Obama the Descendant of Slaves?

On his mother's side???

WASHINGTON — For genealogists, President Obama’s family tree is the gift that keeps on giving.

There was Dick Cheney, Warren Buffett and Sarah Palin. On Monday, genealogists added another notable figure to Obama's unlikely list of relatives: John Punch, a Virginia slave who some historians consider the first African enslaved in the colonies.

The connection to Punch, an indentured servant forced into slavery in 1640, comes from Obama’s mother’s side of the family, said Joseph Shumway, a genealogist with Ancestry.com, the website that has been researching the president’s family tree for years.

In a not so rare bit of Fauxcahontas envy, with less than 100 days before the 2012 election, genealogists have "uncovered" a link between Obama and slavery. AP might have thought this nothingburger story might give the 'Bamster a little more street cred, to have the "blood of slaves" flowing through his veins, but I don't think there are that many people in this country that give a rat's patoot whether Barry is 50% or 51% or 52% black.

Even if it were true, having an ancestor that far back on the family tree did nothing to shape his thinking in his formative years or beyond. Besides, it doesn't matter who Obama is so much as what he has done, which is nothing helpful and much to harm the economy and prolong the recession. That's why Obama is running on his "vision" for America, because he cannot run on his record.

And if you read this story all the way through, three paragraphs from the end, you are treated to this:

Obama’s connection to Punch is similarly inconclusive

Inconclusive, eh? Color me unimpressed.


But, the choicest irony of the story, and the one reason why Obama would be wisest not to incorporate this into his re-election narrative, is that Obama's tenuous claim to the blood of slaves, comes through his "typical white grandmother". Being two generations closer to her slave roots did nothing at all, according to Obama, to make her more sensitive to the plight of minorities. It might be entertaining to hear Obama try to make the case, though.

Cross posted at Say Anything

The Platte River President* on Economics

By now, you've surely heard Obama's collectivist rant, that if you were successful, you didn't do it on your own. He seems to be channeling the original Fauxcahontas, Elizabeth Warren, who said:

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for."

Got that? If you are rich, if you are successful, you didn't do it on your own, you got a lot of help from the public** who financed the infrastructure. But, have you ever driven by a strip mall, where one or more of the tenants, but not all of them had gone out of business? Or driven by two businesses side by side where one was open for business and the one right next door was shuttered and boarded up?

Didn't the same roads and bridges supply both businesses? Didn't the same schools educate those who worked in the strip mall? The same fire and police protect them all?

Mr. President, Ms. Fauxcahontas: Did you ever consider that since the same infrastructure is there for both those who succeed and those who fail, that maybe there's something else to whether or not a business succeeds than merely the community infrastructure? And it is possible that some of that something, that allows one man to keep his doors open and make payroll every week, can be weakened, or crippled or even killed off by taxes that are too high.

Raising taxes on businesses makes them less competitive, more likely to fail and less likely to expand and hire more workers. The way to get the economy back on its feet is to stop the frivolous and wasteful government spending, (as you promised when you ran for office in 2008, Mr. Obama) and lower taxes across the board.

But you are on the record as wanting to raise taxes for the sake of "fairness", even if the end result is an equality of misery.


* The Platte River was once said to be a "mile wide and an inch deep". Yeah. That fits!

**The more successful members of the public already paid more than their less successful brethren.

Fauxcahontas

Just how much truth is in your claim to Native American heritage, Ms. Warren?

I see...