Digging All The Way To China

Failing Grade
“There is simply no reason that teachers accused of sexual misconduct should have greater job security than other city employees,” said Mr. Bloomberg, who was joined by several state superintendents’ groups at a news conference at Gracie Mansion. “The fact that they currently do is wrong; it is dangerous; it is indefensible.”


But the mayor’s supporters know just how arduous, if not nearly impossible, it will be to change the law. The State Assembly, unlike the Senate chamber, is controlled by Democrats, who are much more receptive to the concerns of the city and state teachers’ unions. (NYT, 5/29/2012)


Nothing to add.


Szalony
Polish leaders reacted with outrage Wednesday to President Barrack Obama's apparently inadvertent reference to a "Polish death camp" when he awarded a U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom to a now-dead Polish World War II resistance fighter Tuesday.


Poles are extremely sensitive about the way Nazi German-run death camps in occupied Poland during the war are described. Millions of Polish Jews and Catholics perished during the conflict and large numbers were murdered by German authorities in the camps. (WSJ, 5/30/2012)


Foreign policy expert Obama steps in it again. This after earlier in his term stiffing the Poles - an erstwhile American ally if ever there was one -  on missile defense. 


Surfacing
Records in a George Romney archive at the University of Michigan describe how questions about his eligibility to be president surfaced almost as soon as he began his short-lived campaign.


In many ways, they appear to echo today's complaints that Trump and some other conservative "birthers" have made about Obama while questioning whether Obama - whose father was from Kenya and mother was from Kansas - was born in Hawaii.


In George Romney's case, most of the questions were raised initially by Democrats who cited the Constitution's requirement that only a "natural born citizen" can be president.


As early as February 1967 - a year before the first 1968 presidential primary - some newspapers were raising questions as to whether George Romney's place of birth disqualified him from the presidency.


By May 1967, U.S. congressman Emmanuel Celler, a Democrat who chaired the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, was expressing "serious doubts" about George Romney's eligibility.


The next month, another Democratic congressman inserted a lengthy treatise into the Congressional Record in which a government lawyer - writing in a "personal capacity" - argued that George Romney was ineligible for the White House because he was born outside U.S. territory. (Reuters.com, 5/29/2012)


Just another reminder that the first birthers were Democrats. And the second, as well, considering that Obama supporters first raised the issue against John McCain (born on a military base in the Panama Canal) in the last election. 


So will Obama repudiate Emmanuel Celler?  


And while we are at it, why doesn't Obama tell us why he has a social security number issued in Connecticut?