Buried in its correction section, The Boston Globe has issued a retraction of its claim that a marriage license supporting the claim of U.S. Senate Candidate and Law Professor Elizabeth Warren that she is part Cherokee. The correction says that no such marriage license has ever been found and that the reference comes from a “family newsletter” and refers to an application for a marriage license. Moreover, no one has been able to find the paper, let alone study it. In the meantime, the Warren campaign is addressing new disclosures that Warren claimed to be a minority not just at Harvard but also at the University of Pennsylvania. Today another news story reported that Warren (who denied knowledge of being listed as a minority) was cited as “Harvard’s first woman of color” in a Fordham Law Review piece — quoting a Harvard official.
The Boston Globe earlier published an account that became the primary defense for Warren supporters:
A record unearthed Monday shows that US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has a great-great-great grandmother listed in an 1894 document as a Cherokee, said a genealogist at the New England Historic and Genealogy Society.
The shred of evidence could validate her assertion that she has Native American ancestry, making her 1/32 American Indian, but may not put an end to the questions swirling around the subject….
Chris Child, a genealogist at the New England Historic and Genealogy Society, said he began digging into Warren’s family history on Thursday, when media interest emerged.
At first, he found no link between Warren’s family and Native Americans in her native Oklahoma.
But Monday afternoon, he said, he discovered a few links. Warren’s great-great-great grandmother, O.C. Sarah Smith, is listed on her son’s 1894 application for a marriage license as a Cherokee.
Now however the newspaper has said that that was not true:
Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story in the May 1 Metro section and the accompanying headline incorrectly described the 1894 document that was purported to list Elizabeth Warren’s great-great-great grandmother as a Cherokee. The document, alluded to in a family newsletter found by the New England Historic Genealogical Society, was an application for a marriage license, not the license itself. Neither the society nor the Globe has seen the primary document, whose existence has not been proven.
That seems like a pretty important disclosure to be simply pushed into the correction section of the newspaper.
In the meantime, the New York Times is reporting that Warren was not just listed as a minority faculty member at Harvard but also at University of Pennsylvania. At the very most, Warren is no more than 1/32 Cherokee, even if the account of the great great great grandmother is proven to be true.
As I have mentioned before, I do not believe that Warren was given her positions due to the claim of minority status. She is an extremely intelligent and talented academic. The claim as a minority however has caused a stir among academics who have been discussing the lack of any criteria for such claims. Minority status is an obvious advantage for a law professor as school strive to diversify their faculty ranks. Claiming minority status has an important impact on reporting academic data for schools as it does for governmental reporting.a
What is intriguing is the claim by Warren that she was not aware that she was listed as a minority when that status was asserted by both Penn and Harvard. I do not believe that she would be considered a minority by any conceivable definition without making most Americans minorities. Presumably, these schools did not arbitrarily claim such status for a faculty member, but had to be given an affirmative claim of being a minority by the faculty member. Yet, this process is remarkably fluid and ill-defined at schools. Schools are eager to list every possible minority members in annual reporting.
I am more interested in the general issue of how to define minority status than the campaign. But, putting aside the raw partisanship over the Senate race, how important should this issue in your view be in judging a candidate?
@Mike
Oh Mike…soooo 1960 communist way of doing things….
Yes, i agree communists and liberals in the 1960 will not see eye to eye; at that time(hell, 50 years ago) the soviets never allowed communism to flourish in any country unless it came from a revolution; thats the reason they didnt supported Allende in Chile, because allende won using the democratic tools offered in Chile at that time…
Now, calling every goverment facists just because they kill people just plays into the communist game of rebranding things around…communists govements KILL people, and they are not facists; a goverment move from communism to facism only when on top of all the communist stuff they target a race or races as the enemy(eg. Jews)….
Now, obviously, your history of Cuba is kinda fuzzy….
First, Batist was not a facist(goes perfectly with the communist propaganda); in fact, Batista was already a cuban president duting 1940-1945 period, Batista was black; which tells you how much more advanced was cuban society than even this country; but mind me now…Batista was a member of the communist party leadered by Blas Roca on those years….The ONLY(almost, cause im sure some racism played a card too…hell, there was only one black commander in the castro guerrilla) reason people hated batista was becasue the coup he made in 1952 disrupting the incipient democratic advances in the country, thinking that way his masters in the USSR will come to him, but at those times, WWII devastation was still a problem for Europe and the USSR, they had just tested their first nuke 3 years ago and the cold war was simply starting…so they had no power yet to support anybody…
Now, you said Castro ran to the soviets for support because the big bad wolf US was on his back…well, true, but not BEFORE castro decided to steal every single property from EVERYBODY..banks, manufacturing, sugar industry(cubans and foreings alike) mines…EVERYTHING….of course businesses here will be mad, what do you expect??
Now, again, your way of thinking is very 1960s…you obviously beleive communists do not evolve; well, let me break it to you…they do….they do not need a revolution anymore; what they do is inflitrate established institutions to advanced their ideology, they have been doing this for 30 years now, since the fall of the soviets and the word “communist” became a bad word…maybe you want to look around at Chavez, Correa, the salvadorian goverment(used to be the communist guerrila there) and lately the Peruvian president(a leader of the Maoist sendero luminoso) all got to power using democratic tools, not revolutions….
Yes, communists hated liberals; but not anymore….in 2008, when Barack Obama won the presidency, a soviet flag was raise in front of the white house(there is a picture of it)…the head of the communist party actually said that the new goverment was the closest its being to their ideals….Van Jones was part of the communist gang(he says he is not anymore..really???) and appointed by Obama to lead non the less than the “green” efforts of his goverment(green is the new red)…Warren, Obama, AND the communist party AND the nazi party ALL supports the “occupy movement”
Now….brain wash part…
You think the republican party wants people in this country to live miserably? wow….
well, they must be doing a crazy bad job, i came here on 2001, with the “hated” bush and the republicans as the president, i came here with NOTHING, a 1951 half silver dolar that belonged to my father and i still keep as a “lucky” token…..i moved my way up, just following the republican ideal that its all on you to become someone; 10 years later, i work in a software company and i even have time to lecture you about cuban history….all this without asking the goverment for ANYTHING…..well yes, there is (or was) a cuban community that will take care of you…80 usd a month and free mass transit tickets for 6 months….
I would have never being able to get where i am with Obama right there…i would be sucking form the goverment tits all the time(because somehow they tell you i deserve it) and hence become dependent…and hell, i will get mad if they stop the flow of money my way….
man, i am a meber of the republican party, i can pass mostly everything you said, cause i understand your history is crooked…but aligning the communist party with the republicans…wow!!!! that was really laughable….
foot note:
by the way Van Jones is a communist, why didnt he aling with the republicans instead of the democrats? arent they the most similar to the communists??
Adrian.
Was that you defending Batista? That in itself shows where you are coming from. Cuba was a “real” paradise for the Cuban people wasn’t it before Castro? As far as what you define as a communist you don’t know what you are talking about. Now I’m voting for Obama, does that make me a communist? By your way of thinking it does. The reality is you define a communist as anyone who doesn’t agree with you, which means you really don’t know anything about communists, but you are rigidly gullible.
“when Barack Obama won the presidency, a soviet flag was raise in front of the white house(there is a picture of it)…the head of the communist party actually said that the new goverment was the closest its being to their ideals….”
If you mean this literally then please provide a link to the picture of the soviet flag in front of the White House. Also please provide me a link to the quote from the head of the communist party. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you’ve been deceived, but if you can’t back up either of these claims then I would appreciate an apology to the readers. Absent providing the facts and/or an apology, the the record will simply show you to be a liar. Which is it?
“Go back to the gold standard” (Bron)
Nixon took us off the gold standard over 40 years ago on Aug. 15, 1971. He did so to rescue the dollar from foreign-caused price-gouging and the exchange crisis that followed. I believe it was called the “Nixon Shock” and was viewed at the time as a necessary move to combat the actions of Germany, France, and Switzerland. He also imposed a 90-day wage and price freeze. At the time we were running an inflation rate of 5.84%, a balance-of-payments deficit, and a trade deficit.
Bron,
We all know what the present-day GOP thinks about freedom…and the rights of women, gays, minorities.
gbk:
top notch financial minds who dont think freedom is an ugly idea.
using gold as money would seriously limit the ability of government to inflate the money supply. It should stop it but knowing government they will find some way to get around the finite quantity of gold.
Caro gbk … or, gbk caro (carus)
Georgius librum habet. (self published 😉 )
Bron,
“Go back to the gold standard and dismantle the FED. Break up the larger banks into many smaller ones and reduce the number of agencies performing regulatory oversight. Consolidate the functions which are duplicative and find some top notch people to perform regulatory oversight.”
Hey, we almost agree! The Federal Reserve should be seriously considered for breaking up, along with the twelve districts and member banks that comprise the Federal Reserve system. I suggest though that you read the writings of Ellen Brown, who suggests the same, before you hark back to the gold standard.
As to your, “find some top notch people to perform regulatory oversight,” Elizabeth Warren fits that bill. So what are you exactly saying?
inflation has been stealing the peoples money, fiat money put into circulation by the Federal Reserve has been stealing the peoples money.
Go back to the gold standard and dismantle the FED. Break up the larger banks into many smaller ones and reduce the number of agencies performing regulatory oversight. Consolidate the functions which are duplicative and find some top notch people to perform regulatory oversight.
Blouise,
The publisher is probably the remaining pulp of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which of course the Saudis were a large part of.
After some research it seems the name of the publisher is Opusculus Corrigenda (things to be corrected in a small book).
Elaine,
So it’s not a hoax. *^@$%*!!
How much you wanna bet the publisher is a front for the Royal House of Saud?
gbk,
lol
Bush’s Economic Growth Strategies — The Cliff Notes Version
1. Invade Mexico and take over their oil production.
2. Invade Venezuela and take over their oil production.
3. Give the military and oil contracts to your best friends.
4. Buy some land in Paraguay after they rescind their extradition treaty with the US.
5. Move to Paraquay and write a book about how the Postal Service proves that government workers are just shiftless, lazy, socialists while invasions distribute wealth in the most efficient manner.
Blouise,
The story’s not a hoax–but a book by Bush providing strategies for economic growth that costs $24.95 sure sounds like a scam.
Coming This Summer: For $24.95, George W. Bush Will Share His ‘Strategies For Economic Growth’
By Pat Garofalo on May 16, 2012
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/05/16/484981/bush-economic-book/
Why Elizabeth Warren is right — and why Romney won’t change
Bankers and bullies
By EDITORIAL | May 16, 2012
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/news/138694-why-elizabeth-warren-is-right-and-why-romney-won/
Excerpt:
Like an alcoholic downing nips on the drive home from court-ordered rehabilitation, JPMorgan Chase and its CEO, Jamie Dimon, could hardly wait to once again start wildly tossing depositors’ money into derivative hedge bets — the very type of irresponsible behavior that nearly brought down all of Wall Street less than four years ago.
This time, the crash at the end of JP Morgan’s drunken spree did far less damage — $2 billion in trading losses, a sum the insanely profitable money-changers can apparently absorb without affecting Dimon’s $23 million annual compensation package, which was approved at Tuesday’s shareholder meeting. (Dimon conveniently waited to disclose the fiasco until after many of JPMorgan’s shareholders had put their votes in the mail.)
The JPMorgan story provides stark evidence — not that any was needed — that the federal government must continue strengthening its regulation and oversight of the banking industry.
Far from having solved the “too big to fail” dilemma, which required massive governmental intervention to prop up the nation’s largest banks in 2008 and 2009, those financial institutions have only grown larger. If they were too big to fail a few years ago, then the banks today are even more capable of destroying the nation’s economy. Had JPMorgan’s losses multiplied we, the public, would have been on the hook again — and at this point we don’t know how close the company’s “errors, sloppiness, and bad judgment” took it toward that brink.
As Elizabeth Warren put it to Washington Post writer Ezra Klein: “What if the next loss is $20 billion or $200 billion? Is [Dimon] saying JPMorgan should be entitled to continue to take these bets right up until the day it lands in the taxpayer’s lap again?”
Yes, he is — which is precisely why we need more US senators with Warren’s sense of outrage in Washington.
Warren is calling for a strengthening of the Dodd-Frank Act, to ensure that government regulators have the flexibility and authority to keep up with the new high-wire schemes that Wall Street wizards invent to enrich themselves. That is crucially important.
She has also endorsed the idea of a new version of the Glass-Steagall Act, passed after the 1929 stock-market crash (and repealed in 1999) to separate banking institutions from high-risk investment houses. Although the specifics of how this would work are debatable, it is an idea whose time has come — yet again.
These are not measures we can expect to see from our current senator, Republican Scott Brown, who has been drumming up big-money contributions from Wall Street executives, including those at JPMorgan, by explicitly contrasting himself against a Wall Street regulator like Warren.
Although Brown has been conspicuously silent on the JPMorgan disaster, it’s safe to assume that he is on the same page with his party’s new leader, Mitt Romney, who derides any criticism of JPMorgan, or talk of regulation, as an attack on capitalism.
And those two represent the relatively moderate wing of today’s every-raider-for-himself Republican Party. Let’s not put them behind the wheel again.
By the way and OT … I’ve heard a really hilarious rumor that George W. Bush, who ended his term with the collapse of the global financial system, is preparing to publish a book “outlining strategies for economic growth”. It’s got to be a hoax.
Elaine,
Those pirates have been raiding the American people for decades.
Warren sees them for what they are … modern day slavers.
Blouise,
Let us not forget that Wall Street and the big banks wants her “disappeared.”
Mike,
Pull up a chair and have an herbal or mango martini.
I think a great deal of the fuss on the right over Warren is her leadership potential. They aren’t just afraid of what she’ll do in the Senate … the woman is future presidential material.
Mike S.,
The more the merrier!
Documents show Warren did not rely on ‘minority status’ to advance
By Stephen C. Webster
Friday, May 11, 2012
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/11/documents-show-warren-did-not-rely-on-minority-status-to-advance/
Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren (D) did not rely upon affirmative action to get teaching work at universities around the country, documents obtained by several media outlets revealed on Thursday.
In separate reports, The Associated Press and The Boston Globe both noted that Warren did not claim minority status at the University of Texas, where she taught law before moving to Harvard, writing on a personnel form that she identified as “White.” She also declined to apply to Rutgers Law School under a minority student program.
Questions over whether Warren relied upon her 1/32 heritage as a native American to help her get teaching jobs have swirled in the media ever since Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-MA) campaign manager began to criticize her for appearing in a Harvard publication that touted her as a minority professor. The University of Pennsylvania, as well, had previously identified her as a minority
That’s led the Brown campaign to demand that Warren explain her academic history, and Brown himself to ask that she release all relevant records. The Republican Party chairman for Massachusetts also said in a letter to Harvard on Monday that Warren should be investigated for “academic fraud.”
The Warren campaign has not disputed the listings, issuing a statement explaining “Elizabeth is proud of her heritage,” but that she never used it to improperly advance her career. In a segment broadcast Thursday night, MSNBC’s liberal host Rachel Maddow explained that Warren, who is Cherokee, “appears to be exactly as Cherokee as the principle chief of the Cherokee nation, Bill John Baker.” (Baker, like Warren, is 1/32 Cherokee.)
“And actually, because she may also have ancestry from the Delaware tribe as well, it is conceivable that she has even more native ancestry than he does,” Maddow added, calling the Brown campaign’s latest line the “weirdest political attack of 2012… so far.”
NEHGS Statement on Elizabeth Warren Ancestry
Boston, MA – May 15, 2012 – With reference to the recent media coverage regarding Elizabeth Warren’s ancestry, New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) wishes to make the following statement:
Following several requests from the media, NEHGS conducted some initial genealogical research on Elizabeth Warren’s ancestry.
NEHGS has not expressed a position on whether Mrs. Warren has Native American ancestry, nor do we possess any primary sources to prove that she is. We have no proof that Elizabeth Warren’s great-great-great-grandmother O.C. Sarah Smith either is or is not of Cherokee descent. Our initial research indicated that various members of Ms. Warren’s extended family made references to being Cherokee, citing secondary sources, but we advised that additional research on the subject was needed. NEHGS is currently not conducting that research, though RECORDS AND RESOURCES FOR THIS RESEARCH ARE PUBLICLY AND WIDELY AVAILABLE. The nature of genealogical research is such that it can take many months or years, and conclusions can change based on evidence that emerges over time. [empasis added]