Tag: racist: hispanic

Trump: Mexican American Judge Has an ‘Absolute Conflict’

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Trump University logo

Was Donald Trump’s racist suggestion last week that Judge Gonzalo Curiel, an American of Mexican descent, could not fairly preside over a lawsuit about so-called Trump University simply an off-the-cuff remark? If so, Trump seems to have decided to go with it. The Wall Street Journal reports:

In an interview, Mr. Trump said U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel had “an absolute conflict” in presiding over the litigation given that he was “of Mexican heritage” and a member of a Latino lawyers’ association. Mr. Trump said the background of the judge, who was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrants, was relevant because of his campaign stance against illegal immigration and his pledge to seal the southern U.S. border. “I’m building a wall. It’s an inherent conflict of interest,” Mr. Trump said.

Perhaps one reason Trump lashed out at Curiel once more was the release of documents from the case on Tuesday, which painted Trump University in an unflattering light.

(h/t The Atlantic)

Reality

Donald Trump’s claim that a person can not perform their job for the singular reason because their heritage is a textbook example of a racist quote.

The Republican candidate’s insistence that Gonzalo Curiel cannot preside impartially simply because of his ethnic heritage flies in the face of established precedent. Trump’s claim is irrelevant, as ethnicity plays no apparent role in the Trump University case. His argument also sits in uncomfortable contradiction to his prior claims that “the Latinos love me.”

Trump’s statement is troubling for a variety of reasons. Curiel was born in Indiana to parents who had immigrated from Mexico, and Trump has referred to Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and criminals. But the case at hand involves an allegedly fraudulent series of real-estate seminars Trump set up—in other words, it has nothing to do with ethnicity whatsoever. He has discovered that by grossly insulting a group to which a judge (sort of) belongs, he can then argue that the judge is tainted. As Peter Beinart of The Atlantic, among other observers, has pointed out, Trump’s demand that an unblemished judge step down from the case amounts to an attack on the independence of the American judiciary.

(Editor’s Note: Today is a short day so the ‘reality’ section is from our cited source and not our own.)

Trump: ‘Illegal Immigrants Are Taken Much Better Care of by This Country Than Our Veterans’

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Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses the Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally to highlight POW-MIA issues on Memorial Day weekend in Washington, U.S. May 29, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst - RTX2EQSU

Donald Trump told a Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally that people in the U.S. illegally often are cared for better than the nation’s military veterans. Trump was speaking at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where hundreds of thousands of bikers gathered to honor prisoners of war and service members missing in action.

“In many cases, illegal immigrants are taken much better care of by this country than our veterans,” Trump told the attendees. “We’re not going to allow that to happen any longer.”

“We’re gonna rebuild our military,” he continued. “And we’re gonna take care of our veterans. Our veterans have been treated so badly in this country.”

(h/t PBS)

Reality

Donald Trump tries to show he has the back of our country’s veterans, however there has been some rather large controversial moments during his campaign. Trump once said that Senator John McCain wasn’t a war hero because he was caught by the enemy, and has yet to apologize for making that comment. Trump also claimed for 4 months that he donated $1 million dollars to veteran charities, which he eventually did but only after journalists uncovered he was lying the whole time.

Donald Trump does have a point that veterans must be treated better by our lawmakers, both Republican and Democrat, as the Veterans Administration has seen its troubles over the years. From unsatisfactory treatment and conditions at the Walter Reed Medical Center and long wait times under George W. Bush, to Obama firing Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki in 2014 for long wait times and false record-keeping. And not much has been done because to this day wait times are still an issue at VA hospitals.

However, all that aside, the main issue here is how Donald Trump is making a false choice between veterans and illegal immigrants. He is instilling a nativist “us-versus-them” mentality to his supports by exploiting veterans to play on patriotism by pitting them against illegal Mexican immigrants. In effect, Donald Trump is trying to convince you that there are only two choices, “fund vets or fund illegal immigrants,” when there are actually more than two options.

There are probably hundreds of different and competing ideas to raise revenues or reform spending in order to fund better VA services. For example, we could end or cut back on corporate welfare, which according to the right-leaning CATO Institute cost taxpayers $100 billion per year. And another choice would be to let the Bush tax cuts expire, which according to the Congressional Research Service cost taxpayers on average $350 billion per year. Even Trump’s plan to repeal Obamacare would leave 37 million people uninsured again but would save taxpayers on average $67 billion per year. To boil a very complex answer down to “either vets or illegals” is simply illogical and dishonest.

Finally, Trump is pushing some long debunked far-right conservative myths how illegal immigrants are “a drain on the system” as the basis of his statement. These myths come from anti-immigration organizations, such as Center for Immigration Studies and Federation for American Immigration Reform, who consistently put out flawed studies that feed right-wing ideology for stronger immigration policies.

The fact is tax revenues of all types generated by immigrants, both legal and unauthorized, exceed the cost of the federal services they use. Undocumented immigrants pay into, but do not qualify for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, and most other public benefits. Most of these programs require proof of legal immigration status and under the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, even legal immigrants cannot receive these benefits until they have been in the United States for more than five years.

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Trump Attacks ‘Mexican’ Judge in Trump University Lawsuit

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Trump University logo

Over the course of 12 minutes, Donald Trump used a campaign rally in San Diego on Friday night to lace into the judge overseeing a lawsuit over Trump University, calling him a “hater” and speculating about his ethnicity.

“The trial is going to take place sometime in November. There should be no trial. This should have been dismissed on summary judgment easily,” Trump said. “Everybody says it, but I have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump, a hater. He’s a hater. His name is Gonzalo Curiel.”

“I’ll be seeing you in November, either as president…” Trump said, trailing off. “I think Judge Curiel should be ashamed of himself. I think it’s a disgrace that he’s doing this.” Trump brought up Curiel’s ethnicity: “The judge, who happens to be, we believe, Mexican…I think the Mexicans are going to end up loving Donald Trump.”

Several lawsuits — two in federal court in San Diego and one in state court in New York — allege that Trump’s now-defunct real estate school, Trump University, made false claims about instructors’ experience. Trump has already acknowledged in a deposition that he did not hand-pick the teachers, as marketing materials claimed, though he insists the program was valuable.

“They actually did a very good job, but I’ve won most of the lawsuits,” he said during a GOP debate in February.

Since then, Trump has repeatedly attacked Curiel and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, claiming the former is “Spanish” and the latter is out to get him for electoral gain.

At Friday night’s rally, he got more specific, telling the crowd he believes Curiel — who was born in the United States — is Mexican.

“The judge, who happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great, I think that’s fine,” Trump said, according to the LA Times. “You know what? I think the Mexicans are going to end up loving Donald Trump when I give all these jobs, OK?”

(h/t Politico)

Reality

As we investigated before, Trump University was a massive scam.

Curiel, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court in November 2011 by President Barack Obama, previously served as a Superior Court judge in San Diego and, for 17 years prior to that, as a federal prosecutor. He was born in East Chicago in 1953 and earned his J.D. in 1979 from the Indiana University School of Law. From 1999-2002, Curiel headed the Narcotics Enforcement Division for the Southern District of California, where he prosecuted drug smugglers working across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Earlier this month, Curiel delayed the start of trial proceedings until November.

Media

Donald Trump’s ‘Taco Bowl’ Message: ‘I Love Hispanics’

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Less than 48 hours after becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump began his Hispanic outreach with … “taco bowls.”

On his social media accounts, including Twitter, Mr. Trump shared on Thursday afternoon a photo of himself eating what he called a taco bowl and offering a thumbs up at his desk in Trump Tower, along with the message:

Happy #CincoDeMayo! The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics!

During his telephone interview with “Fox & Friends,” Trump responded to remarks from Democratic strategist Robert Zimmerman, who called the tweet offensive and akin to the ayatollah of Iran posting a picture of him enjoying matzoh ball soup “and claiming he loves Jews.”

That’s a terrible thing that a guy can say that. As of yesterday, I had 59,000 retweets. 59,000 in a short period of what? That’s almost got to be some kind of a record. People loved it.

It is not a record.

Trump then claimed:

I’m going to do great with Hispanics. I mean, I’m going to do fantastically because I’m bringing jobs back to America.

(h/t New York Times, Politico)

Reality

Mr. Trump has alienated many Hispanic voters with his campaign, which he began with a speech that dubbed Mexicans as criminals and rapists. His rallies often include rowdy calls to build a large wall at the border with Mexico.

Seventy-seven percent of Hispanic registered voters view Mr. Trump unfavorably and only 12 percent view him favorably, according to a Gallup poll in March. And Hispanic leaders immediately seized on Mr. Trump’s taco bowl posts as demeaning.

Also if you notice, Donald Trump’s taco bowl had no guacamole. No guacamole! Who orders a taco bowl and skips on the guacamole!?

 

Trump Blames Immigrants for Rise in LA Crime

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Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump opened his California campaign in Costa Mesa, addressing thousands of supporters in a rambling speech that lasted more than an hour. Trump mostly stuck to this usual stump speech – attacking Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton, and the media.

But in the latter part of his address, he made note of a sharp rise in local crime rates. We wanted to check out his claims.

Claim #1: Crime is up. 

“In Los Angeles, homicides are up 10.2 percent,” Trump said. “Rapes are up 8.6 percent. Aggravated assaults are up 26.5 percent,” he told the raucous crowd. “Your crime numbers, they’re going through the roof, and we can’t have it anymore.”

Trump’s statistics are correct. He was citing LAPD statistics. Crime rates did rise significantly last year in Los Angeles and other major cities. However, what he leaves out is that crime levels are far below historic rates.

Last year, the city recorded 280 homicides. That was 26 more than 2014. But in 1990, there were 1,100 murders in Los Angeles.

“When you look at the long-term trends in Los Angeles, the arrows are pointing in the wrong direction for any sort of crime increase,” said Franklin Zimring, director of the criminal justice research program at Boalt Hall’s Earl Warren Legal Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. “Homicides are not just lower, but vastly lower.”

Claim #2: Illegal immigration is to blame for the crime spike

Trump was on much less solid ground when he blamed the crime spike on illegal immigration from Mexico.

To underscore his point, he opened his speech by ceding his podium to Jamiel Shaw Sr., whose son was shot and killed in Los Angeles by an immigrant in 2008. He also invited to the stage other locals whose loved ones were killed by immigrants.

As he has his entire campaign, Trump vowed to crack down on what he describes as a flood of illegal immigrants.

“We are going to build the wall,” Trump added. “Mexico is going to pay for the wall.”

What Trump never mentions is that government statistics show a sharp drop in illegal immigration.

The United States Border Patrol reported 337,117 apprehensions nationwide last fiscal year, compared to 486,651 the year before, a 30 percent decline.  That’s also a nearly 80 percent decline since the peak of apprehensions in fiscal year 2000, when more than 1.6 million apprehensions were made.

A 2015 Pew Research Center study also found that between 2009 and 2014, more Mexican nationals left the U.S. than came. The study found that an estimated 1 million Mexican nationals (including their U.S.-born children) left the U.S. to return to Mexico, but less than 900,000 migrated to the U.S. in the same time period.

Zimring also points out that decades of academic research has shown new immigrants tend to be law abiding.

“First generation immigrations of all kinds have extremely low crime rates,” said Zimring.

(h/t NPR)

Trump Outlines Stupid Plan To Get Mexico To Pay For Border Wall

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Great Wall of Trump

Donald Trump announced he would use a federal anti-terrorism surveillance law as a tool to force Mexico to pay for the border wall he has pledged to build on the U.S.’s southern border.

Trump outlined the steps his administration would undertake to compel Mexico to pay the U.S. “$5-10 billion” to fund a border wall in a memo his campaign released Tuesday morning — a plan that relies largely on threatening to bar undocumented Mexican immigrants in the United States from wiring money to relatives in Mexico.

Using a broad interpretation of the post-9/11 USA Patriot Act, Trump writes in the memo that he would threaten to issue new regulations that would compel money transfer companies like Western Union to verify a client’s identity and legal status before authorizing a wire transfer.

Trump’s plan reads just like how he talks.

  1. Day 1, broaden a provision in the Patriot Act, a (shitty) law used in the fight against terrorism, to include wire transfers. Also include a requirement that no alien may wire money outside of the United States unless the alien first provides a document establishing his lawful presence in the United States. So if you are brown skin then Trump’s plan requires you to first provide proof of citizenship to wire money to Mexico.
  2. Mexico waits 24 hours to complain. No really here is the exact quote, “On day 2 Mexico will immediately protest.” It goes on to claim without citation that “they” receive approximately $24 billion a year in remittances from Mexican nationals working in the United States, mostly from illegal aliens.
  3. Day 3, Trump publicly threatens the Mexican government to pay for the wall now, otherwise he will enact tariffs so harsh it will hurt both economies.
  4. Enact trade tariffs that will hurt both economies should the Mexican government not comply. And to quote, “Mexico needs access to our markets much more than the reverse, so we have all the leverage and will win the negotiation.”
  5. Threatens to cancel visas.
  6. Threatens to increase visa fees which Trump claims would pay for the wall all by itself.

The memo then concludes by blaming Mexico directly for crime, drugs, and the costs to the legal system from prosecution and incarceration.

Mexico has taken advantage of us in another way as well: gangs, drug traffickers and cartels have freely exploited our open borders and committed vast numbers of crimes inside the United States. The United States has borne the extraordinary daily cost of this criminal activity, including the cost of trials and incarcerations. Not to mention the even greater human cost. We have the moral high ground here, and all the leverage. It is time we use it in order to Make America Great Again.

Reality

Here’s the really stupid thing about Trump’s plan. If I’m a person who entered this country illegally, and live in this country illegally, what makes him think that I would only resort to purely legal ways of sending money back home. If a black market exists to get me here, why wouldn’t a black market exist to send my money back? And like most illegal immigrants I stay away from criminal elements, why not instead legally send a check or pre-paid Visa card in the mail? If you stop and think about each one of Trump’s proposals, it gets defeated with simple logic.

The sad fact is Donald Trump is single-handedly destroying the United State’s relationship with our 3rd largest trading partner. Our economy with Mexico is so intertwined that a goal to force economic hardships will amount to shooting ourselves in the foot. Look around your room,in your garage, or in your fridge, without a doubt you are looking at something that you purchased inexpensively and was made entirely or in part in Mexico. Now image you paid more for all of those things you see all because Donald Trump raised tariffs.

Furthermore, to bastardize an already questionable anti-terror law to require anyone who wishes to send money outside of the United States to first prove their citizenship could place an undue burden on that individual and would be difficult to prove that it is not illegal or unconstitutional.

Now about the actual cost. As we’ve discussed before, The Great Wall of Trump will not cost $10 billion but $25 billion plus $750 million every year for maintenance.  Let’s forget for a moment the illogical conclusion that blocking person-to-person money transfers will somehow effect the the Mexican government so drastically it will cause Enrique Nieto cave in and pay for a wall. Mexico does not receive $24 billion per yer in remittances as Trump claimed, but instead $19.9 billion.

There is a problem with that $19.9 billion number as it includes all remittance outflow to Mexico from both citizens and illegal immigrants. The real number, according to The World Bank for money transfers to Mexico from migrants is only $7 billion per year. It would take 4 years of unconstitutionally and magically collecting wire transfers until we would break even, and at that point the damage to both of our economies would be felt by the average American.

Links

http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/05/politics/donald-trump-mexico-wall-pay/index.html

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/pay-for-the-wall

Trump Calls Rallies ‘Loud, Noisy Majority’ in Fountain Hills

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Republican front-runner Donald Trump swaggered into Arizona again Saturday, repeating his promises to build a border wall, renegotiate U.S. trade deals and generally “make America great again.”

Wearing a blue jacket and red golf hat as he addressed the thousands gathered in Fountain Hills Park, Trump made a final pitch ahead of Arizona’s presidential primary on Tuesday.

“Go out on Tuesday and vote. I will never let you down,” he told the crowd, which had waited for hours in warm sunshine. He referred to them as a “loud, noisy majority.”

Trump was joined on stage by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, former Gov. Jan Brewer and Treasurer Jeff DeWit. Former Arizona lawmaker and 9/11 “truther” Karen Johnson prayed to open the event.

Trump’s arrival was delayed by protesters who blockaded one of the main traffic arteries into Fountain Hills. And he was in a fighting mood as he deployed his signature name-calling.

Trump’s angry tone endured throughout his shorter-than-usual 30-minute speech, which also focused on immigration-related themes.

“I want to tell you so much about illegal immigration, and so much has been mentioned about it and talked about it,” Trump said. “And these politicians are all talk, no action, they’re never going to do anything. They only picked it up because when I went and when I announced I’m running for president, I said, ‘you know, this country has a big, big problem with illegal immigration.’ And all of a sudden, we started talking about it and then had lots of bad things happening. Crime all over the place and for the first time people saw what was going on.”

Trump’s rallies have consistently been targets of protesters who oppose his call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States and his hard-line positions on immigration and rhetoric, such as when he called Mexican immigrants drug runners and rapists.

At times during Trump’s speech, protesters, who stood in a fenced area of the park, chanted in competition with supporters.

Early in Trump’s speech, a protester scuffled with supporters after he unfurled a banner reading, “Vets to Trump: End hate speech against Muslims.” Two Trump supporters slapped down the banner and the man was quickly escorted from the rally.

Media

Links

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/03/19/donald-trump-fountain-hills-tucson-arizona-rally/82007552/

This Is What Happens When a Black Man Goes To a Trump Rally Alone

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James Troupe attends a Trump rally

When James Troup decided to attend a Donald Trump rally in Dayton, Ohio, he knew that there was bound to be more than a bit of factually inaccurate fear mongering, but he never expected to see a crowd literally calling for the murder of protestors.

While Troup himself went to the rally merely to watch the spectacle of it all, he described a number of protestors being dragged out of the venue much to the delight of Trump’s supporters. According to Troup, a black man, his race compelled Trump’s staffers to assign him a security buffer of sorts in the event that the crowd decided to turn on him during the event.

“The scariest part was the crowd,” Troup described in a series of posts to Facebook. “They loved everything that was being said. The calls for the wall. The calls to blow up oil fields. The calls to torture and kill people.”

Throughout the event, Trump fired the crowd up describing the necessity of erecting a wall between the U.S. and Mexico in addition to taking a firm stance in support of torturing enemies of the state.

Trump’s rambling speech was repeatedly drowned out by the crowd’s roaring cheers that were noticeably peppered with a number of racial slurs directed at Latino people and President Barack Obama.

Troup managed to peacefully stand his ground during the bulk of the event until, once more black protestors had been kicked out, Trump supporters focused on him.

“The worst part was when their venom turned toward me,” Troup wrote. “There were protestors around me who got ushered out, and then people started pointing at me, motioning for the Secret Service to ‘get him out of there.’ Now mind you, I hadn’t uttered a single word the entire rally, but people still said things like ‘Well what about this one? He needs to go too!’”

Ultimately, Troup left the event feeling as if he’d witnessed something darker and more insidious than a simple political rally.

“At that rally, I saw the scary underbelly of America I saw unadulterated hate, fueled by intentional misinformation,” Troup said. “These people who, just 2 hours ago, seemed like good and kind people, were now cheering for blood.”

Links

http://fusion.net/story/280795/donald-trump-dayton-rally/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=boost

Trump Staff Eject Reporter for Trespassing

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Sun-Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo was ejected from a rally and threatened with incarceration for Donald Trump after he filmed attendees leaving the event early.

A Trump campaign official named Justin said something about needing to go to the media pen and Mayo declined. Justin, the campaign official said Mayo couldn’t film, who then chuckled, saying of course I could, seeing as how hundreds if not thousands of other attendees were doing the same thing. The Trump campaign official said Mayo would have to leave, and that they’d need to see law enforcement.

“Tell him we’re trespassing him,” the Trump campaign official told a deputy. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

The campaign official told Mayo to walk with him to talk to a law enforcement officer. Sgt. John Sluth for an explanation on why he had to leave.

“This is not a public park,” Sgt. Sluth said. “Tonight [this amphitheater] is rented by the Donald Trump campaign and they are the ones who say who can come or go … It’s just like if you go to the BB&T Center and a representative from the Florida Panthers comes up and tells you that you have to leave, you have to leave.”

According to Mayo when he appeared on All In With Chris Hayes:

There was no rules or attachment, any guidelines attached to that ticket saying you can’t do this, or they didn’t ask me about if I was a newspaper person. I just showed up, went through the metal detectors like everybody else and was roaming around the crowd. And actually, the crowd everybody in the general admission crowd was using their phones to take photos and videos and was actually encouraged to post to social media by the campaign people and the warm up rallies, they even gave a special hashtag for the event. So they’re encouraging everybody to use their phones, to use social media tweet, Facebook and I did the same.

(h/t Sun Sentinel)

Reality

Mayo was able to get inside but was treated differently, singled out and targeted for ejection. It could have been because, as a reporter at a Trump event, he was not standing in a specially-barricaded “media pen” that credentialed media for the event were restricted to. As with the case with other attendees at the Boca Raton event, it could very well have been the color of his skin.

I did not try to get a media credential for the event. In my mind, there was no need to. I wasn’t writing on deadline, I didn’t have my computer, and I didn’t require any special access. I hadn’t agreed to any special ground rules or conditions, and I was simply doing the same thing that hundreds, if not thousands, of other attendees were doing.

 

I just wanted to be an Average Joe, free to mingle with my fellow South Floridians and experience this event like 6,000 others. As a columnist I often do things that way. It’s the exact same way I covered a Marco Rubio campaign rally on Super Tuesday (March 1) at Tropical Park in Miami.

 

I had no hassles or issues there.

 

But with Trump, as many people are finding out, things are different

It is important to note that, since Donald Trump is not the United States government, the First Amendment protection for peaceful assembly does not apply. Even though it was on public property, when the government leases public property for an event space, the private lessee may legally exclude individuals. Individuals can be ordered off the property and be arrested for trespassing if they do not comply. The Trump campaign was well within their legal rights to exclude whoever they wish.

Media

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/sfl-columnist-kicked-out-trump-rally-boca-video-20160314-premiumvideo.html

Links

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-michael-mayo-reporter-kicked-out-trump-rally-20160314-story.html

Trump Asks Protester If He Is From Mexico

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Reporters and rally attendees found themselves at the intersection of Trump’s feelings toward Mexicans and protesters when the GOP presidential candidate yelled at one from his podium, demanding to know their family’s country of origin.

Media

Links

http://www.mediaite.com/online/amid-usa-usa-chant-trump-grills-protester-are-you-from-mexico/

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