Elizabeth Warren stuns "Why Isn't Minimum Wage $22?"

The expert that she is questioning starts talking about a minimum wage of $36 an hour.  Does Warren really think that the productivity of minimum wage workers has been as large as it has been for the average worker?  How does she think that wages are set in the market?  Does she understand that the rents that these price controls create are competed away?  It is called rent-seeking by economists.

Elizabeth Warren blasts Romney comment that “corporations are people.”

Politico has this:

It was almost as if she was behind a lectern at Harvard again, teaching a lesson.
Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren took direct aim at Mitt Romney at an Obama fundraiser on Monday, dredging up his remark that “corporations are people.”
“No, Mitt, corporations are not people,” she exclaimed. “People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick,… they live and they die. Learn the difference. . . .

If this is what is taught at Harvard, we are in bad shape.  Here is the point that Romney was making.  Corporations are made up of people who work together.  Corporations don't exist independently of people.

Where is Elizabeth Warren's explanation?: Attacking foreclosures while having profited from foreclosures

Are these actions those of the same person who is now running for the US Senate?  Can she explain the "loaned money at high interest rates"?  From the Boston Herald:

• Purchasing a foreclosed home at 2725 West Wilshire Boulevard from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for $61,000 in June 1993, then selling it in December 1994 for $95,000 — a 56 percent mark-up in just 18 months.• Buying a house at 200 NW 16th St. for $30,000 in August 1993, then flipping it for $145,000 — a 383 percent gain after just five months.
• Lending one of her brothers money at 9.5 percent interest to buy a home at 1425 Classen Drive for $35,000 in August 2000. He sold the place three months later for $38,500 — a 10 percent gain in 75 days.
• Providing her brother with financing to buy a $25,000 house at 4301 NW 16th St. in 1994. He sold the property four years later for $42,000, a 68 percent increase. . . .
Herald columnist Howie Carr reported yesterday that Warren and her relatives also profited from two additional Oklahoma City foreclosures — in both cases showing triple-digit percentage gains.
Warren’s campaign issued a statement last night: “Elizabeth and (her husband) Bruce are fortunate to be in a position where they can help their family. They have been able to help relatives buy their homes and her nephew — a contractor — fix up houses.” . . .

After the Boston Globe piece does anyone believe that Warren didn't get the Harvard Law School position because of her claim to be an American Indian?

The Boston Globe piece on Elizabeth Warren is devastating. As someone who has held academic positions most of my adult life, it is very difficult to believe that Warren didn't understand how much she would benefit from claiming that she was an American Indian.  Talk about a rare find in academia.  An American Indian woman faculty member would be given a huge hiring preference.  At least at the top of the webpage there is this note: "Elizabeth Warren has not proven she has a Native American ancestor, instead saying she based her belief on family lore. "  The fact that anyone would claim that they are of a particular race because they are 1/32nd of that group, even if they had evidence for it, is bizarre.  However, if that becomes the accepted standard, I will have to change my designation because I am 1/32nd American Indian.  


From the Boston Globe (it is a very long piece and I suggest everyone read, but here are some key points):

 . . . for at least six straight years during Warren’s tenure, Harvard University reported in federally mandated diversity statistics that it had a Native American woman in its senior ranks at the law school. According to both Harvard officials and federal guidelines, those statistics are almost always based on the way employees describe themselves.In addition, both Harvard’s guidelines and federal regulations for the statistics lay out a specific definition of Native American that Warren does not meet.  . . . 

 In the years before Warren first came to Harvard Law, the school was under intense pressure to diversify its faculty. In 1990, Derrick Bell, a prominent black law professor, went on a one-man strike, taking an unpaid leave of absence to protest the fact that the law school had not yet brought a black female academic permanently on board. He was dismissed from the faculty. 

The same year, the Department of Labor audited Harvard’s diversity practices based on its affirmative action plan, . . . Also in 1990, 12 students sued the law school, alleging it discriminated against academic job applicants on the basis of race and gender. . . . 

Harvard agreed to remedy 10 violations the Labor Department identified, bringing the audit to an end. But the controversy over diversity at Harvard Law did not cease.Warren arrived as a visiting professor in 1992, but left a year later. By then, she had been listing herself for seven years as a minority in a legal directory often used by law recruiters to make diversity-friendly hires. She continued to list herself in the book until 1995, the year she took a permanent position at Harvard. . . . 

But the school had begun describing Warren as Native American in the media soon after she was hired.In 1996, law school news director Mike Chmura, speaking to the Harvard Crimson, identified Warren as a Native American professor. 

In 1997, the Fordham Law Review, citing Chmura, referred to Warren as Harvard Law’s “first woman of color.’ 

In 1998, Chmura wrote a letter to the New York Times, saying the law school had appointed or tenured “eight women, including a Native American.’’ 

Three days later, the Crimson again touched on the issue: “Harvard Law School currently has only one tenured minority woman, Gottlieb Professor of Law Elizabeth Warren, who is Native American.’’ . . .

Warren continues to duck questions about her ethnic heritage claims

It is an amazing scene where Warren turns to another reporter in hopes that they will ask a question on another topic and instead the reporter says that he won't interrupt the flow of the other reporter's questions.  I would have asked the questions a little differently, but it should be clear to everyone that Warren has no evidence to support her claims.

The initial reports that claimed there was evidence to support her that she was 1/32nd American Indian was false, but it may have gotten her over the crucial hump.  The simple question that should be asked here is: what evidence do you have that you are 1/32nd Indian?  Every academic knows that she benefited a lot from claiming that she was American Indian.

More on Elizabeth Warren

Cherokee Genealogist debunks Elizabeth Warren's claim to be a Cherokee. Listen to this at WRKO. There is also more evidence of her using it for personal advantage. From ABC News:

A 1997 piece from the Fordham Law Review lists Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren as the “first woman of color” hired by Harvard Law School, according to reports. The article, which was unearthed by Politico, was titled ”Intersectionality and positionality: Situating women of color in the affirmative action dialogue.” The author, Laura Padilla, who now serves as the Associate Dean of California Western Law School in San Diego, CA., reportedly based her description on a phone conversation with then Harvard Law spokesman, Mike Chmura. . . .

In addition, there is the claim that Elizabeth Warren plagiarized her contributions to a book.

Liberals say that it has been OK to classify yourselves as a minority if you have "one-drop" of minority blood

I guess that I missed the memo that it was OK to classify oneself as a minority with "one-drop" of minority blood.  I really get the impression that this is just trying to cover liberal's tracks on Elizabeth Warren and give her cover.  It seems that if I had done that (and I am 1/32nd American Indian), there were be few claiming that was the right rule to use.  Here is a piece that refers to the "one-drop" rule.  Had I heard of the "one-drop" rule?  Sure, but I thought that this rule was surely objectionable to liberals.  Apparently, I was completely wrong.

Harvard won't say who the Native American Indian Faculty member is

Harvard claims that they have one American Indian faculty member, but they won't say who it is.  What is the point of that?  Isn't the point of having minority appointments so that students can use them as guidance?  Back in 1996 the Harvard Law School pointed to Warren as their American Indian professor.  An article in the Harvard Crimson made a not of her as such.  From the Boston Herald:

Harvard Law School lists one lone Native American faculty member on its latest diversity census report — but school officials and campaign aides for Elizabeth Warren refused to say yesterday whether it refers to the Democratic Senate candidate. . . .
Harvard Law’s 2011 diversity report does not indicate who the Native American professor is. And the school refused to say whether it’s Warren. . . . .

So what impact is all this having on the campaign?  Again from the Boston Herald:

Elizabeth Warren’s stumbling efforts to douse the firestorm surrounding her claims of being a Native American minority have raised concerns among local and national Democrats who are questioning her campaign’s competence.
“There’s nobody watching this that doesn’t think she’s in big trouble,” one well-known Massachusetts Democrat said. . . . Some national political experts had much stronger words for Warren’s conflicting explanations about why she listed herself as a minority in university directories.
“This takes her biography into a bizarre dimension,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “It has derailed the effort to define Warren in a voter-friendly way.”
Sabato also said that Warren’s claim that she didn’t list herself as a minority to gain an employment advantage is not believable. 

“This is what happens when candidates don’t tell the truth,” he said. “It’s pretty obvious she was using (the minority listing) for career advancement.” . . . .

Is Elizabeth Warren serious about her explanation for why she classified herself as an American Indian in Law School Directories?

The reporter's question here is such a softball.  I have a hard time believing that the reporter is at all serious.  How does someone with 1/32nd American Indian ancestry really list enroll as being a member of a tribe?  How do they list themselves as being an Indian?  Warren's claim that she didn't expected any affirmative action gain from her listing and that she just did it to meet other people with tribal roots is bizarre.  Again, I am 1/32nd American Indian and it has never crossed my mind to list myself down as American Indian.

In the youtube videos below a couple of points have come out.  1) That she is 1/32nd Indian may be questionable because the ancestor was apparently not in the Cherokee census. 2) Warren used to claim that she was a descendant from the Delaware tribe, not Cherokee.



From the Boston Herald:

Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, fending off questions about whether she used her Native American heritage to advance her career, said today she enrolled herself as a minority in law school directories for nearly a decade because she hoped to meet other people with tribal roots.
“I listed myself in the directory in the hopes that it might mean that I would be invited to a luncheon, a group something that might happen with people who are like I am. Nothing like that ever happened, that was clearly not the use for it and so I stopped checking it off,” said Warren.
The Harvard Law professor argued she didn’t use her minority status to get her teaching jobs, and slammed her Republican rival U.S. Sen.Scott Brown for suggesting otherwise. . . .

As to her attacks on Scott Brown, all he has done is say that he isn't going to get involved in all this.

Some other videos
James Taranto on the issue.

High cheek bones?

This is her answer after 5 days?

Apparently it isn't clear that she is 1/32nd Indian.  Apparently, Warren originally claimed that she was part of the Delaware tribe, not Cherokee.

An analysis of the situation.

Ignoring a reporter's questions

More on Elizabeth Warren claiming to me a Native American Minority

The claim is that new research claims that she is 1/32nd American Indian.  In fact, I am 1/32nd American Indian, but I never, ever thought for a second of putting it down that I was a minority American Indian because of that.  With her listing herself as a minority in the law professor directory and having listed that at the University of Texas, University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard, does anyone possibly believe that she didn't know that universities were making a big deal about having a very rare American Indian on their faculty?