Hollende and The Mayor of San Jose!
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More hypocrisy from France.
France is a ghost nation, a remnant of its former glory days so it's leader, Hollande, tries to resurrect this morally bankrupt country by holding a conference hoping to impose on Israel his plan of what will bring peace to the world, ie. force Israel to part with land, divide Jerusalem and kiss the behinds of Palestinian murderers.
That Netanyahu and Abbas were not invited to their own funeral is telling but then the French are used to being occupied and know how to act when such occurs. For those who believe you learn nothing from history I mention the word Vichy! (See 1 and 1a below.)
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Not to continue beating a dead horse but someone recently pointed out The Supreme Court just overturned a Georgia case because a black defendant was tried by an all white jury. As I understand it, there was no overt evidence of prejudice but this Supreme Court felt an all white jury could not be impartial and yet Hillary and her surrogates, the media and press are attacking Trump for accusing a judge of his inability to be impartial.
Justice Sotamayor made reference to herself at her confirmation and commented about a wise Latin woman might reach a better conclusion than a white guy. Bias on the bench is alive and well. (See 2 below.)
Liberals have been using the liberal press and media for years to engage in hypocrisy when it suits their case and you can bet the 2016 will reach a high water mark when it comes to this level of behaviour.
The difference, this time around, unlike the Romney's of the world, is that Trump is willing to fight back. You can argue whether he is right or wrong but it is refreshing to see a man representing Republicans, whether he is one or not, stand up to bias and hypocrisy. Perhaps he will do the same should he become president and put an end to seven years of Obama's apologizing for and attacking our nation.
A few days ago I posted a memo describing a luncheon meeting I had with Brent Bozell and his subsequent address hosted by the SIRC. In his brief remarks, Bozell discussed the bias of the liberal press and media and also described what he referred to as "un-reporting."
Un-reporting is just what the word says/implies, give little, if any, coverage to news that might be damaging to their cause, to their agenda etc. Well lately poor old 'rich' Donald has been raked over the coals for his Trump University involvement but no reporting of "Bilious' " connection to a comparable privately owned education facility whose owners wrote a large check in order to use his name etc.
Bozell also ticked off instance after instance of press and media 'un-reporting' and in one case cited 17 seconds was given to a major event which is the equivalent of 'un-reporting.' My liberal friends hate Fox News and Bret Baier's 6 O'Clock reporting yet they have never listened to the program.
Their tirades remind me of when I asked one of my daughter's what she was holding in her clinched fist and she denied she was holding anything.
My wife listens to Limbaugh and liberals just hate him because he is clever and unmasks their hypocrisy and yet they have never listened to him. They just repeat the 'kool aid' message they hear from their friends.
I am constantly sent articles by liberal friends written by Tom Friedman and other slaves of the New York Time's editorial plantation and I read them, respond back and often even find they make some points, lame one perhaps, but at least I read them. I recently received one from a self-acclaimed moderate by Friedman who wrote the Republican Party had lost its moral moorings because Trump was their nominee. I told my long time friend I thought Friedman's head was flat ( I read his book about the flat world) and I would acknowledge when he wrote a comparable article about The Democrats and their own Hillarious nominee but at least I read his biased tripe because he asked me to and I am always willing to endure the other view if the source is legitimate and known. That is what conservatism demands. Listen to the other side, become informed and then reject if so inclined.
Generally liberals are unwilling to listen and, as we see from their efforts on campuses and at Trump political rallies they actually engage in drowning out the other side. This is fascism but liberals believe if they say it, it is so. They rail against Trump and the Republican Party for nominating a boor and oaf yet remain silent when I ask them how they can defend their party's nominee who is a lying crook who engaged in traitorous behaviour in order to avoid rules and laws.
Their position of denial is the epitome of arrogance. (See 2a below)
God gave us two ears on either side of our head and in between a thing called a brain so we could decipher what we heard through the power of reasoning. Had he wanted us all to become liberal I guess he would have filled it with concrete.
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Will the Republican Governor of the liberal state of Wisconsin ride in and save Republicans from the fate of their triumphant businessman from New York?
If so, will the Republican Party recover from the crippling effect of saving themselves with a Walker? (See 3 and 3a below.)
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Radicals, liberals, progressives, fascists, socialists, communists you name them, have many nails at their disposal to "coffin" our republic. They take many forms but the most pernicious ones are:
a) Use the courts to overturn parts of our Bill of Rights and outlaw the Constitution particularly as relates to Freedom of Speech, Assembly, Gun Ownership and Private Property.
b)Accomplish the above through the destruction of the ability to reason and by attacking the truth through rewriting history in textbooks used at the lowest grade level, wreck public education so young brains are turned into sponges and offer only courses that turn brains into mush.
c) Use the media and press to distort and brain wash the unwashed citizenry who are dependent upon them for news. Now that Facebook, Google and other social media technology is supplanting regular press and media sources they too are possibly embracing the manipulative tools of bias. (Bozell discussed his meeting with Facebook's, Zuckerberg.)
http://americanactionnews.com/
d) Raise wedge issues to create discord. engage in public protest through rioting then attack the victims and accuse them of the consequences.
e) Weaken the military and indebt the nation so it cannot fund its ability to meet challenges to its security and/or maintain its infrastructure and social programs. Flood the nation with illegals and oppose a common language.
f) Finally, govern in a manner that creates dependency and despair.
There is nothing new in what I have just written. It was all revealed to us in: " The Animal Farm." "1984," "Atlas Shrugged," " The Road To Serfdom," even The Bible, Shakespeare and writings by various "Greek and other philosophers."
The only new fact is that we have now arrived at the gates of hell that liberal thinking, progressive policies and PC dictum built and they are not Pearly!
Yes, Walt Kelly's "Pogo" was omniscient: The Enemy Is Us!
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Have a great weekend and go out and buy a gun. My wife will not let me.
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Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++1) Israel's true diplomatic and strategic position revealed for world to see
By Caroline B. Glick
There was something poetic about the events that book ended the past week of diplomacy. This week began with French President François Hollande’s “peace” conference and ended with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s state visit to Moscow.
From the perspective of both substance and style, the contrast between the two events couldn’t have been more striking.
France hosted yet another anti-Israel diplomatic pile-on. Hollande had hoped to show that France was stepping into the void left by the US’s abandonment of its position as world leader. But all the confab served to do was show how irrational and self-destructive France – and Western Europe – has become.
Neither Israeli nor Palestinian representatives were present at the conference which aimed to dictate Israel’s final borders. Their absence made the event seem like a throwback to the era of European colonialism. It was as if Hollande wanted to reenact France’s glory days in Syria and Algeria.
In his opening remarks, Hollande recycled the tired claim that the way to defeat jihad is by forcing Israel to give Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem to Islamic terrorists. The document the French Foreign Ministry circulated among participants ahead of the conference recommended setting a timetable for forcing Israel to give the PLO Judea, Samaria and large swaths of Jerusalem, for the benefit of global security.
The French planned their event before the mobs in Ramallah, Hebron, Jerusalem and Gaza publicly celebrated the cold-blooded massacre of Israeli diners at Tel Aviv’s Sarona Market on Wednesday night. But the latest massacre wasn’t necessary to show the absurdity of France’s plan to defeat jihad by empowering jihadists at Israel’s expense.
After all, Israel surrendered Gaza to the Palestinians 11 years ago. Far from ameliorating the problem of jihad – in Europe and throughout the world – the scourge of Islamic war has grown geometrically in the past decade.
France’s own recent experience shows that Hollande’s “peace” plan was a delusional.
In 2000, Muslims comprised 10 percent of the population of France.
That year, the state-owned France 2 television network invented the contemporary blood libel of Jews as baby killers with the release and dissemination of its deceptive film which purported to show IDF troops deliberately murdering Muhammad al-Dura.
The Dura libel unleashed the forces of Islamic Jew-hatred in France and throughout Europe. It paved the way for the rise in anti-Jewish violence unseen since the Holocaust. This violence in turn is causing the current exodus of Jews from France and from Western Europe as a whole.
But assaulting Jews didn’t satisfy the jihadists.
As last year’s events made clear, the state authorities’ desire to deflect Islamic extremism onto Jews – in Israel and in France – backfired.
Fifteen years after the Dura blood libel, Muslims now comprise at least 15% of France’s population, and 40% of the population of Marseilles.
And today, the same extremists who have terrorized France’s Jews for a decade and a half, have turned their guns on French society as a whole.
Last year’s Islamic killing spree, from Charlie Hebdo and Super Cacher to Bataclan made clear that as far as the jihadists are concerned, the French Jew-baiters are no different than the Jews.
Even worse, with their hatred legitimized by the Jew-baiters, France’s jihadists feel they have license to direct their rage and guns in whatever direction they choose.
If this weren’t bad enough for the likes of Hollande, despite the elites’ attempt to blame Israel for the rise of jihadist forces in France, the native French see what has happened.
Squeezed between political leaders who pretend the problem is Israel and Islamic radicals who deprive them of the freedom to live as they please without fear, public sentiment in Europe is increasingly desperate, and angry. Rather than address their concerns, Hollande and his fellow elites have sought to repress them.
Consider the case of Brigitte Bardot. The mid-20th-century French sexpot and national icon has been convicted six times in recent years for “inciting hatred.” Her crime? Bardo has written angry books and articles about what she refers to as an “Islamic invasion” that imperils the French way of life.
Rather than recognize that their own people can’t stand their games anymore, and aren’t buying their attempts to blame Israel for the rise of jihadist forces in France, Hollande’s “peace” conference was proof that he and his colleagues have chosen to double down on their anti-Israel scapegoating.
With a tailwind from anti-Israel activists posing as journalists, Hollande believed that the conference could elevate him, and hide from French voters his failure to defend his country.
The Washington Post’s editorial board joined him in this delusion. In an editorial published in the lead-up to his conference, the newspaper argued that the anti-Israel conference should serve as the opening salvo of an escalating diplomatic war against the Jewish state. The culmination of that war, the paper said, should be an anti-Israel resolution at the UN Security Council in the final days of Barack Obama’s presidency.
But if this is what the West’s renewed war against Israel looks like, then Israel has little reason for concern.
1a)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Squeezed between political leaders who pretend the problem is Israel and Islamic radicals who deprive them of the freedom to live as they please without fear, public sentiment in Europe is increasingly desperate, and angry. Rather than address their concerns, Hollande and his fellow elites have sought to repress them.
Consider the case of Brigitte Bardot. The mid-20th-century French sexpot and national icon has been convicted six times in recent years for “inciting hatred.” Her crime? Bardo has written angry books and articles about what she refers to as an “Islamic invasion” that imperils the French way of life.
Rather than recognize that their own people can’t stand their games anymore, and aren’t buying their attempts to blame Israel for the rise of jihadist forces in France, Hollande’s “peace” conference was proof that he and his colleagues have chosen to double down on their anti-Israel scapegoating.
With a tailwind from anti-Israel activists posing as journalists, Hollande believed that the conference could elevate him, and hide from French voters his failure to defend his country.
The Washington Post’s editorial board joined him in this delusion. In an editorial published in the lead-up to his conference, the newspaper argued that the anti-Israel conference should serve as the opening salvo of an escalating diplomatic war against the Jewish state. The culmination of that war, the paper said, should be an anti-Israel resolution at the UN Security Council in the final days of Barack Obama’s presidency.
But if this is what the West’s renewed war against Israel looks like, then Israel has little reason for concern.
1a)
Explaining Palestinian “Heroes”
In the aftermath of yesterday’s terrorist atrocity at Tel Aviv’s Sarona Market that left four Jews dead, some Israelis, as well as some of their foreign friends and critics, sought to try to make sense of the crime. Why do Palestinians seek to murder random Israelis sitting in cafes? And, as is often the case with such ruminations, the impulse to blame the victims—the people of Israel who are targeted by terrorists—was irresistible. Ron Huldai, the city’s leftist mayor and a former general, claimed the real culprit was the “occupation.” For him, the Israeli presence in the West Bank creates terrorism because Israel is the only country in the world that rules territory where others live and no one has taken a step toward peace. Both of those statements were risible falsehoods, but the real answer for the crime came from the Palestinians.
Rather than being horrified by the cold-blooded murders of innocents carried out in their names, spontaneous Arab demonstrations of joy about the killings broke out in various places in the West Bank and even in Jerusalem. On social media, the slaughter was celebrated with hashtags like #RamadanOperation. A Palestinian anchor on Al Jazeera television crowed that the terrorist attack was “the best answer to stories about the peace process.”
Palestinian leadership also responded according to form. Hamas openly celebrated the attacks, prompting a comical reaction from United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who expressed shock that a terrorist group would think that terrorism was a good thing. The Palestinian Authority issued a cryptic statement that said it “rejected” attacks against civilians, a stance consistent with their policy of posing as an opponent of terror when speaking to the West while signaling Palestinians that they approve it. The ruling Fatah Party’s Twitter account said Israel “was reaping the repercussions” of its policies toward the Palestinians. Moreover, we know the two terrorists who are now in custody will be paid pensions by the PA; the same as they do for all others who commit acts of terrorism. Sooner or later, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas will also demand their release, the same as he does for other terrorists. The pair will doubtlessly be lauded as “heroes” by the official PA media and eventually some public place will be named for them to honor their bloody deed.
On its face, this is counterintuitive. The two killers did the Palestinian cause no good. Such acts don’t make the international community more willing to waste time promoting Palestinian statehood. By striking at Jews in Tel Aviv rather than at soldiers or West Bank settlers—a group that many critics of Israel think deserve to be targeted for terror—the pair reminded the world that the goal of the Palestinians isn’t two states or merely getting Israel out of the West Bank and Jerusalem. Both Hamas and the supposedly moderate Abbas are open about their belief that all of Israel, including cosmopolitan and liberal Tel Aviv, where many people would be only too happy to celebrate the creation of a Palestinian state, is “occupied” territory. But Palestinians don’t lament this blot on their cause and national honor. To the contrary, they think this crime, like others committed against Jews, is a laudable act.
Israelis like Huldai and many others look at this awful situation and think that there must be some logical explanation or rational way out of the mess. They believe Israel must be able to do something to solve the problem. The “status quo” cannot continue, they say, but the awful truth is that it can because the alternative is the creation of another Gaza-like Palestinian state in the West Bank that would make terrorist murders like yesterday's atrocity even more commonplace.
Let’s backtrack for a moment and note for the record that the idea that Israel’s position in the West Bank is unique is absurd. There are up to 200 territorial disputes in the world in which nations argue about sovereignty over land. What’s different about this one is that the international media treats the Palestinians as if they are the only ones in the world with a valid complaint about their situation because their opponents are Jews. But the really unique element in the conflict is the fact that Israel is the only country in the world that is marked for complete elimination by its adversaries. No other people in the world are considered to be unworthy of a national home or the right of self-defense in the way that the Jewish state is singled out for such treatment.
Moreover, the idea that Israel hasn’t tried “to take a step toward some kind of agreement,” as Huldai foolishly said, is equally ludicrous. In 2000, 2001, and 2008, the Palestinians were offered a state in almost all of the West Bank, Gaza, and a share of Jerusalem and their answer was “no” each time. Since then, they have refused to negotiate seriously with Israel and failed to take advantage of the fact that even the supposedly right-wing Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted a two-state solution and offered withdrawals from the West Bank.
It must also be pointed out that, in 2005, Israel withdrew every soldier, settler, and settlement from Gaza. Instead of progress toward peace, that led to the establishment of a Hamas-run independent Palestinian state in all but name that operates as one large launching pad for terrorism. The prospect that a similar withdrawal from the larger and more strategic West Bank would repeat that experiment is why a majority of Israelis continue to re-elect Netanyahu rather than members of Huldai’s party and regard advocacy for more retreats as not so much mistaken as insane.
The status quo has continued not because more houses or apartments are being built in existing Jewish communities in the West Bank or Jerusalem (almost all of which are in places that peace processers conceded would remain in Israeli hands even if there were an agreement with the Palestinians). Nor does it continue because hard-hearted men who don’t want peace lead Israel. If Palestinians wanted a two-state solution, they could have had one many years ago. They refuse because the price of Israeli acceptance of a Palestinian state is Palestinian acceptance of the legitimacy of a Jewish state alongside it no matter where its borders might be drawn. And that price remains too high for any Palestinian leader or the Palestinian public to accept.
Terrorism against Jews didn’t begin in June 1967. The Palestinians have been waging a century-long war on Zionism and that struggle has become inextricably linked with their sense of national identity. That’s why they cheer people who commit indiscriminate murder against Jews and call them heroes. They were doing that long before the Six Day War, let alone the two intifadas, and it is not illogical to suppose they would continue to do so even if Israel were so foolish as to withdraw its forces from the West Bank as it did in Gaza.
While some Israelis search their souls in vain for enough guilt about winning wars launched against them that would have ended the “occupation” of Tel Aviv, this is a futile quest. The status quo will change when the Palestinians stop thinking of people who kill random Jews as heroes and when they are ready to accept peace with the Jewish state.
That is why it is important that the world react to crimes such as yesterday’s murders by avoiding statements calling on both sides to show restraint or use it as an excuse for more pressure on Israel to make concessions. For too long, Palestinians have been led to believe that they could prevail against Israel if they had enough patience or were willing to shed more blood. When a sea change in the political culture of the Palestinians makes a change in their thinking possible, they will find Israelis willing to accept a deal. Until then, they will continue cheering terrorists and doom themselves to pursuing a hopeless effort to eliminate Israel that keeps a status quo neither side wants in place.
2)
Trump, the Judiciary and Identity Politics
Making an issue of Judge Curiel’s ethnicity was squalid—and the other side of a coin that liberals have played for years.
By Michael B. Mukasey
Federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who was born in Indiana to parents of Mexican origin and belongs to an association of lawyers of Mexican origin, is sitting on a case in the Southern District of California that charges fraud against Trump University. Donald Trump in recent days has attracted much attention by suggesting that Judge Curiel should be disqualified for bias because the judge’s rulings are adverse to Mr. Trump and because, in campaigning for the presidency, the candidate has criticized Mexicans and proposed building a wall on the southwest U.S. border.
Mr. Trump’s claim against Judge Curiel is both baseless and squalid, but some in the chorus of critics are not themselves entirely without fault.
First, let’s dispose of the recusal question. Two statutes bear on recusal of a federal judge; neither remotely supports Mr. Trump’s argument. One, and part of the other, treat recusal for bias in fact. To justify such a finding, the complainant must show that a judge has a financial interest in a case, or that the judge has a relationship with parties or lawyers in it. Sworn evidence of the judge’s personal bias or prejudice is another justification for recusal. No evidence of such bias—indeed no evidence at all—has been submitted to the court by Mr. Trump or his lawyers.
The remaining provision requires a judge to disqualify himself “in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” The provision doesn’t require a formal motion, but directs the judge to act, if necessary, on his own, as he would if he had a financial interest of which he was aware.
There is case law on what circumstances suggest that a judge’s impartiality “might reasonably be questioned”—the key word of course being “reasonably.” A judge is enjoined to weigh the importance of public confidence in the courts against the distinct possibility that someone questioning his impartiality might simply be seeking to avoid anticipated adverse consequences of his presiding over the case.
That is, parties shouldn’t use recusal as a device to judge-shop. Because the job of a judge is to rule, and rulings necessarily favor one party or the other, adverse rulings—even a disproportionate number—generally are not considered evidence of partiality.
Race, religion and even gender have been used as suggested bases for “reasonably” questioning a judge’s impartiality. Thus black judges, particularly those with professional histories before they took the bench that included civil-rights work, have been asked to recuse themselves in civil-rights cases. A female judge in the Southern District of New York in 1975 was challenged in a sex-discrimination case, as was a Mormon judge in a 1984 case that allegedly involved the “theocratic power structure of Utah.” These challenges were rejected.
I had the experience myself, when I was a federal judge, of being challenged by one defendant in a multidefendant case against Islamist terrorists who were eventually convicted of plotting a wave of violence in New York that included one (successful) murder, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and plans to bomb several other landmarks. The defendant argued that I was a Jew and a Zionist; he sought information relating to my and my wife’s ties to Israel; and he claimed that such information would show I could not be impartial.
Like other judges before me, I had not much difficulty—and no little satisfaction—swatting away the claim, as Judge Curiel likely would if Mr. Trump’s claim were ever put before him for decision. Whether or not Judge Curiel would use the “r” word—racist—it would certainly simmer just below the surface. After all, suggesting that a judge would allow his ethnic ancestry to govern his rulings is simply unacceptable in America.
Or is it?
Following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February, President Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. When some on the left questioned the nomination of a man in his 60s who is of the Jewish faith, the president conceded that Judge Garland is indeed “a white guy, but he’s a really outstanding jurist.” Note the “but,” which may well have been inserted for the benefit of the questioner, and perhaps in a mild jest, but it is nonetheless there, whether meant to represent the president’s values or those of his interlocutor.
Before her 2009 elevation to the Supreme Court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor once gave a speech saying that she hoped “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.” The president who appointed her said he was seeking judges who have “empathy” with those who appear before them.
Such pronouncements reflect how identity politics have become, increasingly and inappropriately, a part of the conversation surrounding courts and judges.
Whether they know it or not, judges demonstrate symbolically every time they mount the bench that personal considerations have no place in deciding cases. Their black robes are supposed to suggest that judges are all the same, that it doesn’t matter—or shouldn’t—whose head is popping up from beneath the black crepe. It matters, of course, but the symbolism inherent in the robe marks at least an aspiration. Donald Trump’s claims may be the dirty underside of what we get when we abandon that aspiration, but they are by no means the whole of it.
Mr. Mukasey served as U.S. attorney general (2007-09) and as a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York (1988-2006).
2a)
San Jose cops worried about own safety when they saw Trump supporters 'running for their lives'
SAN JOSE — Two undercover police officers at a Donald Trump rally last week said they saw Trump supporters “get punched, kicked and pushed” and “running for their lives,” according to a police report.
The plainclothes officers said they did not intervene for fear their own safety would be jeopardized as the estimated 400 protesters developed a “mob mentality.”
The officers’ observations were included in the arrest report of Antonio Moses Fernandez, 19, of San Jose, who is accused of throwing a metal barrier into a police skirmish line following the Trump rally June 2 outside the San Jose Convention Center. Fernandez made his first court appearance Tuesday and was charged with felony assault on a peace officer with a deadly weapon and misdemeanor resisting, delaying or obstructing an officer, according to court documents.
Fernandez hung up the phone Wednesday when reached by this newspaper. He could face a sentence of five years in prison if convicted on the felony assault with a deadly weapon charge, according to the prosecutors.
“When there’s an assault on a police officer, we don’t have any tolerance for that,” prosecutor Chris Boscia said.
So far Fernandez is the only person to be criminally charged stemming from the violence that erupted outside Trump’s rally last week. Three other people were also arrested the day of the rally, including Ahmed Abdirahman, 19, of Santa Clara, and Robert Trillo, 18, both on suspicion of felony assault with a deadly weapon, and Michael Kitaigorodsky, 19, of San Jose, on suspicion of refusal to disperse.
Details about what led to the other arrests have not been made public. Police on Wednesday afternoon released images of another assault suspect they are seeking.
The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office said Wednesday morning it is reviewing case files in the arrests of Trillo and Kitaigorodsky. If charged, the two men may not make their first court appearance until Aug. 2. Prosecutors were still waiting Wednesday morning to receive the police report in the Abdirahman case.
One of the undercover officers wrote that he was “monitoring protesters from within the crowd” and estimated there were 250 protesters gathered behind barricades at 6 p.m., about one hour before Trump’s scheduled arrival. That number grew as the evening wore on.
As the crowd grew, the officer noted that “it became inherently dangerous for anyone wearing a T-shirt or hat in support of Trump. I observed Trump supporters being spit on, objects being thrown at them, punched, kicked and even robbed of their personal belongings.
“In these instances, I observed victims running for their lives.”
A second undercover officer reported seeing “several individuals wearing Trump articles of clothing get punched, kicked and pushed. Due to the crowd size and volatility, officers (both uniform and plain clothes) were unable to help most victims.”
Just after 8 p.m. police issued an order for the crown to disperse. At 9:10 p.m. the undercover officers witnessed Fernandez throw a metal barricade into officers dressed in full riot gear. One officer was injured after being hit by the barricade, according to the report.
The undercover officers say they witnessed Fernandez pick up a second barrier and then put it down. One witnessed Fernandez remove his shirt and use it to cover his face. One of the undercover officers eventually tackled Fernandez and held him down until uniformed officers arrived to make the arrest.
During a police interview, Fernandez denied throwing the barrier into the police line.
In the face of critics who charge police did little to protect Trump supporters, Police Chief Eddie Garcia has defended his officers’ handling of the protest. Garcia insisted that it was more important for police to hold their “skirmish line” formations than to stop individual attacks.
“We are not an ‘occupying force’ and cannot reflect the chaotic tactics of the protesters,” Garcia told reporters. Unless a victim’s life was in peril or the violence was “spiraling out of control,” he said, officers held back to avoid inciting more violence and having the crowd turn on officers. He also said the 250 police weren’t enough to control about 400 protesters.
Following the rally several videos appeared on various social media sites and captured some of the attacks.
A police task force is reviewing video evidence of the assaults and other possible crimes from the protest. Monday the police department announced more arrests were “imminent,” but so far no additional arrests have been announced.
San Jose police are asking anyone with information about physical assaults at the Trump rally or videos of the violence to contact their Assaults Unit at 408-277-4161 or leave a tip with Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-STOP (7867) or svcrimestoppers.org.
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3)
| The Next Two Weeks: Either Trump Or Unexpected Redemption Led by Wisconsin |
| By Erick Erickson |
Having spent the better part of this week suddenly fielding calls from donors and elected officials who’ve been otherwise adamant that I should give up and get on the Trump bandwagon, it is clear Trump has done himself real damage and people are privately reconsidering his nomination. This is unlike the primary in that, for example, Trump attacked Judge Curiel in March and the media ignored it. Now they have seized on it and put him on defense in a way he has not been since attacking Ben Carson as a child molester.
Republicans who thought Trump could be controlled and reasoned with are finally starting to see the Trump that those of us who are against him have seen. The creep factor is intensifying as more Howard Stern stories come out. Trump, in his own words, commented on how good looking Paris Hilton was at 12 and then discussed how he and his wife watched Paris Hilton’s porn tape. Creepy.
To mollify Republicans, on Tuesday night, Trump shackled himself to a TelePrompter, doing his best Obama impression. That, combined with his statement that he had been misconstrued, was an admission against interest that he had damaged himself. Republicans who had come to terms with Trump are again nervous and fretting.
Based on all my conversations this week, here is how I think it will play out.
If Trump can go the next two weeks without unforced errors and can do interviews along the way without embarrassing himself or the party, his nomination is assured. Trump has to be able to go out, without the Teleprompter, give speeches, and also give press interviews. If he hides in a bunker for the next two weeks, he will damage himself with prominent Republicans and donors. They need to see that he really is growing up and toning down.
If Trump can do that, he is the nominee, and not just the presumptive nominee.
But if Trump cannot control himself and exercise self-discipline in the next two weeks, the Republican convention is going to spiral out of control and look to a savior. That savior is most likely going to come from Wisconsin. It will not be Paul Ryan, but Scott Walker.
Right now there are several separate similar efforts to unbind the delegates at the convention. The Rules Committee is key and sources I talk to expect the delegates to be split on the committee with about 30% for Cruz, 25% for Trump, and 45% willing to go in the direction that saves the party destruction. If Trump continues on like this week, those separate similar efforts will become one effort.
Behind the scenes, it has not gone unnoticed that many of the major donors who are still opposed to Trump were also Scott Walker fans. There are rumors cropping up that Walker might be wiling to entertain being a dark horse candidate if we get to the convention and Trump has spiraled out of control. Walker’s withdrawal of his Trump endorsement was seen as a positive sign in that direction.
Missing in all of this is Ted Cruz.
Nothing will happen at the convention without Ted Cruz’s blessing. Cruz may be placed in the very unique position of having to be the statesman and lead his delegates. Because of the remaining animosity between Cruz and establishment players, Cruz might very well be able to shape a ticket that benefits Cruz without putting him in the top slot. If that ticket then goes on to lose to Hillary, Cruz is the one who stopped Trump and put the party above his own desires when 2020 comes around. If the ticket wins, he becomes President of the Senate before becoming President of the United States. Or he just fully takes on leadership of the conservative movement.
Cruz and Walker are becoming key players as Trump continues to falter. The donor class feels comfortable with Walker and they think he could truly be persuaded to do it. The conservatives are comfortable with Cruz and recognize he has to be involved because of his delegate count and the personal loyalty of his delegates.
All of this hinges on the next two to three weeks of Trump. Trump is about to come under withering attack by the Democrats. The media focus is growing. And the drumbeat to release his tax returns is about to become deafening. A smart person might just conclude that not all the attacks and investigations now being conducted by the media are originating with Democrats.
More Republican governors, senators, and representatives are starting to fear disaster in November with Trump as the nominee. The chances for loss of the Senate is growing. Trump trying to convince Republican donors that he does not need a massive data operation while being convinced he can win California and Maryland has made senior Republicans and major donors very queasy. That Trump has hired a pollster to try to win New York is another signal to donors that Trump is a terrible investment living in delusion.
These next two weeks are going to be critical for Trump, who must show he can be unscripted, hold his own in interviews, and not blow himself up. If he cannot do it, behind the scenes wheels are already beginning to turn to yank the nomination from him and the party elders from Romney to the Bushes will take discreet and decisive action.
Trump has no more latitude. The leaks to Bloomberg of his conference call with surrogates ended that. He now must put up or shut up.
3a) In the matter of Paul Ryan
The morning after, the nation awakes asking: What have we done?
Both parties seem intent on throwing the election away. The Democrats, running against a man with highest-ever negatives, are poised to nominate a candidate with second-highest-ever negatives. Hillary Clinton started with every possible advantage — money, experience, name recognition, residual goodwill from her husband’s successful 1990s — yet could not put away until this week an obscure, fringy, socialist backbencher in a country uniquely allergic to socialism.
Bernie Sanders did have one advantage. He had something to say. She had nuthin’. Her Tuesday victory speech was a pudding without a theme for a campaign without a cause. After 14 months, she still can’t get past the famous question asked of Ted Kennedy in 1979: Why do you want to be president?
So whom do the Republicans put up? They had 17 candidates. Any of a dozen could have taken down the near-fatally weak Clinton, unloved, untrusted, living under the shadow of an FBI investigation.
Instead, they nominate Donald Trump — conspiracy theorist (from Barack Obama’s Kenyan birth to Ted Cruz’s father’s involvement with Lee Harvey Oswald), fabulist (from his own invented opposition to the Iraq War and the Libya intervention to the “thousands and thousands” of New Jersey Muslims celebrating 9/11), admirer of strongmen (from Vladimir Putin to the butchers of Tiananmen).
His outrageous provocations have been brilliantly sequenced so that the shock of the new extinguishes the memory of the last. Though perhaps not his most recent — his gratuitous attack on a “Mexican” federal judge (born and bred in Indiana) for inherent bias because of his ethnicity. Textbook racism, averred Speaker Paul Ryan . Even Trump acolyte and possible running mate Newt Gingrich called it inexcusable.
Trump promptly doubled down, expanding the universe of the not-to-be-trusted among us by adding American Muslims to the list of those who might be inherently biased.
Yet Trump is the party’s chosen. He won the primary contest fair and square. The people have spoken. What to do?
First, dare to say that the people aren’t always right. Surely Republicans admit the possibility. Or do they believe the people chose rightly in electing Obama? Twice. Historical examples of other countries choosing even more wrongly are numerous and tragic. The people’s will deserves respect, not necessarily affirmation.
I sympathize with the dilemma of Republican leaders reluctant to affirm. Many are as appalled as I am by Trump, but they don’t have the freedom I do to say, as I have publicly, that I cannot imagine ever voting for him. They have unique party and institutional responsibilities.
For some, that meant endorsing Trump in the belief that they might be able to contain, constrain, guide and perhaps even educate him. To my mind, this thinking has always been hopelessly misbegotten but not necessarily — nor in all cases — venal.
Which brings us to the matter of Paul Ryan, now being excoriated by many conservatives for having said he would vote for Trump.
Yet what was surprising was not Ryan’s ever-so-tepid semi-endorsement, which was always inevitable and unavoidable — can the highest elected GOP official be at war during a general election with the party’s democratically chosen presidential candidate? — but his initial refusal to endorse Trump when, after the Indiana primary, nearly everyone around him was falling mindlessly, some shamelessly, into line.
That was surprising. Which is why Ryan’s refusal to immediately follow suit created such a sensation. It also created, deliberately, the time and space for non-Trumpites to hold the line. Ryan was legitimizing resistance to the new regime, giving resisters safe harbor in the House, even as they were being relentlessly accused of treason for “electing Hillary.”
In the end, Ryan called an armistice. What was he to do? Oppose and resign? And then what? What would remain of conservative leadership in the GOP? And if he created a permanent split in the party, he’d be setting up the GOP’s entire conservative wing as scapegoat if Trump lost in November.
Ryan had no good options. He chose the one he felt was least damaging to the conservative cause to which he has devoted his entire adult life.
I wouldn’t have done it but I’m not House speaker. He is a practicing politician who has to calculate the consequences of what he does. That deserves at least some understanding.
One day, we shall all have to account for what we did and what we said in this scoundrel year. For now, we each have our conscience to attend to.
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