Column

Elizabeth Warren, who also goes by her Indian name, "Lies on Race Box," is in big heap-um trouble. The earnest, reform-minded liberal running for Senate against Scott Brown, R-Mass., lied about being part-Cherokee to get a job at Harvard.

Harvard took full advantage of Warren's lie, bragging to The Harvard Crimson about her minority status during one of the near-constant student protests over insufficient "diversity" in the faculty. Warren also listed herself as an Indian in law school faculty directories and, just last month, said, "I am very proud of my Native American heritage."

With six months until Election Day, conspiracy theories are percolating on the Internet like bubbling mud pots at Yellowstone: Left-wing billionaire George Soros is going to rig the election for Barack Obama. Foreigners will oversee the nation's entire vote-counting system. The fix is in, and all is lost.

Before conservatives go all Michael Moore-moonbatty, let's calm down and separate voter fraud facts from fiction. There's no time to waste worrying about manufactured scares. And there are plenty of legitimate threats to electoral integrity without having to inflate or concoct them.

President Obama formally kicked off his re-election campaign in Richmond, Va., and Columbus, Ohio, Saturday, and his theme was certainly not, shall we say, "it's morning again in America" — President Ronald Reagan's optimistic re-election slogan in 1984.

Obama's central message was more like: "Hey, I realize things look bad, and I'm not going to pretend you want four more years of this. But just think how much worse it would have been without me and how much worse it's going to get if you get rid of me."

Last week, I showed how the Republican Party likely would lose the presidential election in November if it were to use conventional campaign tactics. However, I also explained an unconventional strategy that could usher in victory for the GOP and our republic — a tactic used by President Abraham Lincoln.

This week, I want to elaborate more on Lincoln's concept of a team of rivals — and who could be a part of it — and also share with you the inspiring dream my wife, Gena, had that we both hope comes true.

"Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr." is another of the Harvard professor's wonderful television series for PBS. This is "must-see TV" and a more than worthy sequel to three previous projects Gates has hosted about how some of us came to be what and who we are.

In this latest 10-part series, Gates explores the genealogical and genetic history of a diverse group of people, from entertainer Harry Connick Jr. and Pastor Rick Warren to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Brown University President Ruth Simmons. There are less famous people, but the famous get you hooked for the rest.

It has now been a year since Osama bin Laden became a ghost courtesy of the United States SEALs. I had long since come to the conclusion that Osama became crˆpes suzettes for the worms back in Tora Bora in December 2001, and I was somewhat stubborn in my belief. Yet he fooled me and the student of Araby Mark Steyn and a few other pundits. I shall be a big enough man to admit it. I was wrong.

Apparently, Osama took up residence in the wilds of Pakistan, where he believed he was safe. Doubtless like-minded pietists in the Pakistani army or intelligence community told him he would be safe there. They were doubtless proud of their world-famous tenant. Well, they were asleep on the night of May 2, 2011, or they had the good sense not to get involved. When the US helicopters swooped in, Osama was pitifully exposed. He had no guards that we know of, save a few women. Several doors collapsed before our tough troops, and pop, he was on his way to the 72 virgins in Heaven or the 42 cows or whatever the Muslim theologians estimate the Hereafter to be composed of. At any rate I am glad he is gone, and doubtless you are too.

One hundred years ago, the European powers were hurtling down a path leading to World War I. Trench warfare became the dominant image of that war, as both sides dug in and the battle lines barely moved. Many called it the "War to End All Wars," but in the end it merely set the stage for World War II.

Election 2012 is shaping up to be the political equivalent of trench warfare that fails to resolve anything.

On no issue is the elite/American divide so great as on immigration. For decades, a majority of Americans have wanted to decrease immigration. Not just illegal immigration -- all immigration.

Nearly three times as many Americans support reducing immigration as want it to stay the same, according to Gallup polls. A grand total of 5 percent of the population want to increase legal immigration -- 10 times less than want to decrease it. I myself would like to deport the people responsible for our current immigration policies.

Elizabeth Warren is the Harvard law professor running for Senate in Massachusetts as a Democratic populist-progressive champion. But don't call her "Elizabeth Warren." Call her "Pinocchio-hontas," "Chief Full-of-Lies," "Running Joke" or "Sacaja-whiner."

Warren has claimed questionable Native American minority status for years to reap career "diversity" benefits. Now, Cherokee leaders, campaign rival GOP Sen. Scott Brown and an army of Twitter detractors have called her out for gaming the racial-preference system. Live by identity politics, die by identity politics.

You have to hand it to President Obama and his cabal of re-election strategists; they are masters of illusion. Their newly released Web video and its accompanying campaign slogan, "Forward," are science fiction-level fantastical.

We're all familiar with Obama's penchant for deflecting responsibility and blaming his policy failures on George W. Bush, but after more than three years in office for Obama, it has gone from childish mischief to juvenile delinquency. This is a question for Guinness: Has any other president run for re-election against the record of his retired predecessor?

In the 1993 movie "Dave" the faux president (played by Kevin Kline) calls in his best friend (played by Charles Grodin) and they stay up all night balancing the federal budget, not by raising taxes, but by cutting unnecessary and wasteful spending.

If only it were that easy. Most presidents have talked about cutting spending, but few succeed because Congress holds the power of the purse and is reluctant to give it up.

Every day, we get a new kick in the gut from the Obama administration. Most recently, Environmental Protection Agency Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz was caught on video articulating his view of the agency's role in enforcing its regulations.

Armendariz said: "It was kind of like how the Romans used to, you know, conquer villages in the Mediterranean. They'd go into a little Turkish town somewhere; they'd find the first five guys they saw, and they'd crucify them. Then, you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years. ... It's a deterrent factor."

The actual Republican Establishment -- political consultants, The Wall Street Journal, corporate America, former Bush advisers and television pundits -- are exhorting Mitt Romney to flip-flop on his very non-Establishment position on illegal immigration.

Both as governor of Massachusetts and as a presidential candidate, Romney has supported a fence on the border, E-Verify to ensure that employees are legal and allowing state police to arrest illegal aliens. He is the rare Republican who recognizes that in-state tuition, driver's licenses and amnesty are magnets for more illegal immigration.

When you have a young woman screaming in a hallway about some sort of grievance she has with you, you have a problem. Even a Secret Service agent, surrounded by his buddies, has a problem. I know about this sort of thing from my work in the archives pursuant to my researches as a presidential historian.

One thinks back to the late 1940s of Elizabeth Bentley, an American spying for the Soviet Union. She raised an intolerable ruckus outside a hotel room with one, possibly two, Soviet intelligence operatives — both male. Her involvement with one had been romantic, but the cad let her down. Possibly, he did not pay for her turkey sandwich. Possibly, he left other bills cooling on the table. At any rate, there was hell to pay. She had a set of lungs on her like a bull moose and a face to boot. When she let out a yell, it was deafening. Of course, the Russians were terrified. Shortly thereafter, she renounced Communism, and they were glad to get back to Stalin's Russia.

Who is Rashad Robinson? And why has his fringe, race-baiting organization been able to pressure several major corporations into abandoning a pro-limited-government legislative association — all for a few cheap social-justice brownie points?

Conservative consumers need to get informed, get active and stand their ground against free speech-squelching progressive activists who have demonized the American Legislative Exchange Council. This isn't just a battle over ALEC. It's a war against the left's shakedown artists taking aim at our freedoms of speech and association.

After Richard Nixon lost the 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy and the California governor's race two years later (when he uttered the immortal line to the media, "You don't have Nixon to kick around anymore") the former vice president knew he must reinvent himself to run for president again in 1968.

Thus was born "the new Nixon," an attempt to transform himself from "the old Nixon" the public didn't like, into a warmer, softer, more approachable person. As it turned out, the "new Nixon" was simply the "old Nixon" with a new coat of political paint.

Mitt Romney's presidential run could turn out to be a test case to resolve the long-running debate inside the Republican Party as to whether the GOP presidential nominee should run as a conservative or more of a centrist.

How often have we heard both Democratic and Republican political "experts" reciting the conventional wisdom that during primary contests, candidates of both parties must play to their respective base voters and then shift toward the center during the general election campaign? Does anyone even challenge this edict?

For many, the term "sheriff" conjures up images of the Old West. A few may consider a sheriff to have some form of outdated and obsolete political office. But for me and countless other patriots across our nation, a sheriff is the epitome of good and necessary county law enforcement.

As documented on the Durham County, N.C., website, the position of sheriff originated in England more than 1,000 years ago, known then as a shire-reeve, who was "the steward of the King's estates, guardian of the peace, judge and jury of the Shire County (county court) and was the local agent of the King in military affairs. The King also appointed him as the Chief Police Magistrate."

The Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation does a yeoman's job of keeping track of how much we're paying in taxes and who's paying what. It turns out that American taxpayers worked this year from Jan. 1 to April 17, 107 days, to earn enough money to pay their federal, state and local tax bills. That statistic requires some clarification, and I ask my readers to help me examine it.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, Congress will spend $3.8 trillion this year, about 24 percent of our $15 trillion gross domestic product. But federal tax revenue will be much less, only $2.5 trillion, or 16 percent of the GDP. That means there's a shortfall of $1.3 trillion. Some people, including economists, say there's a deficit. That's true, but only in an accounting sense, not in any meaningful economic sense. Let's look at it.

Just 49 percent of homeowners in America now believe their home is worth more than they paid for it.

Rasmussen Reports has asked that question for years, and it has never before fallen below the 50 percent mark. This represents a sea change in personal finances that challenges core assumptions about the way our economy works.

Dick Clark, who died Wednesday at 82, was called "America's oldest teenager." That's not only because he looked so good late into life, but also because he carried with him the teen memories of those of us who grew up watching "American Bandstand" on glorious black-and-white, small-screen television sets.

Every weekday afternoon, I would arrive home from school, say hello to Mom, grab a snack and plop down in front of the TV to watch a dance show broadcast live from South Philadelphia.

Liberals have leapt on the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida to push for the repeal of "stand your ground" laws and to demand tighter gun control. (MSNBC'S Karen Finney blamed "the same people who stymied gun regulation at every point.") This would be like demanding more funding for the General Services Administration after seeing how its employees blew taxpayer money on a party weekend in Las Vegas.

We don't know the facts yet, but let's assume the conclusion MSNBC is leaping to is accurate: George Zimmerman stalked a small black child and murdered him in cold blood, just because he was black.
If that were true, every black person in America should get a gun and join the National Rifle Association, America's oldest and most august civil rights organization.

It's difficult to be a good economist and simultaneously be perceived as compassionate. To be a good economist, one has to deal with reality. To appear compassionate, often one has to avoid unpleasant questions, use "caring" terminology and view reality as optional.

Affordable housing and health care costs are terms with considerable emotional appeal that politicians exploit but have absolutely no useful meaning or analytical worth. For example, can anyone tell me in actual dollars and cents the price of an affordable car, house or myomectomy? It's probably more pleasant to pretend that there is universal agreement about what is or is not affordable.

Stop the presses: Big-spending Democrats are finally up in arms over a federal boondoggle. Details of the U.S. General Services Administration bacchanalia get worse by the day. We've graduated from overpriced breakfasts in Vegas, friends-and-family junkets galore and in-house videos mocking their own profligacy to extravagant bonuses, alleged kickbacks, obstructionism and bribes.

But the scandal is still small potatoes compared to the potential billions GSA is pouring down the Big Labor drain.

Of all the myriad scandals of the Obama administration, there is one, largely ignored by the mainstream media, that could actually be its worst.

That scandal is the operation run from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, under the Justice Department, known as "Fast and Furious," through which the federal government actually encouraged and even ordered American gun shops to sell guns — against the store owners' better judgment — to "straw" purchasers who were funneling guns to Mexican drug gangs while the ATF sat back and watched and did nothing.

President Barack Obama and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department have a new obsession to obstruct any state's passing of voter identification laws, even recently attacking South Carolina and my own state of Texas. Holder calls voter ID laws "unnecessary" and says voter fraud "doesn't exist," but new video proof in his own voting precinct proves otherwise.

Obama's administration says it's against voter ID laws because it is trying valiantly to keep minorities and the poor from being unfairly discriminated against. But the truth is that it is trying to keep President Obama in office. It knows that voter IDs are bad business for this White House's campaign and re-election.

Virtually everything said and done in a presidential election year distorts the truth, much like concave and convex mirrors in a carnival attraction alter one's true reflection.

That kind of distortion occurred in the recent dustup over whether women who choose to stay at home can completely understand the economic challenges and personal struggles faced by women who choose, or need, to work outside the home while raising children.

Any doubt that Mitt Romney would win the Republican presidential nomination vanished when Rick Santorum left the race. It also marked the end of Romney's time as the defining figure in the overall contest for the White House.

The GOP nomination process was seen by many as a competition between Romney and an entertaining cast of I'm Not Mitt Romney challengers. Questions were raised about Romney's perceived weaknesses and whether he could win over the hearts and votes of conservatives. But now President Obama moves to center stage and becomes the defining figure of the general election campaign. Now it's about Obama, not Romney, as the election becomes primarily a referendum on his first term in office.

All is bleak. All is woe! I speak of the tea party movement, the movement of 2009 and 2010 that was the hot news story of those years and led to the Republican rout of the Democrats in 2010. Now the tea party movement is, according to reports in the media, in decline.

Was it extremist? Was it racist? Distinguished Americans such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton said it was. Yet their evidence when it came under objective scrutiny kept falling apart, as so many of their hoaxes over the years have fallen apart — Ms. Tawana Brawley, the 1979-80 Atlanta killings supposedly by local cops who spent their leisure hours in the Ku Klux Klan. I cannot think of another couple of hucksters who have adduced so much evidence of heinous behavior by the American majority only to have the evidence go poof! The tea party movement was neither extremist nor racist. In fact, it was what Americans look like when they suddenly become alive to politics: somewhat amateurish, terrifically enthusiastic and eventually quite serious about practicing the political arts at the local level, in Madison, Wis., in Waco, Texas, in Tucson, Ariz. — all locales far, far away from Washington, D.C. Though I have reason to suspect that the tea partyers may return to Washington after the November elections. Read on.