Tag: joel pollak

Soledad O’Brien critic of Joel Pollak’s criticism of Derrick Bell’s Critical Race Theory.

Also: this is Wikipedia’s problem, in a nutshell.

Background: Soledad O’Brien managed to look like an utter idiot on CNN on Thursday when Breitbart.com’s Joel Pollak casually eviscerated her over the concept of critical race theory (CRT).

(pause)

OK, deeper background: CRT is more or less identity politics run through an academic gobbledygook filter; some of its adherents have made some somewhat… incautious comments about white supremacy and the sham nature of the American civil rights movement.  This all matters because Breitbart.com’s got footage of Barack Obama as a college student introducing Derrick Bell (H/T: Ann Althouse) – a man who once argued that American whites would happily sell American blacks to space aliens if offered enough in exchange*.  Admittedly, we all do stupid things in college – and if the media had brought up Obama’s collegiate antics in 2008 (or 2004) it’s fair to say that it only might have caused, to use a term from my kids’ favorite show, ‘confusion and delay’ for the Obama campaign.  Neither of those should have been a consideration for the media when it came to doing their jobs – but, hey, we all know that these people think that ‘doing their jobs’ means ‘keeping conservatives out of office.’ Continue reading Soledad O’Brien critic of Joel Pollak’s criticism of Derrick Bell’s Critical Race Theory.

Meet Alex Armour, Jan Schakowsky’s (D, IL-09) CoS.

…judging from his Twitter account (H/T: The Campaign Spot) Armour despises and loathes the roughly 60-70% of the population* of the United States that had a problem with the Ground Zero Mosque.  Extra points: Armour apparently also thinks that the expression of said problem demonstrates an ignorance of the purpose of the First Amendment, instead of it being what the First Amendment is for.  I note “extra points” because Armour probably ran around yelling about how dissent was the highest form of patriotism, back when he was fighting the establishment instead of cashing its checks.  He seems the sort who would do that.

Here’s the screenshot, for when Armour takes down the tweet: it uses too many obscenities to be safe for work.  The real question is, of course, whether Jan Schakowsky agrees with her own Chief of Staff: if the answer’s no, she should probably say so quickly.  Note that I am not calling for any kind of sanction, though.  Unlike Armour (and apparently Schakowsky), I respect these fools’ right to sound like fools in public…

Moe Lane (Crosspost)

PS: Joel Pollak for IL-09.  Not a fool.

*No real national polling on this recently, sorry.

Jan Schakowsky (D, IL-09) saves Shorebank after all.

Back in May it was reported that the failing, yet politically-connected Shorebank in Illinois was to be bailed out.  The bank actually closed last Friday, but was resurrected yesterday and turned into a new bank – one that will of course have no obvious relationship to Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), who lobbied very strenuously to save Shorebank… even though it’s not based in her district.  It is, however, the bank that Schakowsky’s convicted felon husband Robert Creamer used to partially extricate himself from the consequences of his fraud scheme; the bank provided critical assistance to Creamer that allowed him to avoid default – which would have beneficial effects on his sentencing a decade later*.  There is a strong whiff of this transaction being part of a quid pro quo – with the latter half being paid off, well, right about now.

If you’re wondering why Jan Schakowsky can get away with having her and her husband being  tied up in a dirty bank deal without censure by the House of Representatives, while Rep. Maxine Waters is currently facing ethics charges for her and her husband’s involvement with OneUnited, the answer’s easy: Schakowsky is white, and is thus simply fundamentally real to Democratic leadership in a way that no African-American Member of Congress could hope to be to them.  It should not be a surprise that House ethics investigations are being allowed to continue only against those legislators whose seats are considered locked-in by the Democrats anyway.

Yes, let me clear: I’m explicitly calling the House Democratic leadership a bunch of racists.  They are, you know.  And it’s never more obvious than when you consider the things that they don’t do, when they don’t have to.

Moe Lane

PS: Joel Pollak is the GOP candidate for IL-09, and he’s been all over this topic.  I’ve met him: he’s a good guy.  Check him out.

Continue reading Jan Schakowsky (D, IL-09) saves Shorebank after all.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D, IL-09), insurance industry profiteer.

It’s about the hypocrisy, stu… err, ‘folks.’

This came up a couple of days ago:

…while Rep. Schakowsky likes to attack health insurance profits, those profits have found a way into her own pocket. Her 2008 financial disclosure statement to the U.S. House of Representatives reveals that she owns several mutual funds that, in turn, own stock in major health insurance companies and provide her with dividend income.

Through her mutual funds, Schakowsky has a stake in UnitedHealth, the biggest health insurance company in America. She also profits indirectly from Aetna, the third-largest U.S. health insurer, as well as online insurance retailer eHealth. Rep. Schakowsky even owns mutual funds that hold shares in foreign insurance companies, such as China Life Insurance and Ping An Insurance Group of China, as well as the Islamic Arab Insurance Co., which specializes in Shari’ah compliant funds.

In addition, Rep. Schakowsky’s mutual funds own shares in other companies and industries that she has singled out in the past, according to the most recent information available.

Back when Robin Williams was funny – back when I was a teenager, in other words – he was in a movie with Walter Matthau called The Survivors. One of the characters in it was the leader of what Hollywood imagined a survivalist group looked like; he went everywhere with a locked briefcase full of what he claimed was his master plan for rebuilding after civilization collapsed. Turned out that the briefcase was really full of stock certificates and land deeds that the guy bought with all the money that his followers were uncritically giving him.

And that’s Jan Schakowsky, right there.  Heck, she even invested in funds that own a piece of Halliburton.

Moe Lane

PS: Not benefiting from the health insurance industry and Halliburton profits that she decries would be part of her loudly-expressed moral framework, not mine.  It’s her job to either live up to her ideals, or else admit that she doesn’t try to.  Yelling at me won’t make her less of a hypocrite.

Deal with it.

PPS: Joel Pollak is running for this seat; there may be others.

Crossposted to RedState.