Minority status shenanigans and free speech

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I’ve been paying a lot of attention to the controversy of Elizabeth Warren’s claim to Native American ancestry. Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart.com and William A. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection, two of my favorites web sites and bloggers, have done an outstanding job of digging into the details of the story and debunking her claims. There have been a number of others who have done some good work as well and the referred-to sites provide the proper attribution.

One of the things that concerns me is how Obama and the liberals try to group people into special-interest constituencies, whether they be black, green, female, homosexual, Muslim, “Native American”, etc., etc., etc. The obvious extension of this ploy, outside of political gain, is in giving these [so-called] special groups legal standing in the court of law and, by extension, on the street. Will we be subject to the same kind of insanity going on in the Netherlands with Geert Wilders or in Australia with Andrew Bolt?

Mark Stein gave a fabulous [video] speech in defense of Bolt for a gathering of Bolt supporters last year in Melbourne. It’s definitely worth a view:

UPDATE 1:

If you think I’m blowing smoke about how Obama will use divisive tactics to help him politically, check out this click from his recent appearance on “The View”. Notice how he corrects himself to insert his middle name:

Hat tip: Hot Air

UPDATE 2:

Is Rush Limbaugh our version of Geert Wilders? You decide!

UPDATE 3:

Well, that didn’t take long…

International boxing star Manny Pacquiao denied allegations on Monday that he said homosexuals should be “put to death” after an interview that got him banned from one of the city’s most popular destinations.

You can read the rest HERE.

Bill Clinton suggests the Buffet rule won’t work…

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At least Bill Clinton hasn’t totally lost a grip on reality:

“This is just me now, I’m not speaking for the White House — I think you could tax me at a 100 percent and you wouldn’t balance the budget…”

“We are all going to have to contribute to this, and if middle class people’s wages were going up again, and we had some growth to the economy, I don’t think they would object to going back to tax rates [from] when I was president”

“We can’t be in a position where one of the negotiating partners says that’s non-negotiable. Not only will we not raise taxes, we want the Bush tax cuts and we want more tax cuts and we want the right to disregard what the Congressional Budget Office says that our budget will do. You can’t do that,” Clinton said. “It’s hard to have a deal if there’s no arbiter.”

Hat tip: Politico

Vetting a VP candidate…by A.B. Culvahouse

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Excellent article by the man who vetted Sarah Palin:

A short list of five to 15 leading Americans soon will be notified that the presumptive Republican nominee for president believes they are serious contenders to be his running mate. They will be asked for their agreement to join him on the GOP ticket if chosen, and in the meantime, to submit to a most intrusive and far-reaching vetting by lawyers and advisers working for the campaign. No other candidate, not even the presidential nominee himself, is subjected to the same scrutiny.

I have been a lawyer on both sides of the Republican vice-presidential vetting process. I helped potential nominees navigate the vetting gauntlet in four elections, starting in 1976, and I had the honor of doing the vetting on behalf of John McCain’s 2008 campaign. For those of you who’ve managed to steer clear of the revisionist HBO movie about that campaign, I led the team that vetted Sarah Palin, apparently the five most newsworthy days of my life.

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The vetting of Sarah Palin was no less rigorous, just compressed. She was a late addition to the short list, catapulted into contention by the campaign’s calculus that a woman would broaden the ticket’s appeal. Our team of lawyers churned out the expected detailed written vetting report—only we packed eight weeks of research into less than one. We pulled information from Alaska-centric websites, including her local critics’ blogs and copies of Wasilla church sermons.

You can read the whole article here.

When Teenagers Engage…..

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It used to be that I would pontificate and my teenage daughter would walk away in disgust, for not “hearing” her. She would take exception to my telling her (overtly or covertly) that she was wrong in her opinion and stalk off in anger. I wasn’t really trying to piss her off, I was just challenging her.

She has since finished her freshman year in college and learned an important lesson. Argument cannot be worthwhile unless both parties agree to the terms for that argument.

As we talked tonight, she didn’t disengage. She challenged me. Not from an argument standpoint, but from the context in which we talked. She told me that I dismissed her opinion and didn’t allow her to voice it. She “suggested” that my arguments would have greater impact if they didn’t try to convince her that she “was wrong”. She suggested that I needed to focus on my argument while not disparaging hers.

I wholeheartedly agree. She’s no longer accepting my “tirades” unless she has the ability to respond in kind, on equal footing.

She attributed her new-found ability to engage someone to her professor in college.

Damn, there may still be hope for the younger generation!

…..and I welcome it!!!!