Back in 1989, Donald Trump took out a full page ad calling for the death penalty in the case of the Central Park Five. In his ad, he wrote, “How can our great society tolerate the continued brutalization of its citizens by crazed misfits. Criminals must be told that their CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR SAFETY BEGINS!”
He called on local politicians to give the police back the power to keep us safe. “Unshackle them from the constant chant of ‘police brutality’ which every petty criminal hurls immediately at an officer who has just risked his or her life to save another’s.”
In 1989, at the height of the crime wave, there was a brutal rape of a jogger in Central Park. Antron McCray, Korey Wise, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, and Raymond Santana, all between 14 and 16 at the time, were all in the park that night and they were causing trouble, but the police assumed that these boys were the same ones who attacked the woman who was found to have been badly beaten with multiple skull fractures, raped, and near death. She survived, but has no memory of the attacks and fought hard to fully recover.
Under pressure from police, investigators coerced the boys, from working class backgrounds, whose parents were not sophisticated or educated, into confessing to a crime that it turned out later they had not committed.
This week, Korey Wise, one of the Central Park 5, blasted Mr. Trump for having taken out a full page ad in 1989 calling for him and the four other teens to have the death penalty.
“When he speaks about the Fox News host (Megyn Kelly) bleeding, Mexicans — and even us — to make these mistakes and not apologize, it shows no compassion,” said one of Wise’s former co-defendants, Raymond Santana.
Mr. Wise, who served the longest prison term of the five, said in a statement Wednesday that Mr. Trump “was shouting to the world that I should be executed, hung out to die for a crime that I did not commit and was later exonerated from.”
“In light of his opinion of me, an innocent child at the time, I do not feel that he is capable of leading this country or its people who have situations that he may not agree with or understand,” Mr. Wise said. “I believe he would throw us all under the bus.”
It was last year that Mr. Trump called the $40 million settlement a “disgrace” in a New York Daily News op-ed.
He wrote, “My opinion on the settlement of the Central Park Jogger case is that it’s a disgrace. A detective close to the case, and who has followed it since 1989, calls it ‘the heist of the century.’ Settling doesn’t mean innocence, but it indicates incompetence on several levels. This case has not been dormant, and many people have asked why it took so long to settle? It is politics at its lowest and worst form.”
He added, “Speak to the detectives on the case and try listening to the facts. These young men do not exactly have the pasts of angels. What about all the people who were so desperately hurt and affected? I hope it’s not too late to continue to fight and that this unfortunate event will not have a repeat episode any time soon — or ever. As citizens and taxpayers, we deserve better than this.”
The Central Park Five was featured in a documentary last year by Ken Burns. The police made a classic error in how they handled the case. They forced a confession and, once they did so, they began to ignore serious problems with the case.
The first red flag came back when their DNA profiles – and DNA testing in 1989 was in its infancy – did not match the DNA found on the victim. That should have alerted authorities right there that they had a problem.
Moreover, the timeline that the police constructed with the boys did not place them at the scene of the crime. Instead, at the time of the woman’s attack, which they were able to pinpoint, the boys were at a different scene – and this was known because they were involved in an assault on an unrelated victim.
As longtime New York DA Robert Morgenthau recounted, it was only because of DNA testing that it was possible to reexamine the evidence.
When they retested the DNA, they were able to tie semen found at the crime scene, not to the five boys who were convicted, but to a sixth person, a man named Matias Reyes.
On December 4, 2002, it was reported, “Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau is expected to ask a judge Thursday to vacate the convictions of the five men found guilty in the April 1989 brutal rape and beating of a 28-year-old jogger in Central Park and other attacks that night.”
Despite the lack of evidence outside of the confessions, Ken Burns noted that the prosecutor who tried the case, as well as the police, still believed the boys were involved.
Reported ABC News in 2002, “Some law enforcement officials believed that the five defendants are still guilty of other crimes that fateful night. Police said the Central Park rape was part of a rampage of 12 random attacks by a gang of as many as 40 black and Hispanic youths who were participating in the ‘wilding’ spree.”
The report continues, “Morgenthau will ask that all the convictions be vacated, even though sources told ABC NEWS the Manhattan District Attorney’s office still believed the five men are guilty of those other crimes and that those convictions should stand. There is no evidence of the police or prosecutorial misconduct [as] the five suspects have alleged in the case, the sources said.”
“Detectives who were involved in the Central Park jogger rape investigation still believe the five defendants were somehow involved in the attack and that Reyes was with them. They just disagree over whether he was with the teens during the rape or whether he attacked the jogger after the others,” the report continued.
“I believe these kids did it. They said they did it,” said Bert Arroyo, who was the lead detective on the case.
“The videotapes speak for themselves,” he said, referring to videotaped confessions made by the defendants.
He said that the teens gave the confessions voluntarily and without coercion.
“It says that it wasn’t a complete and thorough investigation,” Mr. Arroyo said. “It clearly says that.”
But it doesn’t speak for itself. The stories told in the confessions did not match each other and did not corroborate any facts in the case. In fact, in the documentary, a key point was made that, on the key details of the attack including who attacked her, who raped her, who held her down, the confessions agreed on not a single point.
All of this information bothered Juror No.5 at the time. But, as he described, everyone else was convinced, they were attacking him, and he ultimately relented and voted to convict.
Unfortunately, this story is all too often the case in these wrongful convictions. The police here made assumptions, and once they got the confession, they stopped investigating, even as contrary evidence came forward.
We now know that people falsely confess to crimes, particularly under pressure tactics and when denied access to counsel. They were misled by police that confessing was a way to end the torment they were suffering and that they could go home.
As Juror No.5 indicated, the jury was convinced that an innocent person would never admit to a crime that they didn’t commit, but now, nearly 25 years later, we know much more about the anatomy of false confessions and we understand the mechanics behind them much better.
What is interesting is that one of the best practices for avoiding false confessions is a videotape of the interrogation. Here, they only videoed the confession itself. Frankly, with proper scrutiny, that should have been sufficient to exonerate them, as we could clearly see the statements do not match on the critical points.
It was Mr. Reyes who was able to explain clearly little details of the crime scene – why police never found keys, why the shoes were positioned as they were, and what the victim was wearing at the time of the attack.
It was later that crime scene investigators should have been able to tell from the crime scene that only one perpetrator dragged the woman into the brush, rather than these five.
But while these questions should have been explored at the time, they were ignored because of the confessions.
The sad thing is that the boys had their lives turned upside down, they had their childhood stolen, and they have not been compensated by the authorities for mistakes the authorities made. The prosecution and the police continue to believe now, against all known evidence, that somehow these boys were still involved.
Perhaps these boys can take solace that their case will hopefully allow others to avoid these mistakes in the future.
As Eisa Nefertari Ulen, author and freelance journalist, notes, “Jim Dwyer, a New York Times writer featured in the film, says: ‘The police controlled the story from the beginning’ and laments the fact that he and his colleagues did not do their jobs better when covering the case. Investigators working for law enforcement and criminal justice ignored timeline discrepancies, an absence of any physical evidence linking the boys to the rape, and obvious contradictions in the very videotaped confessions that were used to convict the Central Park Five.
“The demonization of our children continues, of course. Our brown babies are too often criminalized by police, by prosecutors, in the media, in our own communities – even in our own homes,” she writes. “The only redemption we can hope to achieve in the aftermath of The Central Park Five case is that we all get honest with ourselves after watching this film. The only hope for real, enduring justice is that we all back away from swift judgment of people caught up in a system that was never intended to protect them in the first place, people who look like you and me.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
LOL. They couldn’t have beat that woman, they were too busy assaulting another victim.
So that makes what happened ok?
I like how Trump was dragged into this over an ad in 1989 and should we even care what Korey Wise thinks? Shall we drag out some of Hillary’s skeletons?
He dragged himself into it with the 2014 Op-ed. Given that Korey Wise spent years in prison for things he did not do – yes we should care what he thinks. And haven’t some on this site tried to make an issue of a 40 year old rape case that Hilary defended as a public defender?
Oh that’s right, Korey Wise didn’t do it because he was too busy assaulting another victim.
You don’t believe that people should be only tried and convicted for what they do?
Deflecting. We’re discussing Trump, you switch to Hillary because you don’t have a thoughtful, substantive defense of Trump’s actions. Get back to Trump, write your own article about Hillary.
no, in this case, bp is not deflecting so much as issuing a fairness issue. however as david points out, hilary has already had far older statements used against her, so bp’s point is largely invalidated. moreover, this became a more contemporary issue with the 2014 settlement, trump’s op-ed and the interview of the two central park five guys this week.
we don’t know that. you’re basing your comment on: “Some law enforcement officials believed that the five defendants are still guilty of other crimes that fateful night.” that’s not proof or even evidence.
As the article states:
“ and this was known because they were involved in an assault on an unrelated victim.”
Yes, that is what the article states. However, the question is “were they tried and convicted of this assault on an unrelated victim”. If not, under our legal system, they are innocent of that crime too. If there are some who do not like this base of our legal system, then they should work to change the law, not pretend that it does not exist and that people should be punished for crimes of which they have not been convicted.
“The police controlled the story from the beginning’
And herein lies a major problem with our justice system. I see this as a truism. The police and then the prosecutor have near absolute control of “the story”. It would seem that far too many members of our public, the pool from which jurors are selected automatically place near absolute faith in what the police and prosecutors say. How often do we hear the belief comment “if they were arrested and charged, they must be guilty of something”. Or the idea of police as the “good guys” in the “good guys vs bad guys” scenario that many police also believe in ( as stated directly in multiple police to civilian presentations).
I firmly believe that most police, like most people in any profession try their best to do a good job. But to pretend that police and prosecutors and judges because they are involved in the judicial system are invariably diligent, honest, trustworthy, impartial seekers of the truth is to deny their biases, their susceptibility to public and in group pressures and indeed their basic fallibility as humans. To believe that they are embodiments of the law or are above the law is a very dangerous perspective.
“I firmly believe that most police, like most people in any profession try their best to do a good job.”
Me, too. I just think they are misguided and they are confronting potential violence with violence, even before they can fully evaluate a situation in a heartbeat. They seem to almost have the combat attitude of kill, or be killed. Or, do what you have to do to get home to your family tonight. (And it may not be what they have to do to safely survive.)
“We now know that people falsely confess to crimes, particularly under pressure tactics, and when denied access to counsel.”
Which is why we must keep a vigilant eye on Davis police. They badgered a fifteen year old without his lawyer, or his mom, present. After he requested his mom, who may have insisted on a lawyer being present. They lied and told him his mom was on her way.
It was not a false confession, but they had the kid safely locked up, they could have waited for defense. No excuse.
1. They also confessed. So New York liberals shopped it to a liberal judge, and got them off easy. There is another side to this liberal re-writing of history and of how this new decision was made.
2. Since we’re going down memory lane making sure we protect victims, let’s make sure we protect the rights of women and children.
When she was a young attorney in Arkansas, Hillary Clinton volunteered to defend the brutal rapist of a 12-year-old child. Recently unearthed tapes reveal Hillary Clinton discussing the case – with fake southern accent – laughing and commenting on the lawyer tricks she pulled to get her client off for “time served”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2f13f2awK4
“They also confessed”
they were coerced into a false confession and exonerated by dna evidence (among other problems in the case)
you clearly don’t know anything about this case: “So New York liberals shopped it to a liberal judge, and got them off easy.”
a judge had nothing to do with it, wtf are you talking about?
Really? I consult more than Jon Stewart for my news.
See below link. Google is your friend.
“I consult more than Jon Stewart for my news.”
a townhall columnist is largely the right equivalent.
the dna alone might not establish innocence, but other than the fact that they were in the park that night, even your article offers no evidence of guilt.
“Even Morgenthau concedes that no police misconduct—like coercing the teens into admitting to a crime in which they had zero involvement—ever occurred.”
this statement shows a clear misunderstanding of the problem of false confessions – it’s not that the police violated their policies, it’s that their policies are poorly constructed.
All five confessed, most were on tape, there were additional witnesses. (i.e., “I didn’t rape her, I just held her legs down.”) See additional link below. We always knew there were more than five rapists. Reyes only gained from this new confession, and no one lost. Another reason why DeBlasio is so unpopular in New York.
If the innocence is so sure, why not a new trial?
“If the innocence is so sure, why not a new trial?”
TBD, why waste the taxpayers money conducting a trial of a person (or persons) that you know to be innocent? Do you really want to be that fiscally irresponsible in the way we run our courts?
I love it when DP talks down to me, it reveals his character.
“If the innocence is so sure, why not a new trial?”
this is a good point to raise. basically they had enough for a new trial with the dna evidence and the confession. so the question is should the prosecutor have continued to seek a conviction? the problem is, i don’t see what they could have convicted on? the confession seemed like the only evidence, but against that they would be able to have the confession and the dna evidence by the new suspect, and twenty years of research on false confessions. the prosecutor made the decision at that point not to retry them.
i think there does need to be a distinction – they were not found factually innocent (which is the townhall piece’s point) so much as insufficient evidence to get a new conviction.
Matt, we don’t know them to be innocent, do we? All we know is that a 6th rapist turned himself in.
Most of the decisions we make in our lives are made without the level of knowledge you are proposing in your question above. We make decisions even though we don’t know them to be correct. We have even created processes like “the 80/20 Rule” and the “90/10 Rule” to provide us with guidance about when it is likely that we know enough to make an informed decision, and also when we have reached the point when the investment of additional time and resources will not improve the Return On Investment (ROI) of the action that the decision controls.
That is the reality that we face your original question with. We need to decide when we ask “If the innocence is so sure, why not a new trial?” whether it is a wise investment of our societal resources to conduct another trial. So I once again pose my question to you . . . “What is the rationale for investing more of the taxpayers money conducting a trial of any of these persons? Is incurring the costs of such a trial the fiscally responsible way to run our courts?
Matt:
1. We keep 5 dangerous, violent rapists locked up.
2. We render justice.
How many of the original witnesses have recanted their previous testimony, under oath? We knew their were more than 5 rapists as the “wilding” crime spree was popular.
Did any of the witnesses identify the five as accomplices? I believe that the only direct evidence was their confession, one reason why the prosecutor didn’t retry to the case.
What evidence do you use to achieve those two results. The DNA evidence says they weren’t there. Other evidence says they were at a another location at the time of the event. The process by which their confessions were extracted has been called into question. What evidence is left? I realize that your opinion/belief is that these young men are dangerous, violent rapists, but how would you go about proving that if their confessions are thrown out, the DNA says they weren’t there and the evidence from another location says that they weren’t there. At what point does innocent until proven guilty come into play?
Matt – I’ll point out again to my knowledge, they have not committed a violent crime in the 15 years they have been out (some nearly 20 years). That doesn’t prove they didn’t do, but it does argue against the notion that they are dangerous, violent thugs.
Matt, read this article. I know it’s from Ann Coulter but when the mainstream media is in the bag for the left you have to consider other sources.
All five confessed, plus a bystander said they did it, and a phone call from one of the five said they were guilty. They even confessed before they were interrogated. Reyes received favorable considerations for saying he acted alone, the police weren’t allowed to interrogate Reyes or even his cellmates. One of Reyes’ cellmates said to a reporter that Reyes said he raped the lady but came upon her after she had already been beaten. The five had semen, blood and hair on them. They led police to the scene of the crime which they could’ve only known if they were there. DNA in 1989 was at its infancy so good samples weren’t collected.
http://humanevents.com/2014/04/23/what-you-wont-read-in-the-papers-about-the-central-park-five/
“Liberal” Webster’s Definition:
1. Possessing or manifesting a free and generous heart
2. Appropriate and/or fitting for a broad and enlightened mind
Six problems with liberals…
1) You really didn’t learn everything you needed to know in kindergarten: Liberals love to think of themselves as sophisticated, nuanced intellectuals, but the truth is they have a kindergartner’s view of the world. If it has been defined as “nice” to people they like, they’re for it. If it has been defined as “mean” to people they like, they’re against it — and that is about as deep as it gets. Unfortunately, that lack of adult perspective isn’t so cute in political leaders who are making life and death decisions that may still have ramifications fifty years from now.
2) “Liberals hate religion because politics is a religion substitute for liberals and they can’t stand the competition.”
3) “It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.” If we could all just care about the person across the world as much as we do our families, we could live in a utopia! Unfortunately, in practice, human nature tends to be quite a bit more difficult to subvert than in the liberal imagination.
4) Dishonesty means justify the righteous pursuit of ends. It’s common to see liberals adamantly deny that they hold a position over and over again only to completely switch sides the moment they have one more vote than they need to pass legislation.
5) Hypocrisy, hypocrisy, hypocrisy… Liberals believe that they’re compassionate, but only with other people’s money. They pat themselves on the back for helping minorities, but never stop to consider that liberal policies have done more damage to black Americans in the last fifty years than the KKK could have done in a millennium. Somehow, stunning hypocrisies of this sort, which are too numerous to recount.
6) False intellectualism that is actually just a pursuit of self image. To the modern liberal, the real world results of their policies are secondary in importance to the amount of positive self-esteem generated by supporting that policy.
Source: http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2009/05/19/the_six_problems_with_modern_liberalism/page/full
As a writer, I believe sources should always be credited.
Actually, only some of it is copied from that source. I didn’t agree with all if it and so I made some changes… so I was on the fence for quoting the source. But I could have included it and noted a few changes.
And to that scenario I say revisit the article that a DA wrote re: going for drinks with his buddies after securing a life in prison sentence or death sentence for a fellow human being.
Actually, just observe the arrogant body language of the Solano or Yolo DA’s on any given day at the courthouse. Stay there a whole day. They can’t hide it for even one day.
Trump is a loud-mouthed, bigoted thug and an a**-hole. No news here.
;>)/
Yeah, I’m not a big Trump fan either, but it is refreshing to have a politician actually speaking his mind and not trying to be PC. On the other hand we have Hillary Clinton who will say anything to get elected and is know to be a deceitful liar. 2016 is not looking too promising so far.
You and I are the same on a regular basis Biddlin.
You are free to represent yourself as such and almost always do. I take exception to your libel. I don’t call you an misogynistic, racist fascist and expect the same indulgence.
;>)/
Lies Surrounding the Central Park Jogger Case
http://townhall.com/columnists/jackkerwick/2014/08/10/lies-surrounding-the-central-park-jogger-case-n1876612/page/full
I guess we can thank Hollywood liberal Ken Burns and Communist Mayor DeBlasio for this injustice which matches the level of the OJ trial.
I can understand fighting for the Staten Island Gentle Giant … but these violent hooligans?
Thanks for that account TBD, it’s nice to hear the other side of the story.
It would be nice to hear the other side of your own personal story on any issue. Just pick a topic and get all your anger out into words. You can submit anything that is bothering you to the VG. Submissions section. It might feel really good for you, to get all your pent up anger into words. Then you can move on.
LOL, did you really just say that? Believe me, if anyone has pent up anger and needs to move on it’s you.
“Then you can move on.”
An optimist, are we?
;>)/
Still waiting for anything substantive from BP. Yawn.
Sisterhood
You’re right, “yawn” about describes it. I know my writing is boring and I’m sure it doesn’t live up to your journalistic standards. Can you give me some pointers as your posts are always so enlightening and provocative. Maybe you can write again about the police incident you had years ago at your house. I always love reading that substantive story. I think you’ve written of it about a half dozen to a dozen times on here, but I can never get enough.
Coulter can be a real firebrand… and un-diverse group of Irish and Jewish backroom lawyers set these five free? (See below.) Wow. No new trial!
Lol, townhall.com? I never cease to be amazed at the depths you scrape this crap from.
;>)/
TBD, you would have more respect from Biddlin if you would quote the Daily Kos instead. Hehe…
Or the NY Times or ACLU for that matter.
Attack the messenger, not the facts or witnesses. Typical.
Yet Hillary is on tape laughing about her defense of a brutal rapist of a 12-year-old child … and the room goes silent. Hypocrisy? … I wonder if things progress, if Trump will unleash that reality on America?
N.Y. TIMES: FRAUGHT NEXUS OF LIES, STUPIDITY AND BIGOTRY
Excerpts
“At the trials, evidence was ruled on by the judge and tested in court. Witnesses were presented for both sides and subjected to cross-examination.
“One witness, for example, an acquaintance of one of the defendants, testified that when she talked to him in jail after the arrests, he told her that he hadn’t raped the jogger, he “only held her legs down while (another defendant) f–ked her.” (That’s enough for a rape conviction.) …”
“The convictions were vacated based not on a new trial or on new evidence, but solely on the “confession” of Matias Reyes. …”
“In fact, Reyes’ admission that he had raped the jogger changed nothing about the evidence presented in the actual trials. It was always known that none of the defendants’ DNA — a primitive science back in 1989 — was found on the jogger. It was always known that others had participated in the attack on the jogger….”
“Another way of determining the guilt or innocence of the convicted rapists would be to look at the facts of the case — the confessions, the corroborating evidence, the state of DNA testing in 1989, the jury verdicts and Reyes’ advantageously timed confession 13 years later.”
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2011-06-22.html
Yes TBD, the more you read about this it makes Trump’s full page ad look like a plus for him even though the left will try to spin it.
So according to the article it looks like these thugs admitted to beating and raping this girl and Reyes came along later and did his dirty deed and these five thugs end up splitting $40 million. Only in America.
and you believe that article from a right wing source over the judgment of prosecutors, the dna evidence and the confession by the person who dna actually showed up. and nevermind the evidence that you yourself cited earlier that they were in another part of the park at the time of the attack. and while they confessed, the police did not scrutinize the confession and the fact that it did not match up to the known facts in the case – that’s a huge red flag that the police should have and failed to follow through on.
BP, what a racket, eh?
Attack the messenger, not the message. There were witnesses, multiple confessions. Maybe liberal New York deserves DeBlasio.
There were not witnesses that tied the five to the that attack. Also it’s kind of ironic that you state: “Attack the messenger, not the message.” And then add, “Maybe liberal New York deserves DeBlasio.” There were multiple confessions, but as we know, people falsely confess. The police and defense/ prosecutor dispute the extent to which the confessions demonstrate that the five failed to identify the scene.
One of the attorneys who was commissioned by the police in 2002 to review the case has concluded that there were two crime scenes involving the jogger and speculates that perhaps the the five participated in an initial assault on the jogger and then the sixth individual followed up with the rape and more serious secondary attack. I’m skeptical but you can find his op-ed from last year in the WSJ if you’re interested.
If you believe these thugs didn’t participate in the girl’s beating you would have to believe that this group of thugs participated in multiple false confessions about the same crime.
Given how the interrogation was conducted, that’s not a stretch. Why is “thug” relevant to the rest of your point other than being inflammatory?
“you would have to believe that this group of thugs participated in multiple false confessions about the same crime.”
BP, that is indeed my belief based on the information that I have been exposed to.
What would you call a group of guys running through a park beating and assaulting victims?
I call them thugs.
What would you call them?
Poor, misunderstood, misguided products of society?
Alleged assailants
tw, you call them thugs, they have been out of prison for more than 15 years most of them, have any committed an assault since their release?
Read this, you won’t find this information in the liberal mainstream media. All five confessed, plus a bystander said they did it, and a phone call from one of the five said they were guilty. They even confessed before they were interrogated. Reyes received favorable considerations for saying he acted alone, the police weren’t allowed to interrogate Reyes or even his cellmates. One of Reyes’ cellmates said to a reporter that Reyes said he raped the lady but came upon her after she had already been beaten. The five had semen, blood and hair on them. They led police to the scene of the crime which they could’ve only known if they were there. DNA in 1989 was at its infancy so good samples weren’t collected.
http://humanevents.com/2014/04/23/what-you-wont-read-in-the-papers-about-the-central-park-five/
read the report by Armstrong written for the police and his WSJ op-ed from last year, I don’t think any of that is substantiated.
BP
“it is refreshing to have a politician actually speaking his mind and not trying to be PC.”
Does anyone really believe that Donald Trump is “speaking his mind” ? Amazing. This man has demonstrated his willingness to say anything that will keep his name in the news. The attention seeking puts to shame anything done by anyone else on the political stage on either side so far to drive attention getting headlines. I will give him credit where due. He is a world stage class entertainer and attention generator. But if any of you believe that what he is speaking is “his mind” and “what he really believes” then I can only stand in awe of the presumptuousness of the concept that we really ever know what is in the mind of another.
Why Trump amuses me:
His ridiculous hair and trophy wives
His stance on immigration: with his wealth, if he really wanted that fence, he could have hired all his construction workers who work on all his hotels/real estate and he could have built it, and secured it by now.
Jobs- with his wealth, that he’ll never be able to spend in is lifetime, he could have already created thousands of jobs for low income at risk youths and felons released from prison. And paid for their education.
His remarks about Rosie O’Donnell, Megan Fox and Heidi Klum, of all people. Does he think that he’s going to get women to vote for him? 🙂 I do hope he’s the GOP front runner. I can’t wait to see him in a debate with a really intelligent, experienced candidate.
PS He has the nerve to say Heidi Klum is no longer hot. Not that it matters, but has he ever looked in the mirror?
How long were the five youths incarcerated? Justice perhaps was inadvertantly served for part of their incarceration for having assaulting a different person (how badly was this other person hurt, and was he also robbed?); a felony for which they were not convicted (presumably its past the statute of limitations now). $8 million apiece is a pretty tidy amount–pony it up, fellow taxpayer!
As for Trump, he made a boo boo, but no worse than the mistake the jury and the courts made in convicting this gang of youths; I don’t see it as a significant mark against Trump; just some evidence that he made a boo boo as did (presumably; if the exoneration is justified) so many others 20+ years ago surrounding this case–have any of the other presidential candidates ever made a mistake in their lives?
“What would you call a group of guys running through a park beating and assaulting victims?
I call them thugs.
What would you call them?”
I would call them innocent until proven guilty of a specific crime. I have no idea what happened on the night in question. However, I do believe in the above basic principle of our judicial system. I believe that when we abandon that principle in the name of “law and order” we abandon the core of our system of justice to our own peril.
Or to paraphrase Donald Trump “CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR BASIC PRINCIPLES SUCCEEDS”
I would consider why these confessions which you seem to be accepting unquestioningly did not match one another. Whose version of the different stories depicted by the confessions are you deciding to believe ? And if you have so much faith in these confessions, why do you dismiss the part of the confession of the DNA identified rapist that he acted alone ? I think that your willingness to accept the confessions that fit your pre decided version of what actually happened while rejecting other parts of the confessions is quite telling about your objectivity.
P.S. Trump calls Heidi Klum someone who is “no longer a ten”. Not that it matters, but has he looked in a mirror lately? Does he really believe his trophy wife would be with him if he wasn’t a billionaire? What happens when she is no longer his version of a ten?
While I think the Vanguard commenters have digressed again off topic, the article David has is one of Trump and Trump’s actions following a high profile crime. Like an old Western, he acts like the tycoon rousing up the drunken lynch mob.
Then the Vanguard readers start debating all the OTHER things that maybe can be discussed in another article?
Anyway, amusing thoughts from the learned commenters, even humor as you assassinate each others’ characters with vague insults, maybe that is how you interact for fun? If I have to offer an opinion on Mr Trump, I only will say he is doing this for his ego, and trying to make Hillary more palatable. He does not want to be President, but in the relatively small amount donated, less than a $million, has decidedly switched to Republicans in the last few years, so is he playing us all, or helping the country, or just his friends? http://www.campaignmoney.com/biography/donald_trump.asp
Miwok
You are correct that we were drawn very far afield from the original article. My very limited observations of Mr. Trump ( mostly because I find his style of buffoonery completely unappealing) is that he serves and “helps” only one person, Donald Trump. So if one is a believer in the philosophy of Ayn Rand, you may have found your true hero. All the rest of us might be better off taking him for the self centered individual that he has deliberately fashioned himself to be…..and as no more than that.
Just to be clear, I do not “believe” in Trump, nor any of the politicians that claim they are the right candidate, or the Left one either 🙂
I think both parties have corrupted their platforms by not taking a stand for or against anything. Their attempts at rewriting their own history are catching up with them. Trump, I equate with a George Wallace type candidate, bombastic and egocentric, just building his brand. The Ego of some of the politicians, namely California Senators, show that they will say anything to get a vote. They care not about you or your State or Country.
If the discussion had went that direction, it would have been interesting. Instead it went to defending a bunch of criminals (again).
Thank you, liberals defend them and give them $8 million each. Think about that poor girl who these thugs beat to a pulp.
Huzzah for Trump! He’s the only one shaking things up a bit and keeping the 2016 campaign from being a gigantic snorefest. I personally don’t regard Trump as any worse than any of the other candidates. You’ve got to hand it to Trump (as evidenced by his poll numbers) that he has tapped into a part of the american zeitgeist. An earlier commentor on another thread (I think it was Frankly) I think hit on an interesting point, that for many agnostics and atheists politics has been substituted for religion, and they tend to invest an undue solemnity in the statements coming out of politicians mouths–lighten up! I regard many of Trump’s statements as nondiplomatic exaggerrations of views that a large proportion of americans share.
And I share a debt of gratitude with many americans for Donald’s old comb-over of the dome (maybe he’s got a lumpy dome that is best covered up, to not frighten women and children); my attempts at concealing a receding hairline are modest by comparison, and if it was good enough for Trump it should be good enough for me!
But are we ready for a toupeed president? There may still be too much prejudice and fear against the hair-challenged. On the other hand, Mitt Romney lost the last republication nomination despite having by far the most superior hair of the republican contenders; a nearly unprecented defeat for the hair-blessed. Huzzah for our first hair-challenged contender who has the courage to do the decent thing and cover up a bald (and show knows, perhaps unsightly lumpy) dome!
Nice analysis tribeUSA. Trump may be covering up his dome but at least he isn’t trying to cover up for erased emails and servers.