist Mindset Of ‘Libertarians’ Garry Johnson & William Weld

Donald Trump, Law, libertarianism, Nationhood, Rights, The State, War

Gary Johnson and his sidekick William Weld, Libertarian Party goofballs, are running for president and VP, respectively. The two fulminated to CNN’s Victor Blackwell against Donald Trump. From the libertarian perspective, though, their mindset was much more statist and deferential to state structures than Trump’s.

Weld, in particular, went over the various policies Trump was proposing, voicing objections to each that were thoroughly statist.

WELD: Some of the stuff that he’s running on I think is absolutely chaotic. I’m going to do this to Mexico. OK, that’s a violation of the North American Free Trade agreement, which is the supreme law of the land. It is a treaty. We signed it. I’ll do this to China. No questions asked. OK, that’s a violation of the World Trade Organization rules [which good libertarians despise], exposing us, the United States, to sanctions. And we would be the rogue nation. I don’t think we want to be the rogue nation. You know? Let’s let North Korea be the rogue nation, not us.

Trump can’t do what he proposes because he’ll be in violation of this or the other agreement between states, national and international, which Weld treats as holy writ.

Not to real libertarians. The idea of radical freedom is to dissolve the chains with which others have bound us. Smashing or refashioning these agreements and reclaiming national, state and individual sovereignty, as Trump proposes, is more libertarian than the queasiness these two evince at such actions.

Johnson and Weld objected to Trump’s proposals on the statist grounds that renegotiating agreements or optimizing them for Americans would violate agreements that by their nature sideline the American people.

You don’t get more un-libertarian than that. Then there’s the viva Hiroshima attitude:

UPDATED 5/26 (It’s A Done Deal!): New Mexico Trump Rally: Beautiful Inside; Ugly Outside

Crime, Donald Trump, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Republicans

Donald Trump’s rallies are filled with ordinary, average, peaceable Americans; the Silent Majorly that dare not speak its name. Look at those faces behind him: beaming, sweet and so happy for Trump, their guy. As Trump put it, “We’re having a good time, amazingly, because the subject matter is so bad.”

He loves them. And I kind of do, too. One can’t deny that ordinary Americans are sweet, open people. But they’ve been pushed too far by the Traitor Class, which has empowered the underclass. Trump’s rallies are beautiful inside; ugly outside. The haters, the takers, the entitled, the totalitarians raged outside.

These vandals media have termed protesters. But if you “throw burning T-shirts, plastic bottles and other items at police officers [and their poor horses], overturn trash cans and knock down barricades”—you are a criminal, a vandal and a thug who should be arrested, jailed and prosecuted for damage to property, people and working animals.

For its part, the Albuquerque police has reassured America by … professing pacifism in the face of hooliganism. No arrests were made and no tear gas was used:

What a shame. It’s hardly reassuring to know that in America, vandals who damage property and threaten people and working animals go scot-free.

“We’re going to build a real wall,” said Trump, mentioning that since Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, the number of manufacturing jobs in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has declined by 40 percent.

Trump directed the crowd’s anger at America’s failed leadership, not at the people present, promising that empty factories across the country will open their doors again. The realtor bemoaned the factories that have fallen into disrepair and were standing empty. Factory owners don’t nee low-interest loans, he mocked, which was the bribe offered to job creators by the US government (at the expense of the same stiffed taxpayer).

New Mexico’s Gov. Susana Martinez-–she had endorsed Gang of 8 Marco Rubio—got her comeuppance from Trump for her rude snub of the People’s rally.

Since 2000, the number of people on food stamps in New Mexico has tripled,” Trump told a raucous crowd. “We have to get your governor to get going. She’s got to do a better job. Okay? Your governor has got to do a better job. She’s not doing the job.

UPDATE (5/26): It’s A Done Deal!:

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Will Trump Renege On This FIRST-DAY-IN-OFFICE Promise?

Donald Trump, Law, libertarianism, Morality, Ron Paul

I like this Donald Trump YouTube most. In it, the vintage old Trump promises to “terminate” or nullify laws passed through executive orders. It’s doable. But why do I no longer believe him? Trump has not thrown the liberty community a single liberty minded candidate. We want Ron Paul and yes, even little Rand in some official capacity, supervised by dad, will ameliorate statism.

The Trump act that’s hard to get beyond is his cruelty to Chris Christie. “Get on the pane and go Home. It’s over there. Go.” However self-serving Christie was being in endorsing Trump, Trump still owed him a deb of gratitude for exposing The Marcobot so brilliantly. Face it, Trump is not quick that way.

It’s hard to understand the joy the media took in this ugly open mic moment—and it’s not that I’m a fan of Christie’s; the opposite. Irrespective of the kind of person Christie is (and I’ve written mostly negatively about him); this cruelty reflects badly on Trump. But I’m too soft. I know.