Elizabeth Warren says she didn't tell Harvard she was a minority. But somehow, they found out.

Harvard, for its part, says that her minority heritage (ahem) played no part in her hiring.

And yet, they seem to have been very sensitive to minority-hiring issues at the time.

Warren got tenured at Harvard -- the Golden Ticket -- in 1995. Around this time, Harvard was talking up its Tenured Native American Cherokee Lady.

The Herald's story relied heavily on archived Crimson articles about the Law School from the mid-1990s, a time when HLS weathered much criticism about its lack of diversity.

"Of 71 current Law School professors and assistant professors, 11 are women, five are black, one is Native American and one is Hispanic," then-Law School spokesman Mike Chmura told The Crimson in 1996, with Elizabeth Warren being that one Native American.

A Crimson editorial from 1998 refers to Warren as the Law School's "one tenured minority woman."

The one. The one that proves they don't refuse tenure to minority women.

Now Morgan Richmond has Harvard bragging about their diversity scalps (I'm so sorry) to the NYT in 1998.

To the Editor:

Re the Jan. 29 Op-Ed article on hiring at Harvard Law School: Since 1989 the school has appointed to the faculty or voted tenure for four African-Americans, a Hispanic professor and eight women, including a Native America

Are you sure you didn't consider this at all when giving her tenure? You sure seem to have thought about it an awful lot, at all other times.

And did Elizabeth Warren not realize her Fauxcahontas story would have exactly this effect? Did she really not seek professional advancement by pretending to be that which she is not?

Flamin' Injun Skull courtesy of The Mega Independent, who just did this parody Time Magazine cover.

Posted by: Ace at 09:45 AM | Comments (274)
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Rasmussen has Romney opening his biggest lead yet.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows Mitt Romney earning 50% of the vote and President Obama attracting 43% support. Four percent (4%) would vote for a third party candidate, while another three percent (3%) are undecided.

..
This is the first time Romney has reached the 50% level of support and is his largest lead ever over the president. It comes a week after a disappointing jobs report that raised new questions about the state of the economy.

Ed thinks this might be about Obama's new/old gay marriage position, or at least the shakiness in leadership on display with Bumblin' Joe forcing a reluctant president to come clean.

I initially thought it would be very unlikely that this would move any votes at all.
1, if someone were strongly anti-gay-marriage, or strongly pro-gay-marriage, I have to think they would have chosen a horse already and would not be suddenly reacting to the revelation that the Democrats like gay marriage and the Republicans don't.

2, I don't think marginal voters -- swing voters -- follow things closely enough to even notice how the sausage gets made. I think it's remarkable enough that the least politically interested voters even hear of "sausage" in the first place, never mind the process for making it.

But there is some chance this Obama's declaration did move some voters. If it's the case that, say, only 90% of natural Republican/conservative voters had yet decided to vote for Romney -- if around 10% of such voters were holding back support, due to concerns/anger about Romney -- I guess it is possible that Obama's announcement crystalized the situation for that kind of voter, and might have pushed him towards supporting Romney.

However, Gallup has Romney losing a point and Obama gaining a point, so that Romney's lead (with registered voters) is down to 46-45.

Meh. I like having confirmation in another poll for a big move. I'm going to chalk this up to noise.

Bonus: Andy U points this one out -- Romney leads Obama by 9 points on economic leadership.

Gallup calls this a "slight" lead.

Posted by: Ace at 09:13 AM | Comments (173)
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And he says that if Obama's reelected we won't have any money and will all be "socialized."

Posted by: Ace at 08:59 AM | Comments (116)
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Richard Nixon's got nothing on Barack Hussein Obama.

Frank VanderSloot is the CEO of Melaleuca Inc. The 63-year-old has run that wellness-products company for 26 years out of tiny Idaho Falls, Idaho. Last August, Mr. VanderSloot gave $1 million to Restore Our Future, the Super PAC that supports Mitt Romney.

Three weeks ago, an Obama campaign website, "Keeping GOP Honest," took the extraordinary step of publicly naming and assailing eight private citizens backing Mr. Romney. Titled "Behind the curtain: a brief history of Romney's donors," the post accused the eight of being "wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records." Mr. VanderSloot was one of the eight, smeared particularly as being "litigious, combative and a bitter foe of the gay rights movement."

About a week after that post, a man named Michael Wolf contacted the Bonneville County Courthouse in Idaho Falls in search of court records regarding Mr. VanderSloot. Specifically, Mr. Wolf wanted all the documents dealing with Mr. VanderSloot's divorces, as well as a case involving a dispute with a former Melaleuca employee.

Who is doing the digging around on those who dare to support Mitt Romney? A former Democratic congressional staffer and a former reporter.

Liberals aren't interested in debate, they are interested in punishing enemies.

Of course Obama himself would never stoop to calling American citizens his enemies. Oh, right. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 07:48 AM | Comments (206)
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Happy Friday.

The family of Romney's "bullying victim" has released a statement saying they're "aggrieved" that he would be used to further a political agenda. They also say that the Washington Post's portrayal of him is "inaccurate."

"Lobster hostilities" lead to boat sinkings in Friendship, Maine. (Couldn't resist the headline.)

"Sleep loss from 'social jet lag' is tied to obesity." (Again, couldn't resist the headline, which feels like it was auto-generated from a list of things that are big in pseudo-science right now.)

And, finally, a clash between church and brunch in Brooklyn. What bad economy?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:50 AM | Comments (641)
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Not sure what happened. This will have to do for now. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:40 PM | Comments (444)
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Yes, from January 2009 until a week or two ago. Then he forgot about it again, to dick around with gay marriage. Maybe sometime in August he'll remember again. more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:35 PM | Comments (428)
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I guess that did not work as planned.

J.P. Morgan Chase JPM +0.25% & Co. has taken $2 billion in trading losses in the past six weeks and could face an additional $1 billion in second-quarter losses due to market volatility, Chief Executive James Dimon said Thursday in a hastily arranged conference call after U.S. markets closed.

The losses stemmed from derivatives bets gone wrong in the bank's Chief Investment Office, which manages risk for the New York company. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that large bets—by a London-based trader named Bruno Michel Iksil—being made in that office had roiled a sector of the debt markets.

The loss is a black eye for the bank, which sailed through the financial crisis in better shape than many of its peers...

J.P. Morgan shares fell $2.39, or 5.8%, to $38.35 in after-hours trading Thursday.

J.P. Morgan, the U.S.'s largest bank by assets, said in its quarterly regulatory filing that a plan it has been using to hedge risks "has proven to be riskier, more volatile and less effective as an economic hedge than the firm previously believed."

If I have it right, a lot of this is due to a trader nicknamed the London Whale due to the huge positions he took. Apparently he was selling credit default swaps to others as a way to guarantee against risk; he himself was betting the companies he was investing in wouldn't default.

Well, they did, or a lot of them did. Which leaves JP Morgan on the hook for up to... $4.2 billion.

Posted by: Ace at 03:07 PM | Comments (86)
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An ad touted a Toledo man's claim that Obama had helped him off of unemployment and into a job.

But his Facebook page says he's been employed by the same firm since 2006.

He then deleted that part of his Facebook profile.

But the screencaps live on.

Posted by: Ace at 02:55 PM | Comments (73)
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This week's edition reflects the new Rasmussen poll showing a 5 point lead for Scott Walker, and the incredibly high Republican turnout in Tuesday's primaries.

Last time, the Marquette Law poll had edged Walker downwards to a scant two point lead. With no Barrett bounce to be seen in post-primary polling, but obvious Republican intensity, Walker now enjoys just under a five point spread over Democrat Tom Barrett (big map ahead): more...

Posted by: CAC at 02:40 PM | Comments (27)
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