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Elizabeth Warren Tag

I told you so.  Elizabeth Warren's repeated supposed refusals to run for President always were framed in the present tense: I am not running for President. That, of course, technically was correct.  I don't think anyone of note "is" running for President yet, but many are seriously considering it and likely will run. Nothing makes Warren's word games more clear than her interview with (my law school classmate) Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post:
The Massachusetts Democrat insists that she’s not running for president, and there’s little reason to doubt her — although, interestingly, Warren sticks doggedly to the present tense to describe her intentions. I asked Warren about this phrasing the other afternoon over iced tea mixed with lemonade at a restaurant near her Capitol Hill office. In these precincts, senator sightings are commonplace but, even here, Warren enjoys celebrity status; the manager promptly presented Warren with a copy of her memoir, “A Fighting Chance,” to sign. Why not simply declare that she will not run for president in 2016? “I am not running for president in 2016,” Warren responded. Yes, I pressed, but why not say, I am not running and I will not run?

Elizabeth Warren is doing the best she can with the ideology she has. So it was a shock to see Chris Matthews, of all people, call her out for being all talk and no real action. As if she would just say things for political effect. Or take advantage of situations unfairly for her own gain. Come on Chris. Leave Elizabeth alone. From The Daily Caller:
Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren clearly expected a softball interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Thursday night. But midway through her predictable talking points, the left-wing “Hardball” host unexpectedly struck out at the progressive darling over what he views as Democratic inaction on jobs and infrastructure.

The Kentucky Senate race is essentially tied in the polling. A poll released today by a Republican pollster shows Alison Lundergan Grimes up by 3 points, within the margin of error. Elizabeth Warren is about to inject herself into the race in a big way. Warren's student loan bill, which even an author at liberal Slate.com called "a glorified talking point," failed to pass an early procedural vote on Wednesday. In response, Warren declared war on Mitch McConnell, vowing to campaign and raise money for Grimes. The notion of taking political retribution is in keeping with Warren's vow to have "plenty of blood and teeth left on the floor" of those who oppose her. HuffPo reports, Elizabeth Warren To Hit Back At Mitch McConnell By Campaigning For Alison Lundergan Grimes:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) railed against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday for failing to support her student loan refinancing proposal, which the Senate killed in a 56-38 vote earlier in the day.... When MSNBC's Chris Hayes asked Warren how she planned to fight back, the senator gave a response that could shake things up in Kentucky, where McConnell faces a tough race for reelection against Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes. "One way I'm going to start fighting back is I'm going to go down to Kentucky and I'm going to campaign for Alison Lundergan Grimes," Warren said. "She's tough, she's feisty, she endorsed the student loan bill, said she wanted to bring down interest rates for Kentuckians. ... So my view is I'm going to get out there and try to make this happen for her."
Seems to me that making Warren an issue in the race is risky for Grimes.

There's been much speculation over whether or not Elizabeth Warren will run for president. Some folks have also suggested that Joe Biden may run for president. Here's a new question: What if they ran together? CNN's Peter Hamby reports...

You can feel it growing. Barney Frank thinks Elizabeth Warren will run for President, despite her present-tense denials:
 What Barney Frank lacks in tact, he makes up for in clarity. The former Massachusetts congressman tells the State House News Service in Massachusetts that it's "very unlikely" Hillary Clinton won't seek the presidency in 2016. But he also believes Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., – who is in the midst of a publicity tour for her new book – privately harbors White House ambitions. She is a senator, after all. Asked whether Warren has any inclination to seek the presidency, Frank said, "Oh, I think yes. In the first place, why would you want to get into a profession and have no interest in rising to the top of it? I don’t know anybody who has that."
Despite Elizabeth Warren's statement that she isn't running for President (technically true), the media is making the case for her. The latest is Aaron Blake at WaPo's The Fix, Why Elizabeth Warren is perfectly positioned for 2016 (if she wanted to run):

Forget the current polling as between Hillary and Elizabeth Warren. It pits Hillary against someone who "isn't running." For all my criticisms of Warren, and they are extensive, I am convinced that if she ran, she would crush Hillary, just as Obama did. Warren, as did Obama, has a unique ability to demagogue the core Democratic narrative of victimhood in ways that would make Hillary blush. She is more cunning than Hillary, more popular with the base, would bring an excitement the contrived Ready-for-Hillary movement could only dream of.   Democrats may be "ready" for Hillary, but they don't really want her. Face it, Democrats, in your heart of hearts, you want Elizabeth Warren to run.  She is the next One you have been waiting for.   You can imagine yourselves singing:
We’re gonna spread happiness We’re gonna spread freedom Obama’s Liz's gonna change it Obama’s Liz's gonna lead ‘em
You need to convince yourselves to support Hillary, and you will if you have to, but you don't really want to have to. Byron York makes the case that we should not rule out a Warren run:

In Elizabeth Warren's new book, A Fighting Chance, Warren claims to be "hurt and angry" that people criticized her claim to be Native American, specifically Cherokee.  Warren blamed the Scott Brown campaign, the local Republican Party, and "some blogger." In fact, Warren has no one to blame but herself for her false claim to be Cherokee.  Read Elizabeth Warren Wiki, and these posts responding to the claims in her book: Warren will be launching a nationwide book tour.  Someone who wants to meet Warren is Twila Barnes. Barnes is the Cherokee Genealogist whose groundbreaking genealogical research exposed the falsehood to Warren's claims.  Barnes and her team of Cherokee genealogists traced Warren's family lines back to the early 1800s and documented that Warren's family not only was not Cherokee or other Native American, but also that they never lived as such: Barnes also debunked much of the "family lore" used by Warren to justify claiming Native American status.  One of my favorites was Barnes' discovery that Warren's maternal great grandfather, on the supposedly Cherokee bloodline, was featured in the local newspaper in 1906 as being white and having shot an Indian. And also Barnes' discovery that Warren's parents' wedding was joyously announced in the local newspaper, which would contradict Warren's claim that her parents had to elope because her father's family would not tolerate their son marrying an Indian.

Elizabeth Warren's autobiography is out, and it looks like she is sticking precisely to her campaign script on her false claim to be Cherokee. The title is "A Fighting Chance." The Boston Globe, which has an advance copy (perhaps as a courtesy since it gave Warren so much help in the campaign), summarizes:
She spends several pages describing the family connections that have led her to assert a partial Native American heritage, for which she was criticized by Republicans in her 2012 Senate campaign.... “As a kid, I had learned about my Native American background the same way every kid learns about who they are: from family,” she writes. “I never questioned my family’s stories or asked my parents for proof or documentation. What kid would?” Her ancestry became a major issue during the campaign, and Warren says she was stunned by the attacks – and that she couldn’t provide documentation because her family hadn’t registered any tribal affiliation. “In Oklahoma, that was pretty common,” she writes. “But knowing who you are is one thing, and proving who you are is another.” She reiterated that she did not use her background to gain special treatment. “I never asked for special treatment when I applied to college, to law school, or for jobs,” she writes.
This family dodge has been exposed so many times, detailed at Elizabeth Warren Wiki. The short version is that she never lived as a Native American, but did use the claim to her advantage to get listed as a "Minority Law Teacher" in a directory used as a hiring device in the 1980s. Somehow the editors of The Harvard Women's Law Journal knew about it when Warren was a visiting professor because they listed her as a Woman of Color in Legal Academia. Warren and Harvard never have released her hiring records.

China Housing Market Bubble Start to Pop as Economy Faces Hard-Landing:
China's property bubble has already started to burst as the country struggles to avoid a hard-landing after the housing market became overheated with soaring prices. China's commercial and residential property sectors are not doing well, especially in the city of Hangzho, which has "become the symbol of a market in distress", according to Forbes. The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, is closing its Zhaohui store in Hangzhou on April 23 as a part of its overall plan to dump unprofitable locations. The sale of the large store comes as the city has too much supply of commercial properties, according to Forbes. Hangzhou's Grade A office buildings at the end of 2013 had an average occupancy rate of 30%, according to real estate broker Jones Lang LaSalle. In Hangzhou's residential sector, occupancy is weak and prices are declining due to massive overbuilding.
All of this was predicted here, back in 2012 when Elizabeth Warren insisted that we needed to be more like China. And I said, Elizabeth Warren apparently never heard of the Chinese bubble and Stimulus:

When Elizabeth Warren's fake Cherokee status broke in late April 2012, Warren's campaign went into panic for several days, issuing statements about Warren's ancestry that proved troublesome when compared to the facts. The entire issue was portrayed as a Scott Brown campaign dirty trick, and the Boston Herald -- the city's not-completely-liberal paper -- was attacked. Warren even entertained questions herself initially, reciting tales of her Aunt Bee and high cheekbones which both were laughable and questionable. Not that long after the Cherokee narrative broke, and endangered her campaign, Warren's campaign found a theme -- don't attack my family, I'm not backing away from my parents -- and stuck to it relentlessly. With a mostly sympathetic press in tow, Warren somewhat successfully reframed the issue away from her demeaning usurpation of Native American identity for employment purposes to why people were attacking her family. Warren also went into media shutdown, refusing to answer any questions except when confronted in unavoidable situations. Even then, Warren robotically stuck to the stript of defending her family. Warren avoided one-on-one interviews with anyone other than sycophants until the day before the Massachusetts Democratic state convention, when the Cherokee narrative threatened to derail Warren's attempt to keep her only Democratic rival, Marisa DeFranco, off the ballot. The convention-eve interviews, where Warren of course stuck to script, were enough to quiet party concerns, and DeFranco was kept off the ballot. I don't know if Warren's false narrative ever would have doomed her campaign, considering it was Massachusetts, but the script and press control worked for electoral purposes. Fast forward to Wendy Davis.

Ever since the story broke that Wendy Davis -- to be charitable to her -- had embellished her personal narrative, many commenters and people on Twitter with whom I interact have suggested Elizabeth Warren as an analogy. As readers know, I have been a harsh critic of Elizabeth Warren for claiming Native American and Cherokee status for employment purposes without basis as she climbed the ladder to Harvard Law School, and then dumping that status as soon as she got tenure. But not all false narratives are created equally. Elizabeth Warren's false narrative was done quietly, and in a manner designed to juice her employment prospects with few people, outside of those responsible for diversity hiring, knowing about it. Warren was not Native American, and the myth that she was 1/32 Cherokee was created by faulty speculation during her campaign, not when she was growing up. At most, some Native American ancestry was a mere family rumor, the term her adult nephew used when searching the family's genealogy. Warren never lived as a Cherokee, never associated with Cherokees, and never publicly touted herself as Cherokee. Instead, Warren used those family rumors of Native American ancestry to get herself put on the short listing of "Minority Law Teachers" in a law professor directory used in the 1980s as a hiring tool by law school administrators. While a Visiting Professor at Harvard, she also somehow managed to get on a list of Women of Color in Legal Academia, although records are hard to find as to how extensively she touted her supposed Native American status (her hiring records never have been released). While there is strong evidence that Warren tried to use her Native American narrative to advance her career, that narrative was not her career.