I Have No Words

On Friday, The Washington Examiner reported the following:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s ex-husband co-founded a DNA testing company and wrote one of the first computer codes for making genetic comparisons.

Jim Warren’s career involved him in the kinds of genetic testing that Elizabeth Warren controversially invoked this month to prove that she had Native American ancestry.

One of the two other co-founders of his testing company, FamilyTreeDNA, has worked with Carlos Bustamante, the Stanford University geneticist who administered a DNA test at Elizabeth Warren’s request.

Why do I think 23 and Me might have gotten different results? Actually I am not sure 1/1024 Indian would even show up on a 23 and Me DNA test.

On October 15th, The National Review reminded us:

In fact, at the far end of the range — if her Native American ancestor is ten generations removed — then she is only 1/1024 Native American. By that measure, “white” Americans are also commonly black, and black American are also commonly white. It turns out that at least some mixing is routine in American racial groups. In 2014, the New York Times reported on the results of a massive DNA study and found that “European-Americans had genomes that were on average 98.6 percent European, .19 percent African, and .18 Native American.” Black Americans were “73.2 percent African. European genes accounted for 24 percent of their DNA, while .8 percent came from Native Americans.”

In other words, Elizabeth Warren isn’t a Cherokee. She’s a relatively normal White American — a person with some bit of mixing somewhere in their distant past. How distant? If you move to the older end of the generation range, her Native American ancestor could predate the founding of the country. She had no business holding herself out as Native American in faculty directories, in a book, or in her personal narrative.

This is a living example of how silly quotas are. Everyone needs to have any application judged on the basis of their qualifications and nothing else. Can we please put all of this group identity behind us and simply identify as Americans?

Looking At The Complete Picture

Every now and then someone comes along who sums up a situation beautifully–succinctly and with humor. Victor Davis Hanson has done that in an article posted at American Greatness yesterday. The article is titled, “The Circus of Resistance.”

Here are a few wonderful observations by Professor Hanson:

Democratic senators vied with pop-up protestors in the U.S. Senate gallery to disrupt and, if possible, to derail the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. U.S. SenatorCory Booker (D-N.J.) played Spartacus, but could not even get the script right as he claimed to be bravely releasing classified information that was already declassified. I cannot remember another example of a senator who wanted to break the law but could not figure out how to do it.

Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), former Harvard Law Professor who still insists she is of Native American heritage, called for the president to be removed by invoking the 25th Amendment. Apparently fabricating an ethnic identity is sane, and getting out of the Iran deal or the Paris Climate Accord is insanity and grounds for removal.

…To cut to the quick, the op-ed was published to coincide with the latest Bob Woodward “according-to-an-unnamed-source” exposé, Fear. The intent of anonymous and the New York Times was to create a force multiplying effect of a collapsing presidency—in need of the Times’ sober and judicious handlers, NeverTrump professionals, and “bipartisan” Democrats of the sort we saw during the Kavanaugh hearing to “step in” and apparently stage an intervention to save the country.

Had the Woodward book not been in the news, neither would be the anonymous op-ed. And of course, the Times, in times before 2017, would never have published a insurrectionary letter from an unnamed worried Obama aide that the president was detached and listless—playing spades during the Bin Laden raid, outsourcing to Eric Holder the electronic surveillance of Associated Press journalists, letting Lois Lerner weaponize the IRS, and allowing his FBI, CIA, and Justice Department to conspire to destroy Hillary Clinton’s 2016 opponent.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It is beautifully written. The article takes the time to remind us of past events as well as the current lunacy. It also reminds us that although President Trump often refers to some members of the press as ‘fake news,’ he has not followed in the steps of the previous administration by monitoring on the sly the communications of Associated Press reporters or the private emails of a Fox correspondent, or using his Justice Department and FBI hierarchy to delude a FISA court in order to spy on American citizens.

President Trump was elected by ordinary people like you and me who decided that we wanted our country back. The elites who like running things their way instead of our way do not approve. We will continue to see evidence of that for as long as President Trump is in office.

The Economic System That Works

We have all heard the expression, “The proof is in the pudding.” In other words, you can judge the value of something by how well it works. Sounds like common sense, but somehow common sense occasionally takes a vacation from our political dialog. Recently, the left wing of the Democrat party has come out in support of socialism. Tom Steyer and George Soros have invested millions of dollars into Democrat candidates who support socialism while many Democrats are trying to play down the fact that the party is flirting with socialist ideas. Capitalism has dropped in approval among the public while socialism is popular in many circles. Yet when you compare the results of the two economic systems, capitalism helps many more people than socialism.

Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial titled, “The Coming Global Middle-Class Majority: Thank Capitalism, Not Socialism, For The Boom.”

Here are some highlights from the editorial:

…capitalism in the last few decades has had the most revolutionary impact on improving human lives in history.

And yes, that’s a fact, one reaffirmed in a new study by the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution think tank.

The study validates what some have known now for years: Capitalism makes everyone wealthier, even the poor. But it also magically turns hundreds of millions of poor people into the middle class. It’s the greatest economic transformation ever.

The Brookings study, by Homi Kharas, asserts that in just two years — 2020 — the majority of the world’s estimated 7.5 billion people will be “middle class.” Kharas defines middle class as anyone who can pay for food, shelter and clothing, with enough left to supply some luxuries, including TV, a motorbike or car, higher education, home improvements and better food.

The editorial notes the difference between perception and reality:

Put another way, thanks to the free-market revolution that is still reshaping the world, per person global output increased more in the 15 years after the fall of communism than it had in the previous 10,000 years of human civilization.

To say this is an underrecognized, underreported phenomenon is an understatement. Today, in our colleges and universities, our best students learn that the world is bifurcated sharply into haves and have-nots, a result of capitalism run amok. And that capitalism leaves a small handful of people richer but the rest of us poorer.

Simply not true. Indeed, most of the world is getting richer, largely due to free trade, more open investment, and the recognition by many countries that not all regulations are good. And among those who have benefited the most are those who are the poorest.

Socialism didn’t achieve these things. Capitalism, now a dirty word, did. Yet, as we’ve mentioned before, a recent Gallup Poll shows that among those aged 18 to 29, 51% have a positive view of socialism while just 45% have a positive view of capitalism. They’re sadly mistaken.

As left-leaning economist Robert Heilbroner so eloquently wrote in the pages of the New Yorker all the way back in 1989, “Less than 75 years after it officially began, the contest between capitalism and socialism is over: capitalism has won … Capitalism organizes the material affairs of humankind more satisfactorily than socialism.”

The editorial concludes:

Yes, growth cycles go up, and they go down. But there is no question that the free market policies put in place in the early 1980s under U.S. President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher have had an enormous effect around the world. The ideas they fostered and that other governments picked up made the world a much wealthier place. They helped pull literally hundreds of millions out of poverty and misery.

Remember that the next time you hear Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren or congresswoman wannabe Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez extol the wonders of socialism. Capitalism creates wealth. Socialism creates poverty. And the explosion in the global middle class proves it.

I guess those who support candidates espousing socialism need to study recent economics and history.

Where Is The Younger Generation?

A baby boomer is our current President. Chances are, if the economy continues to grow, he will serve two terms. Logically in 2024, Mike Pence would run. So who would the Democrats run in 2020 and 2024? The Democrats are a party in flux–half of them are openly embracing socialism and half of them are trying to bring their party more into the mainstream of America.

The Hill posted an article recently about the Democrat field of candidates for President in 2020.

The article reports:

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are the most popular potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, according to a new American Barometer poll. 

The poll, which is a joint project of Hill.TV and the HarrisX polling company, showed Biden with a 50 percent favorable rating, while Sanders trailed with a 48 percent favorable rating. 

Only 31 percent of those polled said they viewed the former vice president unfavorably. A third of respondents said they viewed Sanders unfavorably. 

The survey comes as speculation swirls around a slew of potential Democratic contenders, including Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Kamala Harris (Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Cory Booker (N.J.), who could challenge President Trump in 2020. 

Warren held the highest favorable rating among Democratic senators listed in the survey, with 33 percent of those polled saying they held a favorable view of the senator.

The poll showed Gillibrand holding a 20 percent favorable rating, while 21 percent of respondents said they have a favorable view of Harris, and 23 percent said the same for Booker.  

Name recognition remains an obstacle for many Democratic contenders. 

Thirty-four percent of respondents said they had never heard of Gillibrand, while 36 percent said the same for Harris. Thirty-two percent of respondents had not heard of Booker.

Only 4 percent of those polled said they had never heard of Biden or Sanders. 

I realize that you have to be 35 to be President, but you don’t have to be over 60! Bernie Sanders is 76, and Joe Biden is 75. They are leading in the polls. Elizabeth Warren is 69. The younger contenders are Kirsten Gillibrand is 51, Kamala Harris is 53, and Cory Booker at 49 is the youngest of the group.

Where are the millenniums in either party?

In November 2017, Quorum posted the following chart about the House of Representatives:

This is the Senate:

Where are our young political leaders?

 

They Used To Call This Treason

Yesterday John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line about recent statements made by former Secretary of State John Kerry to Hussein Agha, a close associate of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

The article quotes the Jerusalem Post:

Maariv reported that former US secretary of state John Kerry met in London with a close associate of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, Hussein Agha, for a long and open conversation about a variety of topics. Agha apparently reported details of the conversation to senior PA officials in Ramallah. A senior PA official confirmed to Maariv that the meeting took place.
***
During the conversation, according to the report, Kerry asked Agha to convey a message to Abbas and ask him to “hold on and be strong.” Tell him, he told Agha, “that he should stay strong in his spirit and play for time, that he will not break and will not yield to President [Donald] Trump’s demands.”

…According to Kerry, Trump will not remain in office for a long time. It was reported that Kerry said that within a year there was a good chance that Trump would not be in the White House.

…He surprised his interlocutor by saying he was seriously considering running for president in 2020. When asked about his advanced age, he said he was not much older than Trump and would not have an age problem.

…In a report on the conversation, Agha said that Kerry appears to be “crazy about things,” very energetic, and someone who is yearning to help realize the dream of peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

As a country we have not enforced the Logan Act; however, this does seem a bit over the top.

Wikipedia definesThe Logan Act as follows:

“The Logan Act is a United States federal law that forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments. It was passed in 1799 and last amended in 1994. Violation of the Logan Act is a felony, punishable under federal law with imprisonment of up to three years.”

If John Kerry decides to run for President in 2020, he will be competing against Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. I am not sure there is enough popcorn in the world to watch that.

 

 

Do Some Democrats Even Read The Law?

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today about the change in leadership at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The current director, Richard Cordray, is resigning from the position. There are some constitutional problems with the CFPB, in that it is accountable to no one–not even the voters.

The article reports:

A federal court found the CFPB Director position held too much power and deemed it unconstitutional. The court decision noted that giving the President power to fire the Director would fix the constitutional problem.

Senator Elizabeth Warren is complaining that with the resignation of Cordray, the directorship should automatically go to the Deputy Director. Instead, President Trump is planning to appoint Mick Mulvaney as temporary head of the agency until a permanent person can be appointed. Senator Warren has tweeted that this is unacceptable.

However, the article goes on to explain why President Trump’s appointment of a temporary director would be legal:

President Trump has power to appoint the interim or ‘acting‘ head of the agency in the case of a vacancy just like he would any other vacancy. [Important Reminder: A DC appellate court already ruled the legal issues with the CFPB Director position necessitate oversight by the executive branch.] The President fills the vacancy using the familiar mechanism of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA); until such time as a permanent replacement is nominated and confirmed by the Senate.

The Dodd-Frank statute Warren cites doesn’t provide a mechanism in case of vacancy. It has a provision for when the Director is “absent” or “unavailable”, both considered temporary terms by design, but not when the Director-ship is “vacant”.

The resigning director, Richard Cordray, (who resigned from a confirmed position) cannot appoint his replacement; that responsibility falls to the President.

Nowhere in Dodd-Frank statute does congress say they are repealing Federal Vacancies Reform Act for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Therefore FVRA applies to CFPB regardless of whether Senator Warren likes the designated person assigned, or not.

Please follow the link to the original article to read the entire story. It is much more colorful than what I have posted here!

I Wonder If The Protesters Know This

The Washington Free Beacon is reporting today according to a report from the Employment Policies Institute, the majority of lawmakers sponsoring legislation to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour do not pay their interns.

The article reports:

However, the analysis conducted by the Employment Policies Institute shows that the majority of the lawmakers who have co-sponsored the measure do not pay their interns a wage at all. The study found that of the 184 lawmakers who supported the bill, 174, or 95 percent did not pay their interns.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.), Rep. Betty McCollum (D., Mn.) and Rep. Robert Scott (D., Va.) pay their interns with a stipend. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) said they offer some stipends or limited financial assistance.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D., Hi.), Sen. Mazie Hirono (D., Hi.) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) offer stipends or some assistance but they are only under certain conditions or to cover expenses like travel or housing.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) said stipends are often available but they are not guaranteed.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt. ) is the only lawmaker who pays his interns at $12 an hour, which is still less than what the legislation demands for the private sector.

“If Democrats in Congress are passionate about raising the wage to $15, they should start by paying it to their own staffers,” said Michael Saltsman, managing director at the Institute. “It’s the height of hypocrisy to hire interns for $0 an hour, while asking private small businesses to pay $15.”

“Entry-level jobs, like unpaid internships, provide young employees with valuable experience–experience that will be difficult if not impossible to come by if the minimum wage is hiked by 107 percent,” he said.

A minimum wage job is not supposed to actually support a person–it is supposed to provide an entry into the workforce for a young person. During the time a young person works at a minimum wage job, they are expected to learn some basic workforce skills–showing up on time, being courteous to people who may not be courteous to them, showing up every day, and respecting authority. When the minimum wage is raised to a certain point, the number of jobs available to young people entering the workforce will decrease and the hours that they will be available for them to work will also decrease.

Aside from the basic economics ignored by those politicians attempting to gain votes by supporting a minimum wage, I find it highly ironic that those supporting a minimum wage are not even paying their interns.

Words Of Wisdom From A Democrat

Yes, you read that right. As the Democrat party deals with the candidacies of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, and possibly Elizabeth Warren there is a quieter, more rational candidate. His name is Jim Webb.

Jim Webb was interviewed on Fox News Sunday today. The Daily Caller posted an article about the interview.

The article posted Jim Webb’s remarks about the direction his party has taken:

BRET BAIER: You mentioned the Democratic race. In the RealClearPolitics average of polls, you’re at about 2.3 percent, and well behind the front runner, Hillary Clinton. You have an uphill climb against this Clinton machine. Most political analysts will tell you that Democrats have moved resolutely to the left and that basically Hillary Clinton has renounced Clintonism, which really was the vital core of the center, used to be, in your party. In a party that seems to thrill to Bernie Sanders and maybe long for Elizabeth Warren, who are the Jim Webb Democrats?

JIM WEBB: I believe we can bring a different tone to the Democratic Party. You’re right. The party has moved way far to the left, and that’s not my Democratic Party, but in and of itself. We need to bring working people back into the formula. Next Saturday, in the far southwest of Virginia there’s going to be a medical clinic, a remote area medical clinic to take care of people who don’t have medical insurance. It’s out at the Wise County fairgrounds. I hope Fox will go down there and take a look at it. They’ll going to take care of at least 6,000… people with no medical care. They’re going to pull about 3,000 teeth. These are people who have been forgotten by both parties and, I think, they need a voice.

The Democrat party has claimed for years to represent the forgotten man. However, both the Republican and Democrat parties have been taken over by special interest groups that have forgotten the forgotten man. Very few Americans are currently represented by either party establishment. It is time for Americans to begin to take back whichever party they choose to support. The time for allowing the establishment of both parties to do what is in the interest of their party rather than what is in the interest of America is over. There used to be small-government, constitutional conservatives in both political parties. Now it is hard to find those people in either party. It is up to the American people to elect people who will support the U.S. Constitution as the law of the land and who will actually represent the voters and not the political class.

POSTSCRIPT: I just watched the entire interview. Frankly, that is the only thing Jim Webb said that I agree with.

Bias? What Bias?

Brent Bozell posted an article at Townhall.com today contrasting the reporting on Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren during the Senate budget debate. The contrast is amazing.

The article reports:

Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Elizabeth Warren are polar opposites, a Tea Party conservative and an Occupy Wall Street socialist. Then there are the similarities: Both were elected in 2012, both have Harvard on their resume and both are mentioned as presidential material. But the media’s read of the two demonstrates an unquestionable slant.

Both senators have shaken up the Senate over heavy spending and regulation. When Warren does it, she’s promoted as a profile in courage, standing up for fairness. When Cruz does it, he’s a selfish brat causing meltdowns.

The article reminds us to look for this type of reporting as the 2016 Presidential campaign begins.

The article cites an example of bias in The Hill:

William Jacobson at the blog Legal Insurrection found another example in The Hill newspaper, reflecting the Capitol’s own tilt like a funhouse mirror. His examples were less than 24 hours apart. Warren drew the Dec. 12 headline “Warren makes her mark,” and on Dec. 13, the headline was “Cruz center of Senate meltdown.” The articles even had the same author, a hack named Alexander Bolton.

The article concludes:

All this provides a precise GPS location for our liberal media. To them, Ted Cruz is a dangerous extremist, but Warren is their heroine — compassionate, professorial and politically and economically correct. Anyone who expects objectivity from the press is badly out of touch.

Look for this pattern throughout the 2016 campaign.

Some Thoughts On That New Car Smell

Yesterday Byron York posted an article at the Washington Examiner about President Obama’s recent comments that a 2016 Democrat Presidential candidate would need that new car smell.

The article states:

President Obama set off ripples in the political world Sunday morning when he said voters in the 2016 presidential race will want “that new car smell.” Speaking with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Obama said in picking a new leader, Americans will “want to drive something off the lot that doesn’t have as much mileage as me.”

President Obama also praised Hillary Clinton’s performance as Secretary of State as he made those comments.

I would like to point out something about that ‘new car smell.’ Just for the record, it is toxic! In February 2012, CBS News reported:

(CBS) Who doesn’t love that factory fresh “new car smell”? It’s so well-liked that air fresheners and sprays have been produced in attempts to reclaim the odor.

…But according to a new study from the nonprofit Ecology Center and HealthyStuff.org, what you might actually be sniffing are toxic fumes from chemicals used to create the car interior.

Meanwhile, back to President Obama’s statement. Despite praising Hillary Clinton’s performance as Secretary of State (which isn’t a surprise, since theoretically the President controls the actions of the Secretary of State), it seems to be common knowledge in Washington that there is no great love between the Clintons and the Obamas. I believe that President Obama (either behind the scenes or obviously) will support Elizabeth Warren as the Democrat candidate for President in 2016. Senator Warren would be able to challenge Hillary Clinton from the left, despite the fact that politically they are not really very far apart. Note that the leaders of the Senate have already put Senator Warren in a leadership position.

Anyway, I am hoping that the new car smell that is toxic in automobiles will also be toxic in Democrat presidential politics.

The Obama Administration Is Working Hard To Redistribute What Hard-Working People Have Earned

The Daily Signal (a website of the Heritage Foundation) posted a story today about President Obama’s latest memorandum. The memorandum bypasses Congress and expands an existing federal loan option available to undergrad and graduate students.

The article reports:

For those working in public service or the government, any remaining debt is forgiven after 10 years. An estimated 5 million more borrowers will become eligible under the new plan. Before today, only those who took out loans after 2007 were entitled to “Pay as You Earn” benefits.

To finance the program, Obama proposed closing “tax loopholes” for the wealthy, or what he called “millionaires.”

“This should be a no-brainer,” he said today at the White House. “It would be scandalous if we allowed those kinds of tax loopholes for the very, very fortunate to survive while students are having trouble just getting started in their lives.”

The chart below was found as a result of a google search:

The fact that students are going in debt for their education has a number of causes. Since the 1990’s, college tuition has increased exponentially. Some of the degrees students are graduating with have little or no value in the workplace. Parents of students have not been encouraged to send their children to community colleges for their first two years of school in order to keep the costs reasonable. The students have no sense of the amount of money they are borrowing, and the colleges have no reason to control their expenses. As long as the government subsidizes the loans and forgives them, there is no reason for anyone involved to act responsibly. That is what happens when wealth is redistributed–the rich do not work as hard, and the people receiving the money do not learn responsibility–they learn a sense of entitlement.

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The Black Hole Tax Money Enters

Remember the dust up in Massachusetts when before the election when the state Welfare Department sent out voter-registration forms to welfare recipients? There were links between the Elizabeth Warren campaign and the state-funded campaign to register voters, but that was quietly swept under the table by the media. There is another part of the story, however, that may be even more interesting to follow.

Today’s Boston Herald posted an article explaining that many of the forms sent were returned as undeliverable.

The article reports:

Red-faced state officials admitted last night they are trying to find as many as 19,000 missing welfare recipients — after the controversial taxpayer-funded voter registration pitches the state mailed to their addresses last summer were sent back marked “Return to sender, address unknown.”

The Department of Transitional Assistance contacted 477,000 welfare recipients who were on their books from June 1, 2011, to May 31, 2012, after settling a voter-rights lawsuit brought by Democratic-leaning activist groups that demanded an aggressive voter information effort by the state. That $274,000 push by DTA resulted in 31,000 new voter registrations — but revealed an alarming number of welfare recipients whose residency in Massachusetts can’t be confirmed.

The article reports that many of these welfare recipients continue to receive their benefits through direct deposits to their bank accounts although the state has no way of knowing whether they still live in the state. This is just one example of how well the states manage the money taxpayers give them.

The biggest mistake we ever made in America was putting an income tax in place. Prior to 1913, there was no federal income tax, although one had been levied briefly during the Civil War and was later repealed. The second biggest mistake was using withholding to pay the tax. If everyone realized how much they were actually paying in taxes, Americans might demand that the government shrink to a reasonable size!

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Why I Voted For Scott Brown

I not only voted for Scott Brown–last night I attended his hometown rally in Wrentham, MA. There were about a thousand people there.

I am a conservative. Some of my views on issues are not in agreement with some of Scott Brown’s votes. So why did I vote for him? Before Scott Brown was my U. S. Senator, he was the Massachusetts Senator from my district. I am also friends of some of the clients he helped when he practiced law in Massachusetts. I am also aware of his work on behalf of the fishing industry in Massachusetts.

Scott Brown is an honest, hard-working man. He loves America and wants to see all Americans prosper. We need him as our Senator in Washington.

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An Interesting Twist On The Massachusetts Senate Election

Today’s Weekly Standard posted an article (and a video) stating that union members who showed up to support Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren during the Wednesday night debate in Springfield, Massachusetts, were told that they would be fined if they were not there.

This is the video:

The article states:

This isn’t the first instance in a Massachusetts Senate race where unions have been accused of generating fake grassroots support for the Democrat.

In 2010, before Brown‘s victory in the special election, a union member wearing a shirt supporting the Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley, told a local blogger on camera that he had been paid $50 to wear the shirt but that he was actually voting for Brown.

Don’t believe that all the union support for Ms. Warren is real.

 

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Does The Supreme Judicial Court In Massachusetts Care About The Law ?

Yesterday Legal Insurrection posted a copy of a letter sent to the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court regarding recent statements by Michael Fredrickson, the General Counsel of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers. Within a few hours after William Jacobson reported on his website, Legal Insurrection, that Elizabeth Warren was practicing law without a license, Mr. Fredrickson gave an interview defending Elizabeth Warren.

The article reports:

That Mass Lawyers Weekly interview has been the basis for the defense of Warren.  After all, if the General Counsel of the entity with quasi-regulatory authority publicly announced a conclusion, why treat the issue seriously?  Even The Boston Globe has a similar quote from Fredrickson today, and uses that quote to dismiss the issue out of hand.

Yet the issue is serious, as even people who did not initially agree with me have acknowledged.

Fredrickson effectively quashed the public discussion by virtue of his title and position.

Fredrickson later admitted, however, that he was not speaking on behalf of the BBO and was not reaching any conclusions as to Warren individually because he knew so little about her practice….

This is the press release from the Republican Party, including the letter to Chief Justice Ireland:

Boston- Today, MassGOP Chairman Bob Maginn sent the following letter to the Honorable Chief Justice Roderick L. Ireland of the Supreme Judicial Court regarding recent comments made by Board of Bar Overseers General Counsel, Michael Fredrickson. The letter raises concerns about Mr. Fredrickson’s public comments that “appear to advance a partisan agenda that is inconsistent with any agency within the judicial branch.”

Supreme Judicial Court
The Honorable Roderick L. Ireland
John Adams Courthouse
One Pemberton Square, Suite 2500
Boston, MA 02108

October 8, 2012

RE: Michael Fredrickson

Dear Chief Justice Ireland:

I am writing to express concern that the Board of Bar Overseers General Counsel Michael Fredrickson has made public comments without the benefit of any investigation or due process regarding legality of U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren’s practice of law from her office in Cambridge without admission to the Massachusetts bar. Mindful that Attorney Fredrickson has a fine reputation as General Counsel to the Board of Bar Overseers (“BBO”), a fictional writer, and law professor, I am nonetheless compelled to make your office aware of his recent public statements, as follows:

• “Michael Fredrickson, general counsel for the BBO, says he does not believe a law professor would be considered to have ‘a continuous presence’ or ‘an office practicing law.’ ‘If they actually practice here – as some part-time law professors at some of the smaller schools do – they might,’ Fredrickson says. ‘But being a professor at one of the large schools, their office is a professor’s office, and the fact that they tend to dabble in the practice of law doesn’t run afoul of our rule. I don’t think Elizabeth Warren would fall within that, such that she would have to register here.’ (Lisa Keen, “Warren law license matter called non-issue,” Mass Lawyers Weekly, 9/24/12).

• “Fredrickson stated that he did not purport to determine whether Warren violated the applicable law. He said he was just ‘speaking hypothetically’ and not specifically as to Warren because ‘I know so little about Elizabeth Warren and her practice.’” (http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/09/no-mass-board-of-bar-overseers-has-not-exonerated-elizabeth-warren/)

• “Fredrickson confirmed that he did make the comments attributed to him in MLW, but also made clear that he was not speaking on behalf of the BBO. Fredrickson said it was his ‘personal reading’ of the law, and that he was ‘not speaking on behalf of the Board of Bar Overseers.’” (http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/09/no-mass-board-of-bar-overseers-has-not-exonerated-elizabeth-warren/)

Taking into consideration the honored tradition of the Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”) and the BBO with regard to not politicizing the carrying out of your respective responsibilities, Mr. Fredrickson’s public comments appear to advance a partisan agenda that is inconsistent with any agency within the judicial branch. Foremost, Mr. Fredrickson’s statements arrived in the public dialogue devoid of any formal investigation, fact finding, or proper evaluation. Further, upon consultation with counsel, I understand Mr. Fredrickson’s conclusions to be incorrect. As a threshold, the part-time practice of law is not any less the practice of law; and, without an appropriate exception to the Rules of Professional Conduct, a license is required for the practice of law in the Commonwealth. Lastly, while I notice Mr. Fredrickson’s repackaged his statements as those of his own and not of the BBO they still may be attributable as opinions of the SJC and the BBO without a formal correction.

In view of the aforementioned, it may be appropriate for the SJC or the BBO to issue a statement recognizing the lack of authority and enforceability of Mr. Fredrickson’s personal views. Accordingly, with this correspondence, I deferentially request that the SJC issue a statement or direct the BBO to issue a statement to that effect.

Respectfully,

Bob Maginn

cc:
Susan Mellen, Supreme Judicial Court, Clerk
Christine P. Burak, Legal Counsel to the Chief Justice
Michael Fredrickson, Board of Bar Overseers, General Counsel
David S. Mackey, Board of Bar Overseers, Chair

This is an issue that needs to be investigated.

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Should Political Candidates Be Held To The Same Laws As The Rest Of Us ?

Yesterday a website called Legal Insurrection posted an article about the law practice of U. S. Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren.

William A. Jacobson, the writer of the article, reports:

I confirmed with the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers by telephone that Warren never has been admitted to practice in Massachusetts.  I had two conversations with the person responsible for verifying attorney status.  In the first conversation the person indicated she did not see any entry for Warren in the computer database, but she wanted to double check.  I spoke with her again several hours later, and she indicated she had checked their files and also had spoken with another person in the office, and there was no record of Warren ever having been admitted to practice in Massachusetts.

Meanwhile, the article also states:

Regardless of where she was admitted, Warren consistently since the late 1990s has held herself out as having her professional address for legal representation at her Harvard Law School office in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Warren was listed as “Of Counsel” on Travelers’ Supreme Court Brief, listing her Harvard Law School office as her office address:

I called a lawyer I know and asked if this was normal practice. I was informed that the average lawyer would be disbarred (or worse) for practicing law in Massachusetts without having been admitted to the bar in Massachusetts.

The article further states:

There is no requirement that a law teacher be licensed to practice law in Massachusetts in order to teach or publish on topics related to law.  In fact, a law teacher need not even be a lawyer.  Once that law teacher starts acting a lawyer, however, the normal licensing rules apply.

The question becomes whether Warren was “practicing law” at her Cambridge address, or doing something that does not constitute the practice of law.

A person practicing law in Massachusetts needs to be licensed to do so.  Superadio Ltd. Partnership v. Winstar Radio Productions, LLC, 446 Mass. 330, 334, 844 N.E.2d 246, 250 (Mass. 2006)(“As a general proposition, an attorney practicing law in Massachusetts must be licensed, or authorized, to practice law here”).

As a lawyer, she would have known that she had to be admitted to the bar in Massachusetts to practice law in Massachusetts.

The article concludes:

I detail above the facts and law which lead me to the conclusion that Warren has practiced law in Massachusetts without a license in violation of Massachusetts law for well over a decade.

I expect Warren will disagree, and I welcome a discussion of the facts and the law.

I doubt that will happen.  Instead, and similar to how her campaign tried to demonize me and the Cherokee women who questioned her supposed Native American ancestry, I expect Warren’s campaign will attempt to deflect these serious issues by attacking the messenger.

Warren should disclose the full scope of her private law practice.  Perhaps there are facts not publicly available which will demonstrate that Warren was not engaged in the practice of law in Massachusetts when she earned $212,000 from Travelers, plus other fees from others who sought out her legal expertise dating back to the 1990s.

The voters of Massachusetts are entitled to know, before they vote, whether one of the candidates for Senate has not been following the rules which apply to everyone else.

Massachusetts voters have a choice in November between a man who legally practiced law in this state for a number of years and a lady who seems to have very little regard for the law.

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Using Taxpayer Money To Support Democrat Candidates

Howie Carr posted a story today in the Boston Herald about the voter registration forms that are being sent out with welfare checks in Massachusetts. What is being done in Massachusetts may be technically legal, but it definitely does not pass the smell test.

The Boston Herald reported yesterday that the group behind the plan to send out voter registration forms with welfare checks is headed by Elizabeth Warren‘s daughter. Elizabeth Warren is the Democrat candidate running against Republican Senator Scott Brown. This little exercise in democracy will cost the Massachusetts taxpayers $275,844. A letter and a voter registration form is being sent with every welfare check issued in the State.

The article in yesterday’s Boston Herald reported:

Demos, a group founded in the late 1990s to counter conservative think tanks, also counts President Obama as a founding board member.

The Herald reported today that the group recently forced the Bay State to send out nearly 500,000 voter registration cards to those on welfare at a cost of $276,000. Demos also has sued nine states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Louisiana.

The Bay State lawsuit, filed in conjunction with the ACORN offshoot New England United for Justice, comes as Warren faces a tight battle with Brown in a nationally-watched battle that could decide which Party controls the Senate.

Brown said he supports allowing all legal voters to register, but said officials shouldn’t do so with taxpayer dollars.

Note the ACORN connection. Unless all of us learn to fight for the integrity of our elections, these people are not going to go away.

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Elizabeth Warren Is the Democrat’s Choice To Run Against Scott Brown

Today’s New York Times is reporting that Elizabeth Warren has won the nomination of the Massachusetts Democrat Party and will be running against Scott Brown in November’s Senate race. Ms. Warren won nearly 96 percent of the votes at the state Democrat convention.

The article reports:

It was a foregone conclusion that Ms. Warren, who has been widely perceived as the presumptive nominee, would win the endorsement. The question was how many votes her rival, Marisa DeFranco, would receive. Ms. DeFranco, an immigration lawyer, needed 15 percent of the vote to earn a spot on the ballot.

During the past few days, Ms. Warren has been endorsed by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick

The article further reports:

Ms. Warren began the day with some good news with two new polls — from The Boston Globe and from Western New England University — showing her running essentially even with Mr. Brown.

Massachusetts is pretty much a one-party state, so I suppose it is not surprising to see Ms. Warren running even with Scott Brown, but I do find that somewhat hard to believe. In recent weeks it has become obvious that Ms. Warren has not been entirely honest about certain aspects of her heritage that she has used to advance her career. A lot of people I have talked to have been totally turned off to her as a candidate because of the ciaims of Indian heritage that may or may not be true. Scott Brown is likeable, personable (and frankly a whole lot less conservative than I would prefer), but he has never claimed to be a conservative, and I believe he has always voted for what he thought was in the best interest of the people he was elected to represent. Scott Brown is the best choice for the voters of Massachusetts–it will be interesting to see if they make that choice.

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What Are The Odds That There Will Be A New Democrat Senate Candidate In Massachusetts Before November ?

Breitbart.com posted an article today about some recipes submitted by Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren to the POW WOW CHOW cookbook. Howie Carr, a Boston talk-radio host, has uncovered some information that seems to show that the recipes were plagiarized. The information is posted on Howie Carr’s website. You can compare the recipes for yourself.

Ms. Warren has had a rough couple of weeks. There are a lot of unanswered questions about her supposed Indian heritage (which was very valuable in advancing her career) and now the POW WOW CHOW recipes look less than authentic. Ms. Warren has been raising money to run against Scott Brown for quite some time and has amassed a substantial war chest. Is that a guarantee that she will get the Democrat nomination? The Democrats pulled a switch in a New Jersey Senate election a few years ago (google “Jon Corzine”–it may take you a while to get the whole story!), but I don’t think they will do that is Massachusetts.

DaTechGuy, a Massachusetts blogger, recently had a few thoughts on the subject–he pointed out that Marsia DeFranco (the other Democrat running in the Primary) is not setting the world on fire:

Marsia DeFranco has been a candidate for the US Senate since last year and has been campaigning since then. Her fundraising has been so successful that her campaign couldn’t loan me the money to replace my furnace even if it wanted to.

But money isn’t everything what about press. Lets look at how much coverage she has generated:

I did an exact search for the Name “Marisa DeFranco” in Google news over the last year (5/16/11 – 5/16/12) sorted by date, I got 208 results shown via 6 pages.

This is going to be an interesting November.

 

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It Really Is The Silly Season

It is May. Elections in America are 5 1/2 months away. There is no reason for the current level of misinformation and insanity that is already swirling around us.

Breitbart.com reported today on the latest developments in the “Is Elizabeth Warren an American Indian controversy.” Frankly, it really is not an important questions unless she used her supposed American Indian heritage to advance her career when the heritage did not exist. One of my daughters (a lawyer), in commenting to me about this controversy, pointed out that in order for my daughter to join the Daughters of the American Revolution, she would have to prove her ancestry. If colleges are offering scholarships and special opportunities to people of specific ethnic backgrounds, why are they not checking those backgrounds? I am reminded of a 1986 movie entitled “Soul Man” where C. Thomas Howell plays a young white man posing as a young black man to receive a full scholarship to Harvard.

Anyway, the latest in the saga of the American Indians in Elizabeth Warren’s family…The campaign has offered two pieces of evidence supposedly supporting Ms. Warren’s claim of being an American Indian. The first was a statement by genealogist Chris Child of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. That statement was debunked in a Breitbart article a few days ago. The second is the fact that Elizabeth Warren’s cousin Mrs. James P. Rowsey edited and published a cookbook in 1984 — Pow Wow Chow: A Collection of Recipes from Families of the Five Civilized Tribes: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek & Seminole.

There really is nothing more I can add to this discussion.

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It Sounds Like A Good Idea– But It Just Doesn’t Work

Yesterday Michael Barone at the Washington Examiner posted an article about the recent dust-up about Elizabeth Warren‘s American Indian heritage. I live in Massachusetts and this story has been rather widely reported here.

The point of concern is not whether Elizabeth Warren is Native American or not–I really don’t care. The question is whether or not someone who may be 1/32 Native American can use that fact to be given special consideration when applying for education or employment opportunities.

The article notes:

Let’s assume the 1894 document is accurate. That makes Warren 1-32nd Native American. George Zimmerman, the Florida accused murderer, had a black grandmother. That makes him one-fourth black, four times as black as Warren is Indian, though the New York Times describes him as a “white Hispanic.”

What’s wrong with what Warren did? Capehart seems to understand that. “The implication in these stories is that Warren used minority status to advance her career,” he writes.

Well, yes. When she was hired, Harvard Law School had just denied tenure to a female teacher and was being criticized for not having enough minorities and women on its faculty.

Of course Harvard and Warren say her claim to minority status had nothing to do with her being hired. And if it did, no one is going to say so. Nothing to see here, just move on.

Quotas really don’t help anyone actually succeed–they may open a door for someone, but if a person is not academically qualified to take advantage of an opportunity, opening a door for that person does not help anyone–it simply puts an unqualified person in a position that a qualified person could fill. We need to remember the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “A man should not be judged by his skin color but by the content of his character.” A person should be given opportunities based on his (or her) abilities, not race or sex. 

America has made some serious mistakes in the way certain groups of people have been treated. As Americans, we need to acknowledge that, stop doing it, and learn from our mistakes. We can’t redo the past, and discriminating against the majority of Americans will not change the past.

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I Hate To Pile On, But…

Elizabeth Warren is having a bad time right now. The facts have caught up with the dialogue. For a politician that is never a good thing (well, sometimes it is, if they are telling the truth!). I probably should mention at this point that I live in Massachusetts, will be voting for Scott Brown, and made a small donation to his campaign (considering the name of this website, that should not be a surprise).

In regard to the Indian claim, it really would have remained simply an item of family lore to have fun with if she hadn’t checked off a few boxes on her way to her current position. Every family has its urban legend–that’s part of the fun of being a family–but you are not supposed to try to advance your career by claiming whatever urban legend your family embraces.

Ms. Warren has a larger problem with truth and image in this campaign. On Tuesday, the Washington Examiner posted an article which included some of Ms. Warren’s employment history.

The article reports:

In addition to the story about Warren’s minority claims, the Boston Globe reported that Warren had a lucrative consulting job with Travelers Insurance in which she helped the company stop asbestos-related lawsuits, work that conflicts with her image as a consumer protection advocate who was once tapped to head the federal government’s newly created Consumer Protection Agency.

“I think the Native American story will pass,” University of Massachusetts political science professor Maurice Cunningham said. “But it’s a little hard to make the case you are purely for the consumer when you are working for Travelers Insurance.”

There are actually two disturbing things about the Travelers Insurance story. First, I understand that insurance companies (like any other business) are in business to make money, but that does not give them the right to try to squelch legitimate claims–if the asbestos-related lawsuits were legitimate and not over-the-top, there should have been no effort to stop them. If they were lawsuits where the lawyers made the money and the victims made little or nothing, they should have been stopped. (Tort reform, anyone?) Second, unless Ms. Warren can explain why she worked to stop the lawsuits, her credibility as a consumer advocate is about the same as her credibility as an Indian.

 

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The Massachusetts Senate Race

Scott Brown, Republican U.S. Senator represent...

Scott Brown, Republican U.S. Senator representing Massachusetts, at a U.S. Senate campaign event on December 31, 2009, in Plymouth Massachusetts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Senate race in Massachusetts is going to be interesting. Scott Brown took the seat in a special election in 2010 after the death of Senator Kennedy. He was embraced by the Tea Party and traveled the state extensively to win votes. Senator Brown has not voted in line with the wishes of the Tea Party, but has definitely been his own man. I have not always agreed with his votes, but will be voting for him again–he is an honest man, and I believe he is trying to vote in the best interests of Massachusetts and America.

The other candidate for the Senate seat is Elizabeth Warren, currently a law professor at Harvard. Ms. Warren has made a few misstatements in her campaign that may be a problem for her.

Today’s Boston Herald reports:

Despite claiming she never used her Native American heritage when applying for a job, Elizabeth Warren’s campaign admitted last night the Democrat listed her minority status in professional directories for years when she taught at the University of Texas and the University of Pennsylvania.

Other than the fact that the statement calls into question Ms. Warren’s basic honesty, it really is no big deal.

The Herald further reports:

The Herald reported Friday that embattled Harvard Law School officials touted Warren’s Native American heritage — she reportedly has ancestors from the Cherokee and Delaware tribes — as proof of the faculty’s diversity.

The Warren campaign has said the U.S. Senate candidate never allowed Harvard Law to claim her as a minority hire. Warren herself has said she could not “recall” ever listing her Native American background when applying for college or a job.

It really is no big deal whether or not Ms. Warren was hired because of her racial background or not–it is a concern, however, that she feels necessary to lie about it during the campaign.

 

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The Senate Campaign In Massachusetts Has Begun

Scott Brown, Republican U.S. Senator represent...

Image via Wikipedia

The election is a year away, but in Massachusetts the race for the Senate seat currently held by Scott Brown is already underway. I have seen ads on television from various groups. I have seen some of the snide remarks made in the debates between Democrat candidates. I guess it’s going to be a long year.

Massachusetts voters are responsible for the people they send to Washington and the impact those people have on the economy. I received the following press release in my email tonight on some recent statements by Democrat Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren:

Professor Warren Calls For Higher Payroll Taxes On Small Business Owners
In The Same Speech, She Hypocritically Blames Others For “Voting Against” Small Businesses

 BOSTON – During a speech to the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce yesterday, Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren advocated raising payroll taxes on people making as little as $108,000 a year – a proposal that would impact the very same small businesses she accuses Republicans of “voting against.”

 As reported in today’s Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Warren answered a question from an audience member about payroll taxes by saying:

 Not shying away from point-blank questions from Gaudette Insurance Agency President Lee Gaudette about funding Social Security for the baby boom generation, Ms. Warren said that if income were taxed for Social Security at a flat rate, instead of having the taxable portion capped at $108,000, the program would pay for itself.

 Earlier in her speech, however, Warren said that “small businesses are the crucial engine of job creation in Massachusetts and across the country” and went on to accuse Republicans of “voting against small businesses.”

 “Professor Warren’s double-speak on small businesses is breathtaking,” said Nate Little, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Republican Party. “Her endorsement of a tax hike on those making $108,000 a year demonstrates how fundamentally out-of-touch she is with the concerns of entrepreneurs and small business owners. Next year’s election will be about the economy, and it’s clear that Professor Warren’s economic plans would crush the people she rightfully describes as the ‘engine of job creation.’”

The race begins.

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