Born in Kenya - Some opponents (Trump leads the effort, with $5 million reward) of Obama's presidential eligibility claim that he was born in Kenya and was therefore not born a United States ...
Haa? Not you, as you're American - but not in his eye, even you're born in America like federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel - Trump called federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel a "hater," questioned his ability to fairly oversee a lawsuit targeting Trump University and suggested, cryptically, "they ought to look into Judge Curiel."
The Indiana-born judge is "a Mexican," Trump has said repeatedly, painting Curiel as a vengeful, intemperate bench presence.
You, not a chance - You're kidding! No, I'm not. Read if you'll -
Is it he only called American? For God sake, -- get the facts straight, ask yourself? Who's doing un-American?
America is all about inclusiveness, freedom to speak - strength we all admire and came for - What's the heckuva of Trump - anti-America !
我想无数遍强调的是：人们对美国的爱，既不是对土地的爱（哪里都有美丽的山河），也不是对血缘的爱（哪个人种都有俊男美女）；既不是对民族的爱（哪个民族都有自己骄傲的特色），更不是对国家的爱（独裁者的天下总有最大的爱国理由）。热爱美国，是对自由的爱。而一个人，只有对自由的爱才会永不疲倦、永无尽头！所以，捍卫美国，是捍卫“我自己”的自由——在一个人所有的动力中，没有比捍卫自己的自由更大的动力。所以，尽管艰难，自由在一路地胜利。(Who wrote this? - check it out yourself) -- Haah: (2016-06-06 11:03:57) 王朔:一群不爱自己祖国的人为什么会爱美国？美国人爱国的核心是爱“自由的价值”)
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Cuban also called Trump’s racialized criticism of the judge presiding over the multi-state fraud suit against Trump University “pretty sad.”
“I mean, it’s trying to intimidate a judge for any reason is ridiculous, particularly the position he’s in right now,” Cuban said. “It’s more a reflection on Donald. And the reality is, the lawsuits with Trump University go back long before Donald decided to run for president. You know, it’s a Hail Mary on Donald’s part because he knows he’s wrong. It’s a sad reflection on him.”
Newt Gingrich Suck up, but got rejected! Read about this Newt - chaotic history!
Donald Trump says judge in university court case biased by 'Mexican heritage'
Judge Gonzalo Curiel accused of ‘conflict of interest’ in fraud case, while report suggests Trump donated to officials who dropped action against the university.
CNN)Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has called federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel a "hater," questioned his ability to fairly oversee a lawsuit targeting Trump University and suggested, cryptically, "they ought to look into Judge Curiel."
The Indiana-born judge is "a Mexican," Trump has said repeatedly, painting Curiel as a vengeful, intemperate bench presence.
But a simple review of Curiel's public record quickly undermines -- if not outright debunks -- Trump's repeated allegations. And lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, legal experts and civil rights advocates have all denounced Trump's rhetoric.
Curiel himself has remained quiet, his office citing the judicial code of conduct. His brother, Raul Curiel, told CNN: "I know my brother is not taking it seriously. Some other people might ... I think Trump feels that this division is working in his favor but he's actually creating the bigger division as we speak."
Here are five things to know about the federal judge now at the center of GOP standard-bearer's latest round of headline-grabbing attacks.
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1. Mexican drug cartel target
Before he was first appointed to a state-level judgeship in 2006, Curiel worked as a federal prosecutor in Southern California with a focus on drug cases -- and with them, the Mexican cartels.
In the late 1990s, Curiel's efforts to extradite a pair of alleged cartel gunmen to Mexico put him directly in the traffickers' crosshairs. The Los Angeles Times reported at the time that, according court documents, "a top lieutenant in the Arellano Felix drug trafficking cartel" told another inmate he planned to have "Curiel assassinated and that he had requested and received permission from the leaders of the Arellano cartel."
Curiel was quickly provided a security detail, including bodyguards who traveled with him until the threat passed. He would go on to serve, between 1999 and 2002, as the lead attorney for the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.
"During this period, he led an investigative unit of more than 20 federal agents and four assistant U.S attorneys that successfully extradited and prosecuted leaders, assassins and members of the infamous Arellano-Felix drug cartel," Sen. Barbara Boxer's office said in a statement following his 2011 nomination to the federal court.
In 2012, Sen. Richard Blumenthal introduced Curiel at his confirmation hearing, touting the judge's "extraordinary experience" and decades in the courtroom.
"One of the most significant cases involved the successful prosecution of the Arellano Felix drug cartel, a multi billion-dollar drug trafficking ring responsible for more than 100 murders in the United States and Mexico," he said.
2. Schwarzenegger's pick
"The judge was appointed by Barack Obama," Trump told supporters during a lengthy San Diego speech on May 27, the day Curiel ordered the release of documents related to the Trump University lawsuit.
But Curiel's journey from prosecutor to the bench began long before President Barack Obama's nomination arrived in November 2011. Then-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, appointed Curiel in 2006 to the state superior court, where he spent six years before ascending to the federal court.
3. Sons of immigrants: Curiel and Trump
"My parents came here from Mexico with a dream of providing their children opportunities," Curiel said in his introduction to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2012. "And they've been able to do that with the opportunities that this country has to offer."
The future federal judge was born in East Chicago, Indiana, in 1953. His parents, both immigrants from Jalisco, Mexico, were naturalized citizens.
Curiel's brother, Raul, told The New York Times his father first entered the country as a laborer in Arizona in the 1920s. That would mean Curiel's father was actually in the U.S. before Trump's own mother (she arrived in the 1930s), who -- like Curiel's -- became a citizen herself after marrying his father.
"My concern is that (Trump's attacks are) hurting other people. It's hurting our image as sons of immigrants. It hurts our people in general," Raul Curiel said in interview with CNN on Monday. "Being a Hispanic, it hurts these kinds of things. It doesn't hurt me personally. And I don't think it hurts my brother personally. We're above those kinds of things."
4. Indiana, born and raised
Curiel grew up, attended college, and began his professional life in the state of Indiana.
A 1976 graduate of Indiana University, he stayed in Bloomington for law school, entering private practice in Dyer, a city just outside his hometown, three years later. Curiel would spend seven years there, before eventually moving to Monterey, California, to continue his private work in 1986.
He joined the federal prosecutor's office for the Southern District of California in 1989, eventually being promoted to assistant U.S. attorney in 2002.
5. 'I'm not there to make the law'
Trump has sought to undermine Curiel's propriety by suggesting he could not separate personal politics from the law of the land. But an exchange from the judge's 2012 confirmation hearing with Sen. Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, suggests Curiel takes a more measured view of his current role.
How did Curiel, Blumenthal asked, "see the role of a district judge versus the appellate court?"
"As a trial judge I recognize that I'm not there to make the law," Curiel said. "I'm not there to interpret the law, I'm there to follow the law as established by the precedent of our Supreme Court."
Donald Trump has stepped up his attack on the federal judge presiding over the Trump University fraud case, telling the Wall Street Journal that Gonzalo Curiel’s assignment to the case represents “an absolute conflict” because he is “of Mexican heritage”.
“I’m building a wall,” Trump said, of his proposed 2,000-mile barrier along the US-Mexico border with the stated goal of preventing undocumented immigrants from entering the country. “It’s an inherent conflict of interest.”
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s statements follow a speech in San Diego last week in which he lambasted Curiel as “a hater of Donald Trump” and “a total disgrace”.
“They ought to look into Judge Curiel,” Trump declared at the time, “because what Judge Curiel is doing is a total disgrace.” Trump also asserted that the Indiana-born Curiel “happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great”.
Curiel was born in Indiana, to parents who came from Mexico.
Soon after Trump’s comments to the Wall Street Journal were published, the candidate himself was implicated in questions of official impartiality on the Trump University case. A report from the Associated Press published on Thursday evening revealed that the presumptive Republican nominee donated tens of thousands of dollars to attorney generals who declined to pursue fraud charges against the now defunct organization.
Trump donated $35,000 to the gubernatorial campaign of Greg Abbott, then Texas attorney general – a campaign that was ultimately successful – after Abbott’s office dropped a 2010 investigation into Trump University’s “possibly deceptive business practices”.
Florida’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, who endorsed Trump the day before the crucial primary in that state, reportedly declined to join New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman’s multi-state fraud suit against the organization after the Donald J Trump Foundation made a $25,000 contribution to a political action committee supporting her re-election campaign.
Trump is facing three class action lawsuits against Trump University over allegations of fraud. Trump denies all the charges and has vowed to fight them in court.
The notion that judges cannot rule on cases involving religious, racial or other minorities of which they are members is universally discredited in the American legal system.
The question was notably addressed in 1994, when Judge Michael Mukasey denied a motion from Omar Abdel Rahman and El Sayyid Nosair, suspects in a terrorist plot, to recuse himself because of his Jewish faith.
Mukasey declared that such a recusal would “disqualify not only an obscure district judge such as the author of this opinion, but also [supreme court justices] Brandeis and Frankfurter … each having been both a Jew and a Zionist”.
Republican candidate for senate Ryan Frazier has an interesting line of attack against Washington elites in a new ad, in which entrenched congressional inaction is compared to a zombie apocalypse.
“They just keep coming at us - devouring our freedoms and tax dollars,” Frazier intones in the ad, as low-rent zombies hiss and growl at the camera. Who, exactly?
“The Washington elite: The walking deadheads.”
Described in the ad as a “naval intelligence veteran, business leader, outsider, [and] zombie hunter,” Frazier pledges to “fight a corrupt system” if he is elected to the senate. Presumably, with a machete.
Maine Republican senator Susan Collins has issued a statement condemning presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s racialized criticism of federal judge Gonzalo Curiel, who presides over the multi-state fraud suit against Trump University.
“Donald Trump’s comments on the ethnic heritage and religion of judges are absolutely unacceptable,” Collins said. “His statement that Judge Curiel could not rule fairly because of his Mexican heritage does not represent our American values. Mr. Trump’s comments demonstrate both a lack of respect for the judicial system and the principle of separation of powers.”
Trump has repeatedly stated that Curiel’s assignment to the case represents “an absolute conflict” because he is “of Mexican heritage”.
“I’m building a wall,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal, of his proposed 2,000-mile barrier along the US-Mexico border with the stated goal of preventing undocumented immigrants from entering the country. “It’s an inherent conflict of interest.”
Collins, a moderate Republican, has said that she will support Trump’s presidential bid.
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Texas congressman to Donald Trump: 'Take your border wall and shove it up your ass'
Congressman Filemon Vela, a Texas Democratic, has published a blistering open letter to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, calling him a racist and telling the real estate tycoon that “you can take your border wall and shove it up your ass.”
This, but in letter form. Photograph: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images
“Your ignorant anti-immigrant opinions, your border wall rhetoric, and your recent bigoted attack on an American jurist are just plain despicable,” Vela wrote. “Your position with respect to the millions of undocumented Mexican workers who now live in this country is hateful, dehumanizing, and frankly shameful.”
Filemon, who represents the heavily Latino Texas 34th congressional district on the Gulf Coast, tells Trump that he has “descended to a new low in your racist attack of an American jurist,” referring to Trump’s racialized criticism of federal judge Gonzalo Curiel, who presides over the multi-state fraud suit against Trump University.
“Before you dismiss me as just another ‘Mexican,’ let me point out that my great-great grandfather came to this country in 1857, well before your own grandfather,” Vela writes.
“I would like to end this letter in a more diplomatic fashion, but I think that you, of all people, understand why I cannot,” he concludes. “I will not presume to speak on behalf of every American of Mexican descent, for every undocumented worker born in Mexico who is contributing to our country every day or, for that matter, every decent citizen in Mexico. But, I am sure that many of these individuals would agree with me when I say: ‘Mr. Trump, you’re a racist and you can take your border wall and shove it up your ass.’ ”
Former presidential half-brother - and potential future presidential brother-in-law - Roger Clinton has been arrested in Southern California for driving under the influence, according to TMZ.
This undated photo provided by the Redondo Beach Police Department shows Roger Clinton. Photograph: AP
On Sunday, just two days before the California Democratic primary, Clinton was reportedly booked for driving under the influence in the Los Angeles suburb of Redondo Beach. He reportedly remains in police custody with his bail set at $15,000.
It’s not Clinton’s first run-in with the law. Known by the Secret Service during his brother’s presidential campaign as “Headache,” Clinton was granted a presidential pardon by his half-brother in 2001 for a 1985 cocaine possession conviction.
Online entertainment and news titan Buzzfeed has cancelled an advertising agreement with the Republican National Committee, citing the “offensive” rhetoric of the party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, who is “directly opposed to the freedoms of our employees in the United States and around the world.”
Donald Trump. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
The Republican National Committee signed an agreement with BuzzFeed in April to spend “a significant amount on political advertisements” set to run during the fall campaign season, wrote Buzzfeed founder and CEO Jonah Perretti in an email to Buzzfeed staff.
But since Trump’s rise, Perretti said, the candidate’s positions have become “hazardous” to Buzzfeed’s readers and employees. “Trump advocates banning Muslims from traveling to the United States, he’s threatened to limit the free press, and made offensive statements toward women, immigrants, descendants of immigrants, and foreign nationals,” Perretti wrote.
That’s why “earlier today Buzzfeed informed the RNC that we would not accept Trump for President ads and that we would be terminating our agreement with them,” he continued. “The Trump campaign is directly opposed to the freedoms of our employees in the United States and around the world and in some cases, such as his proposed ban on international travel for Muslims, would make it impossible for our employees to do their jobs.”
“We certainly don’t like to turn away revenue that funds all the important work we do across the company,” he concluded. “However, in some cases we must make business exceptions: we don’t run cigarette ads because they are hazardous to our health, and we won’t accept Trump ads for the exact same reason.”
David French’s longshot independent bid for the White House is over before it even began.
The National Review columnist, whose name was put into contention as a possible anti-Donald Trump conservative candidate by Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, has declared in an article for his magazine that “after days of prayer, reflection, and serious study of the possibilities, I am not going to run as an independent candidate for president of the United States.”
French had been courted by conservatives unsatisfied with the nomination of Donald Trump to run as a possible spoiler candidate. But, French reasoned, “given the timing, the best chance for success goes to a person who either is extraordinarily wealthy (or has immediate access to extraordinary wealth) or is a transformational political talent.”
Since French is a relatively unknown lawyer who doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, much less a record of holding public office, “it is plain to me that I’m not the right person for this effort.”
Donald Trump: Criticism from Newt Gingrich 'inappropriate'
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told Fox News this morning it was “inappropriate” for former House speaker Newt Gingrich to criticize his racialized attacks on a federal judge in the multi-state fraud suit against Trump University. Trump’s remarks perhaps put a damper on rumors that the one-time Georgia congressman is being vetted as a potential running mate.
Newt Gingrich. Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP
“You have to respond,” Trump said, of his public criticism of district court judge Gonzalo Curiel, whose impartiality in the case is questioned by Trump because of his Latino heritage. “All I’m trying to do is figure out why I’m being treated so unfairly by a judge.”
Gingrich suggested on Fox News Sunday that Trump’s line of attack was unbefitting a presidential nominee, calling his remarks “inexcusable” and Trump’s “worst mistake”.
“Trump has got to, I think, move to a new level,” Gingrich said. “This is no longer the primaries. He’s no longer an interesting contender. He is now the potential leader of the United States and he’s got to move his game up to the level of being a potential leader.”
Last week, Trump told the Wall Street Journal Curiel’s assignment to the case represented “an absolute conflict” because he is “of Mexican heritage”.
“I’m building a wall,” Trump said, of his proposed 2,000-mile barrier along the US-Mexico border, supposed to prevent undocumented immigrants from entering the country. “It’s an inherent conflict of interest.”
Before the row, Gingrich’s prospects of joining the Republican presidential ticket were expected to get a boost from megadonor Sheldon Adelson, according to three conservatives with links to Gingrich or the casino billionaire. Adelson has pledged $100m to back Trump’s White House bid – and the sources familiar with Adelson and Gingrich told the Guardian that they thought close ties between the two men should help the former House speaker’s chances.
“Given Adelson’s respect for Newt and that Gingrich encouraged Adelson to back Trump, it would make sense that Adelson has been pushing Gingrich for vice-president,” said one senior Republican operative who talks to Gingrich fairly often.
Donald Trump may be a billionaire, according to entrepreneur and football châtelain Mark Cuban - but there’s no way he’s worth as much as he says he is.
“You know, I think if it all came down to it, yes, because the price of New York real estate has just sky-rocketed over the last five years,” Cuban told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on New Day. “You know, assuming he hasn’t had to keep on borrowing because he has had liquidity issues then, yeah, I would give him credit for being a billionaire. But is he worth ten billion? Nah.”
Cuban also called Trump’s racialized criticism of the judge presiding over the multi-state fraud suit against Trump University “pretty sad.”
“I mean, it’s trying to intimidate a judge for any reason is ridiculous, particularly the position he’s in right now,” Cuban said. “It’s more a reflection on Donald. And the reality is, the lawsuits with Trump University go back long before Donald decided to run for president. You know, it’s a Hail Mary on Donald’s part because he knows he’s wrong. It’s a sad reflection on him.”
