Ken Berwitz

I'm starting to have more company.

Excerpted from Friday's Investors Business Daily editorial, titled "Jig's Up, Cherokee Liz":

There's no truth whatever to Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren's claim to Indian ancestry. She's been proved a fraud. Time for her to fess up and end this charade.

Unless Warren can offer proof, she should quit her post at Harvard Law, which has touted her as its "first woman of color." She plainly wasn't hired on merit.

Warren should also withdraw from her race against Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass. Such dishonesty isn't worthy of any office, let alone one of the nation's highest.

She also owes Native Americans an apology. They're justifiably outraged over a white leftist gaming the racial spoils system (that white leftists created), and enjoying an affirmative-action leg-up at their expense.

Of course, this would be the decent thing to do. Given Warren's sleazy Wall Street-bashing, we're not holding our breath she'll take the high road.

"I'm proud of my Native American heritage," Warren brazenly told CNN last week.

Her story isn't just suspect; it's been proven a lie, thanks to New Media bloggers doing the job the Democrats' shills in the Old Media refuse to do.

How many more demands will it take before Ms. Warren gets the hint?

Tell you what:  if I were a Republican, I would want the answer to be infinity.  I would want her to hang on until the bitter end. 

Which is why I expect Democrats are already hoping, praying, and applying pressure, to get her to shut it down.  And the sooner the better.

Ken Berwitz

We hear a lot from Democrats and the left (is there any difference anymore?) about the Republican "War On Women" - which includes such outrages as expecting elite Georgetown law school students to pay for their own contraceptives (oh, the humanity!). 

But here is a war that Democrats have no problem waging, against a Republican woman (and she is not the only Republican woman they are waging war against by a long shot):  Ann Romney.

Ms. Romney's crimes appear to be that she is married to Mitt Romney, raised five children, and that the Romneys are wealthy. 

Are those actionable offenses?  To this crowd, the answer, apparently, is yes:

-We have had Democrat insider and frequent White House visitor Hilary Rosen attack Ms. Romney on the grounds that "she never worked a day in her life". 

-We have had michelle goldberg, a Democrat-supporting left wing writer inform us that Ann Romney is "insufferable", then compare Ms. Romney's written celebration of motherhood to something hitler and stalin would say.

-We have had hard-left NOW president Terry O'Neill ask is if "Mrs. Romney (has) the kind of life experience and if not, the imagination, to really understand what most American families are going through right now?" (evidently she feels Mr. and Mrs. Obama - multi-millionaires who lived in a mansion before entering the White House, are right down the the common folk).

Delightful.  But we're not through yet. 

Now we have Betsey Stevenson, former economist for the Obama administration, who, this morning, told hard-left MSNBC'er (is there any other variety) Chris Hayes that Mitt Romney is a gay-basher - based on a 47 year old high school prank that quite likely had nothing to do with sexual orientation - and that, based on her family's wealth, Ann Romney has "no empathy for people". 

This, folks, is a sampling of Democrats who, presumably, are loving, tolerant, understanding and deferential to womanhood.

And if you think the attack on Ann Romney is bad, consider what Democrats/the left have said about Michelle Malkin.  And Michelle Bachmann, and especially Sarah Palin.  Comparatively speaking, Ms. Romney is the lucky one.

See, to people like these four, all of whom are female as you probably noticed, women are to be treasured, cherished and respected - unless they happen to be politically conservative, in which case it is open season, there are no rules, and nothing is too vile or too disgusting to say.

If the polls are to be believed, the Democrats' "war on women" is not working very well.  Maybe the kinds of comments made by this sorry bunch of haters has something to do with that.

Ken Berwitz

Where is the body of osama bin laden?  If you believe the Obama administration (always an issue) within 24 hours of his being killed, bin laden was tossed into the ocean.  All that is left is Barack Obama's insufferable preening over the kill - which was accomplished by Navy SEALs, via information gained using methods Mr. Obama would never, ever have approved.

And that, more or less is the fate of this week's revelation that Barack Obama's own biography, from his own literary agent, which he must either have written or approved, stated definitively that he was born in Kenya.  The biography stood, as written,  for 16 years, until it was removed in April of 2007 - just about the time Mr. Obama started a serious run for the White House (what fortuitous timing; what an amazing coincidence):

How is it possible that this could be ignored by almost all mainstream media? 

I'll answer with a question:  How is it possible that almost all mainstream media ignored the fact that Mr. Obama's long form birth certificate, which suddenly materialized out of nowhere last year, was an obvious fake?  Literally dozens of different tech people showed, step-by-step, how it was "layered" into existence using Adobe Illustrator, and not one expert I know of from any mainstream media source provided evidence that it was real **--- nor was any expert I know of from any mainstream source even asked to do so.

Is this the way mainstream media operates for other Presidents?  Well, let's see.

Just a week or two ago, Dan Rather was back in our faces - again - assuring us his "exposé" that George Bush missed part of his National Guard responsibilities in the early 1970's was true.  Rather, and others, put untold resources into the effort to prove that over 30 years ago, apropos of absolutely nothing, George W. Bush did not fully complete his National Guard service.  

That was important enough for countless media people to pursue to the ends of the earth, and for Dan Rather to go to the wall and get fired for.  But to pursue hard evidence that Barack Obama himself agreed he was born in Kenya - the evidence being his own written and published biography from his own literary agent?  To investigate the issue of whether he is constitutionally able to hold the office of President?  Nothing to see here, sheeple, just move along, move along.

The saddest part?  Based on years of watching so-called "journalists" and "investigative reporters" roll over for Barack Obama, I fully expected this would happen - and wrote as much when the apparently damning evidence came out.

Why do I call them the Accomplice Media?  This is why.

===========================================================

**The only one I read about was an "expert" named  Jean-Claude Tremblay, who was reported, ironically by Fox News, to say it was legitimate.  But Mr. Tremblay was subsequently interviewed, and claimed Fox's reporter got it all wrong, and he said no such thing.

Ken Berwitz

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is a generally liberal newspaper servicing the largest city in Wisconsin. 

During the last year's recall battle, waged against Republican state senators by Democrats and their angry, often thuggish and intimidating, public sector union cohorts, I complimented the Journal-Sentinel for doing what a newspaper should always do - presenting both sides of the story.  (How sad that journalism has degenerated to the point where this should be complimented rather than expected).

Today I find myself doing the same.  The Journal-Sentinel has published an editorial commentary about the recall effort directed against Governor Scott Walker, in which it does not so much endorse Mr. Walker (with whom the paper has major problems), but denounces the attempt at recalling him for performing his elected duties as he sees fit (and - this is Ken talking - as the voters knew he would, since Mr. Walker is pursuing the same agenda he campaigned on).

Here is a shortened version - which, I hope, encourages you to use the link I've provided and read every word:

My thanks to the Journal-Sentinel editorial staff for its honesty and integrity - especially in the face of the kind of retribution it risks from unions which, based on their actions over the past year, seem to think they are exempt from basic civility of any kind, and often the law itself. 

You do yourself proud.

Ken Berwitz

Having just read what seems like the 23,937th media piece attacking Mitt Romney for the crime of being wealthy - added to the 14,972 reports on network and cable news shows - I thought it might be interesting to see what information I could find out about the salaries and/or net worth of the media people doing the attacking.

Here is a quickly put together list:

Network news anchors: 

-CBS Anchor Scott Pelley earns $4 million a year, and has an estimated net worth of about $15 million.  I think most people would see him as rich - even part of the despised 1% (though Elizabeth Warren and Debbie Wasserman Schultz might disagree).  Compared to his competition, however, Pelley shouldn't even bother getting out of bed and going to work - especially since his predecessor, Katie Carwrec..er, Couric, was paid $15 million a year to improve CBS's weak #3 rating, but left it in exactly the same condition..

-NBC's Brian Williams pulls in a gaudy $13 million a year and has an estimated net worth of $30 million.  Keep telling us about how privileged an existence Mitt Romney has, Brian.

-ABC's Diane Sawyer doesn't quite get to Mr. Williams or Ms. Couric's compensation level - she rakes in a paltry $12 million - but with a net worth of $40 million I have a feeling she's not going to be handing the waiter at Le Bernardin food stamps any time soon.

-Then we have Matt Lauer of the Today Show, who stumbles from paycheck to paycheck with a yearly compensation of $17 million and net worth of about $45 million.

-And bringing up the rear are those ever-leftward folks at MSNBC, such as Chris Matthews (estimated worth:  $15 million),  Rachel Maddow (estimated worth:  $12.5 million), Ed Schultz (estimated worth:  $11.5 million).  How do they get by?

-It should also be pointed out that there are folks at Fox News Channel who do even better.  A lot better.  But , then again, O'Reilly, Hannity, etc. are not the ones attacking Mitt Romney's success at earning money, are they?

Ok, there's a little taste for you.  Something to remember as you hear/see story after story after story from these folks condemning the contemptibly rich life of Mitt Romney.

Oh, wait.  There is one more person to mention.  

Barack Obama, the fellow Mitt Romney is trying to unseat as President?  He has a net worth of $10.5 million dollars - and that, of course, is before we add in all the times he and his family fly off on taxpayer-funded Air Force 1 (sometimes the family uses two different planes) to - what is it now - uh, 17 different vacation spots in the past 3 1/2 years.

No wonder the left loves Mr. Obama so much.  I'll just bet that the minute he leaves 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (if we're lucky, that will be January 20th of next year), they'll be throwing rent parties for him every month.

Ken Berwitz

Barney Frank has a wedding date.  He is marrying his partner, Jim Ready, in July.

Barack Obama - a hero to Mr. Frank and a President he agrees with on just about everything, is not invited to the wedding.

Frank says that this is only because the secret service presence and security measures necessary for Mr. Obama to be there would disrupt his guests.

I suspect it is more that Mr. Obama will lose votes if there are pictures of him smiling happily when Mr. Frank and Mr. Ready are wed.  He is in much safer political territory talking a good game about same sex marriage than he is actually indicating he is serious about it. 

If it were me - a true proponent of gay marriage rights - I would want to be there.   And if the President said as much to Mr. Frank, there is no way he would be refused.

Bottom line:  is Barney Frank - as political a man as there is in the country - really worried about secret service disruption, or is he not inviting President Obama as a political favor?

You decide.

Ken Berwitz

Did you know that crab with tomato mayonnaise dressing is an old favorite of the Oklahoma Cherokee tribe? 

You probably didn't, since mayonnaise was unknown to the Cherokee tribe and crabs were a bit hard to come by in Oklahoma, which is many moons from the ocean.

This might cause you to need a little reassurance regarding the authenticity of the dish as a traditional Cherokee favorite.  If so, my advice to you would be, ask Elizabeth Warren - currently, Harvard and the Democrat Party's most famous daughter of the Cherokee nation.  It seems that she inserted the recipé for crab with tomato mayonnaise dressing into a book of native American cooking, called "Pow Wow Chow", which was published in 1984 (what an appropriate year that was!). 

Unfortunately, there are a few problems: 

-One of them is that Elizabeth Warren is about as much a Cherokee as Chief Takatoka was a colonial settler;

-Another is that crabmeat with tomato mayonnaise dressing is about as much a staple of the Cherokee tribe as hominy is to The Four Seasons;

-And a third - maybe the most significant of all - is that the recipé itself apparently was plagiarized.  And it wasn't the only one.

Excerpted from Michael Patrick Leahy's piece at breitbart.com:

The credibility of Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren took another hit today as Boston radio talk show host Howie Carr released evidence that appears to confirm Ms. Warren may have plagiarized at least three of the five recipes she submitted to the 1984 Pow Wow Chow cookbook edited by her cousin Candy Rowsey.

Two of the possibly plagiarized recipes, said in the Pow Wow Chow cookbook to have been passed down through generations of Oklahoma Native American members of the Cherokee tribe, are described in a New York Times News Service story as originating at Le Pavilion**, a fabulously expensive French restaurant in Manhattan. The dishes were said to be particular favorites of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Cole Porter.

The two recipes, "Cold Omelets with Crab Meat" and "Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing," appear in an article titled “Cold Omelets with Crab Meat,” written by Pierre Franey of the New York Times News Service that was published in the August 22, 1979 edition of the Virgin Islands Daily News, a copy of which can be seen here.

Ms. Warren’s 1984 recipe for Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing  is a word-for-word copy of Mr. Franey’s 1979 recipe. 

Ken Berwitz

Usually I laugh at the content of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) ads I am shown.  But this latest one, from Executive Director Guy Cecil, shows so much panic, and such blatant dishonesty, that I am not laughing at all.

Here it is:

(Recipient),

Yesterday, The New York Times exposed a massive Republican campaign full of race-baiting, fear-mongering, and outright lying against President Obama.

It’s disgusting, vile and a few other words I can’t print. I’m itching to fight back, hard.

Republicans have to learn that coded racism is out of bounds. Stand with us to show they can’t get away with it.

Tell the Republicans to stop – and take a stand against despicable race-baiting. Click here to add your name.

Republicans think they can cower us into submission and that we won’t fight back.

I know you’ll never back down. Stand with President Obama right away.

Guy Cecil

The reference is to a front-page story in Thursday's New York Times.  Here are the first three paragraphs of the story, verbatim, so you'll know exactly what it was talking about:

WASHINGTON — A group of high-profile Republican strategists is working with a conservative billionaire on a proposal to mount one of the most provocative campaigns of the “super PAC” era and attack President Obama in ways that Republicans have so far shied away from.

Timed to upend the Democratic National Convention in September, the plan would “do exactly what John McCain would not let us do,” the strategists wrote.

The plan, which is awaiting approval, calls for running commercials linking Mr. Obama to incendiary comments by his former spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose race-related sermons made him a highly charged figure in the 2008 campaign.

Wait a minute.  That's it?  That is the race-baiting, fear-mongering, lying, disgusting, vile, coded, despicable racism?  Running ads tying Barack Obama to a self-professed Black liberation theologist Mr. Obama called his "spiritual mentor", and in whose church he proactively stayed for almost two decades? 

OF COURSE Barack Obama can be tied to jeremiah wright.  Barack Obama tied HIMSELF to jeremiah wright.  As I have mentioned in many blogs, including yesterday's, where I took apart the Times' editorial on this subject, Barack Obama:

-Chose jeremiah wright's church, Trinity United Church of Christ, over every one of the countless Churches in south Chicago;

-Was married in the church by wright;

-Had his children baptized by wright;

-Even named his book, "The Audacity of Hope" after a line from one of wright's sermons.

And Guy Cecil is apoplectic over an ad campaign that would have tied Barack Obama to jeremiah wright?  These two couldn't be more closely tied together if they tried.

Look, I appreciate the politics of the situation.  Barack Obama's umbilical association with jeremiah wright is more than just embarrassing, it can easily be seen as an explanation for much of the Obama agenda - and of the execrable selection of racist eric holder as Attorney General.  So there is a need to "get in front" of the situation in some way.

But look at how Cecil did it.  By vicious, dishonest name-calling - and, as per usual, screaming "racism at the drop of a hat, thus further trivializing a term that used to, and should still, mean something.

As I have noted in previous blogs, I think this kind of advertising is a mistake.

Not because it is unfair - it is 100% fair. 

Not because it is untrue - it is 100% true. 

Because, after 3 1/2 years as President, voters will be much more receptive to judging Barack Obama on his record in office, rather than his long-time association with jeremiah wright.  Mitt Romney, in my opinion, would do very well to stay on the economy, jobs, gas prices, and the debt and not be sucked into what, fairly or unfairly, would wind up a diversionary sideshow.

But as for the point behind this potential advertising?  Simply stated, it is not racist to advertise that Barack Obama was closely tied to a racist.  No matter how completely Guy Cecil and the DSCC panic over it.

Ken Berwitz

Was President Obama embarrassed in West Virginia, when a primary opponent named Keith Garrett Judd - born in California and currently serving 17 1/2 years in the Beaumont (Texas) Federal Correctional Institution, got on the ballot - and got 42% of the Democrat vote?  

Well, yes.  But very little, because Mr. Obama's Accomplice Media gave it one-day-and-out treatment so the sheeple would forget about it as soon as possible.

But what if there were a second, even more egregious embarrassment in a state primary - this time from a real candidate?  Not good.  Which leads us straight to John Wolfe, Jr.

John Wolfe, Jr. is an attorney from Tennessee.  He is on the presidential primary ballot in Arkansas, which will be held next Tuesday, May 22 - and in Texas's May 29th primary as well.

This, in and of itself, wouldn't mean very much.  Fringe candidates are lurking around in every presidential election. 

Except....

....a Hendrix College-Talk Business poll  was just conducted in Arkansas' fourth congressional district, and shows Mr. Wolfe with 38% of the vote, to 45% for Mr. Obama.  That puts him in striking range for this district

In fairness, Arkansas' Fourth is hardly Obama territory:  John McCain won it 58% - 39% in 2008.  On the other hand, its congressperson, Mike Ross, is a Democrat.   

I have seen no other polling for Arkansas, so I don't know if Mr. Wolfe's popularity (or, more exactly Mr.Obama's unpopularity) extends to the rest of the state.  But if it does, this is going to be another huge embarrassment.

And if Wolfe does well in Arkansas, how many votes, even if they are no more than protest votes, will he accumulate against President Obama in Texas? 

At some point even Mr. Obama's Accomplice Media are going to have to make something of this.

Stay tuned.  I guarantee both the Obama and Romney camps will.

Ken Berwitz

What would you do if you were working outdoors and came upon a gun?  Would you not, as a civic-minded person, bring it to the police?  That is certainly what I would do.

With this in mind, please read the following excerpts from Taryn Asher's article for WJBK Fox-Detroit, and tell me if you can come up with a more jaw-dropping demonstration of bureaucratic idiocy at work:

John Chevilott found a gun, secured it, brought it back to the road yard in Westland, which is Wayne County property, before he turned it into police.

 

Hidden in weeds in Detroit's Brightmoor area, Chevilott and his Wayne County crew discovered a loaded, snubnosed revolver as they were mowing the lawn mid-morning on May 3.

 

Detroit police never did drive by, so Chevilott finished his work day, drove the gun home and later that same evening turned it into his local police department in Garden City.

 

He says the cops ran the gun and discovered the weapon had been stolen from St. Clair Shores in 2005.

 

"They said I did the right thing getting it off the street."

 

However, Chevilott's superiors at the Department of Public Services had a much different opinion. His foreman, who had knowledge of the situation, was suspended for 30 days, and after 23 years on the job, Chevilott was fired for violating department policies.

 

According to a Wayne County spokeswoman and the rules, employees aren't allowed to possess a weapon on work property.

 

"They did a good thing. They took a gun off the streets and they're being punished," said Local 101 President Thomas Richards.

Chevilott also was let go for insubordination and unauthorized access to the road yard.

 

Richards says he's fighting all three accusations that are over the top and without merit.

 

The union has filed a grievance. Chevilott does want to get his job back. He was just two years shy of retirement.

John Chevilott is being fired for this?  What the @#!$ did the Department of Public Services want him to do?  Leave the gun there so someone else, maybe a child, could pick it up and try it out?

This is bureaucratic idiocy so classic that they should publish the names of the geniuses who did this, and use them as proof that it is possible for people to make decisions without using even 1% of their brain function - assuming they have any to begin with.

I have often argued that the value of unions today is exactly what it was in prior times:  the leverage they afford employees against the power of management.  And if ever we should be rooting for a union to succeed, we should be rooting for Local 101 and its President Thomas Richards. 

I would suggest that Mr. Richards try to pound some sense into the heads of the people who suspended the foreman and fired Mr. Chevilott - a 23 year employee within 2 years of his retirement to boot.  But, under the circumstances, it is hard to imagine they are capable of absorbing any.  So I'll settle for just getting them to reverse their idiotic decisions. 

Go get 'em, Thom!!