Saturday, November 29, 2008

Tulsa Today's internet overload--birth certificate remains in vault unseen

"“The Great Birth Certificate Scandal/Cover-Up of ‘08” continues to see huge readership as it has been linked to major national and international web sites including: World Net Daily (which features an entire page of Obama birth certificate stories), Right Side News, Lucianne and others. One reader wrote most concisely,
  • several months fighting to avoid presenting a $10 copy
Critics have assailed the work both to Tulsa Today and author Joan Swirsky. The piece posited just one speculative idea and the angry Left calls it “packing so many conspiracy theories …” Ya got to love the angry Looney Left, and satisfied to refute them with gratuitous personal insults. We can do that. "... via Lucianne.com

Monday, November 24, 2008

Obama election puts George Soros in the White House

.
11/23/08 "The Apotheosis of Soros," "The billionaire gets his moment in the sun." Wall St. Journal, Collin Levy

"Hedge-fund billionaire and left-wing political activist George Soros has become one of the Democratic Party's most important players. Now that Barack Obama is in the White House, his influence is due to expand even further as the web of activist groups he funds becomes the new brain-trust of the incoming administration.
Because of a special provision of the campaign finance law that allows greater contributions to candidates who are running against millionaires,
  • Four members of the Soros family also donated to Mr. Obama's Senate campaign, making Mr. Obama one of only a handful of candidates -- including Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle and Barbara Boxer -- to receive the richest Soros nod.

Mr. Soros's influence on Democratic policy has been years in the making, through groups like

  • the Center for American Progress, which he helped underwrite back in 2003 (along with film producer Stephen Bing) to the tune of several million dollars. CAP is currently headed by former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, now Mr. Obama's transition team leader.

the group is expected to play a role in the Obama administration.

The problem for Mr. Obama, of course, is that not all Mr. Soros's ideas fly as well with voters as with the New York and D.C. cognoscenti. The Soros connection already created trouble for Mr. Obama last year over the billionaire's comment that Democrats should "liberate" themselves from the influence of the pro-Israeli lobby. Mr. Soros also is a prominent advocate of drug legalization. So while the hedge-fund legend may pour money and staffers into the Obama administration, Warren Buffett is likely to remain the billionaire Mr. Obama still prefers to share photo-ops with."


.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Much too late, Time Magazine executive says media was biased for Obama

"Media bias was more intense in the 2008 election than in any other national campaign in recent history, Time magazine's Mark Halperin said Friday at the Politico/USC conference on the 2008 election.

"It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war," Halperin said at a panel of media analysts.

Halperin, who maintains Time's political site "The Page," cited two New York Times articles as examples of the divergent coverage of the two candidates.

  • "The example that I use, at the end of the campaign, was the two profiles that The New York Times ran of the potential first ladies," Halperin said. "The story about Cindy McCain was vicious. It looked for every negative thing they could find about her and it case her in an extraordinarily negative light. It didn't talk about her work, for instance, as a mother for her children, and they cherry-picked every negative thing that's ever been written about her."
The story about Michelle Obama, by contrast, was "like a front-page endorsement of what a great person Michelle Obama is," according to Halperin.

The former ABC News political director acknowledged that some of the press coverage was simply reflecting the reality of Obama's presidential campaign.

"You do have to take into account the fact that this was a remarkable candidacy," Halperin said. "There were a lot of good stories. He was new."
  • "The biggest bias in the press is towards effectiveness," said Heilemann, who is authoring a book on the 2008 race along with Halperin.
Because Obama's campaign was generally so well run, he argued, the press tended to applaud even his negative tactics."... (I see, that clears it up) sm

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Nate Silver didn't like Zogby poll results

Zogby stood by the poll but now sounds embarrassed the results didn't turn out the way his pals would've liked.
  • Sitting on top of the world Nate Silver still finds it necessary to dismiss the poll out of hand because the questions were 'stupid.' (I'm aware of his resume). Silver need not worry. His side, the left, is in complete control of every facet of life on the planet. They should take a breather and enjoy their victory.
""Nate Silver, the founder of FiveThirtyEight.com, who has closely followed the controversy, said he saw "significant problems with this poll that would not have been resolved merely by interviewing McCain supporters in addition to Obama supporters."
  • "Many of the questions included items that were misleading, taken out of context, or arguably untrue, but which were represented as factual to the respondent," Silver wrote in an e-mailed statement. "The only reason that Mr. Ziegler's original survey got stupid answers from Obama's supporters is because he asked stupid questions.""
I haven't seen the poll, but I heard it provided multiple choice answers. With respondents given an edge of getting the right answer just by random luck, it doesn't sound that evil. Today, hate speech rules the culture, such as that of Mr. Silver. And why not, billionaires keep putting money into causes that support it.
  • (Silver's remarks at end of article).
via Free Republic
  • P.S. As noted, I was lead to this report by an item on Free Republic. Full disclosure--I am banned from posting on Free Republic. I made a negative comment about George Bush and was immediately shown the door. For anyone keeping track. (sm)

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

ZOGBY DEFENDS POLL SHOWING OBAMA VOTERS WERE IGNORANT

Released: November 18, 2008

"Zogby Statement on Ziegler poll

"We stand by the results our survey work on behalf of John Ziegler, as we stand by all of our work. We reject the notion that this was a push poll because it very simply wasn't. It was a legitimate effort to test the knowledge of voters who cast ballots for Barack Obama in the Nov. 4 election. Push polls are a malicious effort to sway public opinion one way or the other, while message and knowledge testing is quite another effort of public opinion research that is legitimate inquiry and has value in the public square. In this case, the respondents were given a full range of responses and were not pressured or influenced to respond in one way or another. This poll was not designed to hurt anyone, which is obvious as it was conducted after the election. The client is free to draw his own conclusions about the research, as are bloggers and other members of society. But Zogby International is a neutral party in this matter. We were hired to test public opinion on a particular subject and with no ax to grind, that's exactly what we did. We don't have to agree or disagree with the questions, we simply ask them and provide the client with a fair and accurate set of data reflecting public opinion." - John Zogby


Just 2% of voters who supported Barack Obama on Election Day obtained perfect or near-perfect scores on a post election test which gauged their knowledge of statements and scandals associated with the presidential tickets during the campaign, a new Zogby International telephone poll shows."

via the Drudge Report

ORIGINAL

Obama was elected by uninformed voters

...Obama voters were uninformed of actual facts. The item about the coal industry was withheld from publication by a west coast newspaper but eventually became known to a small number of people via the internet. The 'seeing Russia from my house' item was never said by the candidate, but by a figure on a comedy tv show. I myself, owner of this blog, would have answered the question incorrectly as well. I did not know until Dec. 8, 2008 (after the election) that Governor Palin had not made the statement.


Zogby Poll

512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points

97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates

Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions

57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)

81.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)

82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)

88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)

56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).

And yet.....

Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes

Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter

And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her "house," even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!

Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.

Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we "gave" one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Obama's dual citizenship until age 21 has media back on their meds.

I understand facts are not important to the media, whether by omission or commission. Among other things they fervently believe Obama has saved their jobs--what few of them still have jobs. FactCheck.org (a site they like) says Obama held dual citizenship until age 21:
Fine. (I've heard the audio of Obama disputing the judgment of our founders, but until the Constitution is further amended, we're obligated to use it):

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

The numerous lawsuits (at least 8 in various states) that have been filed challenging Obama’s eligibility to run and serve as President have changed that. It wasn’t until tonight, however, that the importance of my August question became clear. Thanks to Leo Donofrio, for finally putting all of the pieces in place . It finally makes sense.

Mr. Donofrio, who, on Monday, November 17 he will renew his application for an
  • Emergency Stay of the ‘08 election in the Supreme Court, refers to the same Rocky Mountain News piece, as does FactCheck.Org in its attempt to “clarify Obama’s citizenship. His blog, Natural Born Citizen, which is tracking his legal moves in this critical Constitutional case said this evening:
Obama admits he was a British Citizen at birth and therefore, just like the Framers, he was not a “natural born citizen” of the United States

The Framers distinguised between”natural born Citizens” and all other “Citizens”. And that’s why it’s important to note the 14th Amendment only confers the title of “Citizen”, not “natural born Citizen”. The Framers were Citizens, but they weren’t natural born Citizens. They put the stigma of not being natural born Citizens on themselves by law....

The Framers were not comfortable with the possibility of future generations of Presidents being born under the jurisdiction of Foreign Powers. The Framers declared themselves not eligible to be President as “Natural Born Citizens” so they wrote the grandfather clause in for a limited exception.

Nobody alive today can claim eligibility to be President under the grandfather clause since nobody alive today was a citizen of the US at the time the Constitution was adopted.

Note, Article 2, Section 1 of our Constitution does not allow for dual citizenship, in fact, the Framers of our Constitution went out of their way to make sure that no person serving as President of these United States would have to suffer conflicting loyalties to more than one country. It has already been suggested that Barack has demonstrated divided loyalties because of his association with Raila Odinga in Kenya.

Why this is important; according to Fact Check, Obama was both a British Citizen and U.S. citizen, thereby making him ineligible to be POTUS. Quoting directly from the site:

When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.’s children:

British Nationality Act of 1948 (Part II, Section 5): Subject to the provisions of this section, a person born after the commencement of this Act shall be a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies by descent if his father is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at the time of the birth.
In other words, at the time of his birth, Barack Obama Jr. was both a U.S. citizen (by virtue of being born in Hawaii) and a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (or the UKC) by virtue of being born to a father who was a citizen of the UKC.

Here’s the bottom line,

  • when he was born he was both a British Citizen and U.S. citizen.
He does not meet the requirement of having been born a natural born citizen of this country and it was always in plain sight!"
  • ***This is to distinguish from the certificate shown on FactCheck and elsewhere. No one disputes that document to be authentic about something. It's just that it's not the document still in a vault in Hawaii that they refuse to release to anyone. (sm)

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Obama Transition tangled with lobbyists in every direction--NY Times

WASHINGTON - "President-elect Barack Obama has imposed stricter conflict-of-interest restrictions on his White House transition team than any president before him.
  • But a list of transition team members that his office made public on Friday includes
  • a complicated tangle of ties to private influence-seekers.

Among the full roster of about 150 staff members being assigned to government agencies between now and Inauguration Day are dozens of former lobbyists and some who were registered as recently as this year. Many more are executives and partners at firms that pay lobbyists, and former government officials who work as consultants or advisers to those seeking influence.

After campaigning on promises to end the influence of lobbyists in the White House, Mr. Obama has imposed rules that bar officials on his transition team from handling any issues in areas of policy where they have lobbied over the last 12 months or from seeking to influence the same agencies for the next 12 months.

The rules also bar officials from working on matters where family members or recent business associates may have a direct conflict of interest. In cases where there is even an “appearance of conflict,” officials must seek a waiver from the transition’s executive director, an Obama Senate aide and law school classmate, Christopher Lu.

At least one official initially involved in the transition appears to have been reassigned because of concern about his lobbying or legal work. Henry Rivera, a former Democratic commissioner on the Federal Communication Commission who was involved in planning for the agency’s transition, has dropped out of that role because he had represented clients on communications policy in the last year, the newsletter Communications Daily reported Friday.

Instead, on the list that was made public on Friday, Mr. Rivera was listed on the team handling science, technology, space and the arts. The rules permit people who have lobbied in one area to join an Obama transition team in another. (With Mr. Rivera is Jim Kohlenberger, executive director of an advocacy group for Internet companies.)

Representatives of the transition team declined to comment on the assignment, and Mr. Rivera did not return a phone call seeking comment....

Some appear to skirt the edges of the ban on working in areas of the transition where they have recently lobbied. Handling some Interior Department issues is Keith Harper, who lobbied earlier this year for Native American tribes. Overseeing the Consumer Products Safety Commission is Pamela Gilbert, a former executive director of the agency who as recently as two years ago lobbied for a consumer advocacy group. Within the last year she has lobbied for the company Barr Laboratories, for an investor group, and for an antitrust enforcement group.

Among the group handling the Justice Department and civil rights areas of the transition is Theodore Shaw, a litigator for an arm of the N.A.A.C.P. He has registered as a lobbyist for the group in the past, but N.A.A.C.P. officials say he has not lobbied in the past 12 months.

David J. Hayes, part of the 12-member group overseeing the transition and co-head of the team handling the areas of energy and natural resources, is the chairman of the environmental practice at the law and lobbying firm Latham & Watkins. He was personally registered as a lobbyist as recently as 2006, for clients including San Diego Gas and Electric.

Sally Katzen, another member of the supervisory group who is also on teams for the office of the president and government operations, was registered last year to lobby for the pharmaceutical company Amgen on Medicare reimbursements. Louisa Terrell, another member of the top working group, is on leave from the public policy office of the Internet company Yahoo! Tom Wheeler, another of the 12, is on leave from a firm that invests in technology companies and before 2004 lobbied for the cable television and wireless industries.

John L. White, a former Clinton official charged with overseeing the new Defense Department, is a partner in a firm that invests in defense contractors. Michael Warren, charged with overseeing Treasury, is chief operating officer of a firm that lobbies for clients including the U.S.-India Business Council.

Several of the officials have ties to the Fannie Mae, the government-backed mortgage firm whose implosion this fall contributed to the financial meltdown. Thomas Donilon, overseeing the State Department, is a partner in the law and lobbying firm O’Melveny and Myers who until three years ago lobbied for Fannie Mae. Wendy R. Sherman, the other official charged with reviewing the State Department, once headed Fannie Mae’s charitable foundation. And James Johnson, a former top officer of Fannie Mae, is on the economics and international trade team, charged with reviewing the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.

Even Mr. Lu, the transition’s executive director charged with policing potential conflicts of interests, may have his own appearance problems. His wife, Kathryn Thomson, is a lawyer who represents corporate clients dealing with federal environmental regulations, while his older brother, Curtis Lu, is a top lawyer for Fannie Mae. (Such family connections may not be disqualifying conflicts depending on the nature of the transition job, ethics lawyers said.)

Mr. Lu has his work cut out for him in deciding which apparent conflicts may be of real concern, said Robert Walker, a Washington lawyer and former staff director of the Senate Ethics Committee. “I don’t think it is the brightest of bright lines, and there is going to be a lot of time spent thinking about just where that line is,” Mr. Walker said.

The people involved in the transition teams assigned to each federal department and agency have begun meeting with their current staff to collect information on budgets, pending issues and personnel matters. For now, the advisers assigned to each agency report back to the central 12-person working group, which coordinates the efforts.

The vast majority involved are second-tier officials of the Clinton administration, eager to help another Democrat take control of the White House. With the exception of a few academics, almost all of them spent the intervening years in the private sector, usually capitalizing on the connections and expertise they developed in the Clinton years.

For example, Sandy Berger, the Clinton national security adviser, founded Stonebridge International, a consulting and lobbying firm focused on helping clients resolve government issues here and overseas.

Mr. Berger took with him Mr. Warren, the former executive director of the president’s economic council who became chief operating officer of Stonebridge and has now become a major contributor to the transition in the pivotal areas of the Treasury Department and economic policy. Although not a registered lobbyist, Mr. Warren helped manage Stonebridge while it lobbied the government for clients including the U.S.-India Business Council within the last year as well as Dynergy International, Airbus and Conoco in earlier years. (More of Stonebridge’s business involves using government expertise and connections to help corporate clients abroad.)

Some transition officials now work at firms that do business with the agencies they are examining. John O. Brennan, a former Central Intelligence Agency official working on its transition, is president and chief executive of the Analysis Corporation, an intelligence contractor.

On the NASA review board, Lori Garver is now president of a strategic consulting company, Capital Space LLC, and previously worked for the aerospace company DFI International.

Among the transition officials charged with reviewing the Securities and Exchange Commission — likely to come under significant scrutiny amid the financial meltdown — is Mozelle Thompson, who runs a legal and policy consulting business for publicly traded companies including Facebook.com.

One name on the transition list comes unencumbered by potential conflicts but instead by bad luck. Jami Miscik,

  • leading a review of American intelligence agencies, was the head of intelligence analysis at the Central Intelligence Agency during its biggest embarrassment:
  • Then she moved on to become a senior official managing risks in emerging markets for the investment bank Lehman Brothers,

Kitty Bennett, Mark T. Mazzetti and Barclay Walsh contributed reporting for this article.

This story, "In Transition, Tangle of Ties to Lobbying," originally appeared in the New York Times.

  • (Bad luck? The NY Times is so kind. Who could make any of this up?)

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Obama's Illegal Alien Aunt was Protected by George Bush and the federal government

(Michelle Malkin): "I hope Barack Obama remembered to thank George Bush on behalf of his illegal alien aunt this week. The lame-duck Republican president did the Democratic president-elect a generous -- and dangerous -- favor right before Election Day: Putting politics above homeland security,

According to my sources, the Bush administration issued a 72-hour cease-and-desist order to all fugitive apprehension teams

The Associated Press reported on Nov. 1 that Onyango was a deportation evader -- one of an estimated 700,000 illegal alien absconders who have ignored orders from immigration judges to leave the country. The wire report mentioned that the Department of Homeland Security distributed "an unusual nationwide directive within Immigration and Customs Enforcement requiring any deportations prior to Tuesday's election to be approved at least at the level of ICE regional directors."

  • But the politicized order was even worse than the AP reported.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement source familiar with Western field offices told me: "The ICE fugitive operations group throughout the United States was told to stand down until after the election from arresting or transporting anyone out of the United States. This was done
  • The decision was election-driven."

Another source close to ICE operations in a Southern California field office confirmed that immigration officials there received the same directive: "The reason they included all offices in the United States was to show that they were not targeting the district office where Aunti lived.

In other words, the Bush Department of Homeland Security determined that

  • than tracking down untold numbers of deportation absconders who received an extra three-day pass last week. DHS refuses to comment publicly about the case.

Warped homeland security priorities are bipartisan. Democratic Rep. John Conyers has called for an immediate investigation -- not into the rank politicizing of our deportation policies, but into who leaked Onyango's deportation fugitive status to the press.

Question: Why shouldn't this information be public?

As for President-elect Obama, his true views about ICE are well known. Despite telling Katie Couric that his aunt should be required to follow the law because "we're a nation of laws. … I'm a strong believer you have to obey the law," Obama scolded ICE agents, who are doing their jobs, for "terrorizing" communities.

  • Onyango arrived in the United States in 2000 on a temporary visa. Her asylum request was rejected in 2004. She defied the immigration court order to go back to Kenya, moved into Boston public housing and is now hiding with relatives in Cleveland while contemplating how to extend her illegal stay.
  • Question: Will an Obama White House reinstate the deportation enforcement freeze in Ohio? Wouldn't want to "terrorize" the community.

(Meanwhile, real terrorists have benefited enormously from lax enforcement of deportation orders and asylum loopholes. Ramzi Yousef, Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer and Mir Aimal Kansi all exploited our catch-and-release system by invoking asylum and evading swamped authorities before plotting and executing jihadist attacks.)...

  • equals a lasting recipe for immigration chaos."
This sounds very much like the George Bush I've seen for the past 8 years and whose illegal policies will continue for years to come. His goal has been to get democrats elected and he has succeeded in that. (sm)
  • via Lucianne.com

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

This too shall pass.

"The Progressives of 100 years ago wanted to
  • popularize presidential selection
by rewarding candidates gifted in the popular art of inflaming excitement through oratory. They opened a door through which, eventually,
  • strode George Wallace, Jesse Jackson, Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan, Howard Dean and others.
  • Ceaser notes that the candidate whose path to the presidency most resembled Obama’s was Jimmy Carter.

He, too, used an intensely personal and inspirational appeal to compensate for a thin résumé. Having courted the public with flattering rhetoric—promising “a government as good as the American people”-...He had been selected by a process that rewarded running as a solitary savior, offering his personal qualities—his supposed moral excellence—as the key to national improvement.

  • ...the selection process...
  • begins again, soon." (George Will)

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Race in America, Islamic news source by Matthew Syed

Original source, TimesOnline UK by Matthew Syed:

E-mail Print PDF

The Times

"Race in America is no longer a matter of bigotry and hatred but of ‘rational' discrimination against underachievement

What more do black Americans want? They have already been handed the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, the abolition of segregation, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, a host of affirmative action programmes and now, unless something very strange happens to the American electorate in the privacy of the voting booth, a black president. Short of introducing the death penalty for using the N-word and dancing on the grave of General Robert E.Lee,

  • what more can white Americans do to prove that the United States has finally become the land of equal opportunity?

Strange as it sounds, many on the extreme Right are licking their lips at the prospect of an Obama victory: they see in his triumph the death of special pleading. Like most liberals they acknowledge that a black man in the White House would represent a watershed, but they emphasise not what it says about whites but what it says about blacks.

If an Obama presidency proves that the American Dream is colour blind, that racism is dying a death and that the civil rights movement is reaching its logical end point, who is left to blame for the chronic underachievement of blacks except blacks themselves?

  • Blacks earn less than 75 per cent as whites, are twice as likely to be in poverty and by the end of eighth grade

If we can all agree that Obama's rise is symbolic of the great strides America has made towards racial modernity, how do we square this with the economic and social failure of blacks after more than four decades of progressive federal intervention? Must we accept the perilous assertion, which underpinned both slavery and Jim Crow segregation, that blacks have a genetic deficiency that no amount of legislation can eradicate? Roland Fryer, a young black economist at Harvard, rejects this conclusion and uses ingenious mathematical reasoning to show why.

In a nutshell, he asks us to imagine an employer on Main Street leafing through a couple of hundred CVs. The employer is a decent chap who firmly believes that blacks and whites are born equal. But he is also well read and knows that the legacy of two centuries of discrimination has left blacks with a serious social handicap so that they are, on average, less qualified than whites.

Ideally, our employer would like to test each candidate individually for his suitability, but this is not an ideal world: he is in a competitive market and interviewing is expensive. So what does he do? In a hurry, he uses the information that black skin is typically associated with lower quality and invites more whites for interview instead. Given that his fellow employers across the nation are doing precisely the same thing,

  • blacks soon cotton on that education is not helping their cause very much and turn their backs on school, pushing grades even lower. A self-perpetuating cycle is established, condemning blacks to permanent inequality.

This is disturbing because, to use the terminology of the economist Tim Harford in a lucid essay on the subject, everyone is behaving "rationally". Prejudice of the redneck variety - where blacks are refused jobs on principle - is self-harming. By ignoring talented blacks in favour of ropey whites, these racists will eventually take a hit to the bottom line.

  • But "statistical racism" is rational in the same way that charging extra to young men for car insurance is rational. Insurers do not "hate" young men, but know from experience that they are inclined to take greater risks.
  • Lumping all young men together is discriminatory in a statistical sense, but it makes economic sense because it is far too costly to test every 20-year-old to ascertain his driving skill.

To test the prevalence of statistical racism, two American economists drafted 5,000 CVs and placed archetypal black names such as Tyrone or Latoya on half and white names such as Brendan or Alison on the other half. They then divided the white CVs into high and low quality and did the same with the black CVs.

A few weeks later the offers came rolling in, and guess what? The black candidates were 50 per cent less likely to be invited to interview. But, crucially, the researchers also found that although high-quality whites were preferred to low-quality whites, the relative quality of black CVs made no difference whatsoever. It was as if employers saw three categories: high-quality whites, low-quality whites and blacks. Is it any wonder that black children fail at school given that success is often ignored by employers?

The problem of race in America is no longer primarily one of bigotry and hatred: in that sense the progressive crusade that began with Abraham Lincoln and is likely to culminate with the presidency of Barack Obama has been a triumph.

  • But if we judge the civil rights movement in terms of its most basic objective - social and economic equality - it has been a failure.
  • The legislative programmes signed into law by President Johnson and the progressive decisions of the Supreme Court since 1954 have come up hard against a problem that they
  • were not designed to solve.
Criminalising statistical racism is not the solution: it has already been illegal for more than 40 years but is nigh impossible to enforce.
  • If a single generation of blacks left school as well educated as whites, the vicious cycle of inequality could be broken.
Professor Fryer, who has been appointed chief equality officer of New York City education department, is running a randomised trial in which pupils of all races are offered individual and group-based
  • financial incentives to get better grades.
He has also proposed ways of amending affirmative action programmes to increase economic efficiency.
  • Mr Obama must pay close attention to this precious research, for

His likely election merely signals the next stage in the long ascent towards racial equality; the slope remains as steep as ever."

Alleged drag on the Ticket, Sarah Palin


  • SARAH PALIN ATTRACTS CROWDS IN MISSOURI,
  • 11/3/08. ap photo, via Gateway Pundit.