Opinion

How Could Paul Ryan And Mitt Romney Be So Misled?

Foster Friess Founder, Friess Associates
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Criticizing Donald Trump’s concerns about the objectivity of a judge of Mexican heritage openly associated with the La Raza San Diego Lawyers Association perhaps stems from people hearing Trump’s use of word “Mexican” rather than “La Raza.”

Former Attorney General of the United States Alberto Gonzales wrote that Trump has legitimate concerns. Gonzales is Hispanic. He points out President Obama appointed Judge Curiel, whose law firm paid $675,000 in speaking fees to Hillary and Bill Clinton. Perhaps we shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that Judge Curiel embraced that decision.

Trump’s original announcement about the “bad people” coming across the border included, “And some, I assume, are good people.”

But the LaRaza folks morphed his statement: “His comment that Mexico only [my emphasis] sends rapists and criminals to the United States reveals a racist nature that cannot and will not go unnoticed by the Hispanic National Bar Association nor the Latino community.”

Samson Dunn, a pastor of 1,500 Hispanics in Maryvale, one of the most crime ridden areas of Phoenix, Arizona, asks who are these offended Hispanics?

“The hardworking Mexican-Americans I work alongside in the most crime ridden and impoverished communities in Phoenix are not insulted. They understand exactly who Mr. Trump was referring to. He was referring to the individuals that come into the country illegally and devastate many Hispanic communities.”

Samson’s Daily Caller op-ed can be found here.

Joe Biden attacks with, “Surely the framers of our Constitution did not envision a presidential candidate of one of the major political parties personally attacking a sitting federal judge.”

Why didn’t Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney respond: During President Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address, he denounced not just one but five sitting federal judges – sitting on the highest court in our land, by the way – on television to an international audience because he did not like their Citizens United decision?





Elizabeth Warren implies Trump’s decision was anti-American: “We are not a nation that disqualifies lawyers and judges from public service because of race or religion or gender.”

Ryan and Romney could have reminded her that
 during the 2003 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for Eleventh Circuit nominee, Bill Pryor, Democrats implied that Pryor’s “deeply held” Catholic beliefs called into question his ability to be an impartial judge.

Current Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better [my emphasis] conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Double standard?

In 2015, the President Obama forced immigration Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor to recuse herself from “all immigration cases involving Iranians.”

While Judge Curiel, in the Trump University case, is not associated with the advocacy group La Raza specifically, the name alone, which means “The Race,” should cause Ryan and Romney to join with Hispanic former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in being more understanding of Donald Trump’s unseasoned language.

La Raza is committed to reuniting the American Southwest with Mexico and supports open borders. One member of the group declared that an “English First” group was to Hispanics what the Klan was to blacks.

Herding 140 head of Hereford steers atop my sturdy Palimino during my teenage years and living in Wyoming gave me an admiration for the cowboys’ “Code of the West,” which included, “Ride for the Brand.”

Not the Trump brand or the Republican brand, but the “American Brand.”

We need to encourage leaders of both political persuasions to saddle up and start riding again so that we can bring an end to the divisiveness that prevents us from being that “shining city on the hill.”

The “American Brand” respects the right to a fair trial and is careful about demonizing people for alleged racism where there is none. It encourages civility and to make real, our national motto — ”Out of many, one.”

We don’t have a Caucasian Caucus in Congress and we all need to work so members of the Hispanic Caucus and the Black Caucus feel they have no need to be anything but “Americans.”

Hyphenated Americans should be part of our past.

How will the appointment of possibly three new Supreme Court Justices impact the “American Brand?”

America is a brand worth riding for.

Cross-posted at Foster Friess’s Campfire Blog