And if you thought that if anyone wanted to do it, it would be a Republican, you would be very wrong.

James Webb: Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege - WSJ.com
That’s Jim Webb, as in Senator Jim Webb (D-VA). (hat tip to Kevin DeAnna at YWC).

Why is it that conservatives in Washington can’t seem to muster the guts to say anything constructive on race or any other “touchy” issue, particularly in an election year? Their overall impotence this week, a week where the Right should be dominating the news cycle, culminates with this article. Webb puts out a totally reasonable proposal that almost no one can touch besides hysterical sociology professors. Sure, he gets more leeway to say it because of the “D” next to his name, but to let him redefine this debate and give himself cover for his reelection is something that the GOP lets happen every day, in one form or another. Instead, I’m sure this will go nowhere.

What Republicans ought to do is fully endorse this proposal, even if it falls short of what most conservatives would want. Any chip at the institution of affirmative action and race-based preference systems is a win in my book. Once people see what is possible, and begin to accept this as the norm, taking away what’s left will not seem like a big deal.

Cheers to Jim Webb for a fine proposal that we can applaud as a good first step. If I have to move from one state with two Dem Senators to another, I’d much rather it be the one with him.

It has been MONTHS since I’ve posted on AverageJoeLE.  I will admit, like most of my projects, I had very high hopes for what this site could be.  I envisioned it being a haven for distinctly “young conservatives” who were recent college grads, caught somewhere between students and professionals.

So what went wrong? The biggest part of it was the lack of content, obviously.  Even with a number of writers on staff, people get busy, and you know the drill.

Second, I was creating a niche for a market that didn’t exist.  Although we did have one big scoop (the Obama gear at the NBC Store) it wasn’t enough to pull us over the top without a steady stream of news.

Finally, I should have been more realistic and been able to recognize that I couldn’t run a full-fledged News and Opinion website while in my second year of law school.  I bought the lie that second year was supposed to be easier.  ONE HUNDRED PERCENT NOT TRUE.  Toughest year of school at any level ever.

For the upcoming year, I hoped that maybe I could revive the idea, but the inherent problems still exist.  On top of that, add on the fact that I am Editor in Chief for the Circuit Review at Seton Hall, will likely be volunteering for a campaign this summer and fall, need to earn some sort of income, traveling back and forth to DC to visit the lovely Ms. Yasenchak, searching for a permanent job, prepping for the bar exam, and O YEH, I’m getting married in a year.

Where does this leave AverageJoeLE? Well, for starters, it’s staying around for a little while longer, at least. It’s going to be slightly more “personal” but not in that creepy online diary way.  It will be more like extended Facebook and Twitter posts, more like casual commentary on politics and news as the feeling strikes me.  Some things will be more ranty, others will be more eloquent.  Depends on my mood, really.

Although I’m not banning any old writers from the site (if you guys still have your passwords, feel free to contribute anytime!) I don’t expect them to write that much on here again.  In fact, I’d be surprised if even half of them even read this post (but go ahead and surprise me in the comments, Tim Ryder et al.) I haven’t decided exactly what to do with the old content, but I’ll likely just leave it up for now.

Bottom Line: Please check back when you can to see what this Average Joe L-E, all on his own, thinks about the world.  Hopefully, You’ll find it interesting.

Sincerely,

Joe

To the surprise of some conservative commentators, Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central’s news spoof program, The Daily Show, ran a segment on the ACORN video scandal on Tuesday night.

In the clip, Stewart praises James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles for exposing ACORN on hidden camera.  But Stewart is also critical of the mainstream media that failed to pick up on the story before the unlikely duo did.

“I’m a fake journalist and I’m embarrassed these guys scooped me!” Stewart exclaimed.

Although he did poke fun at O’Keefe and Giles, including referring to them as cast members of High School Musical 3, Stewart appeared to be impressed that they did so much with so little resources.

“They did it for $3,000.  That’s [CNN host Wolf] Blitzer’s monthy beard wet-vac budget.  It probably costs CNN that much to turn on their hologram machine,” Stewart chided.

Stewart, originally from Lawrenceville, NJ, is known to be highly critical of conservatives.  But he has also gone after “real” news media that have failed to pick up important stories, as he did in this case.

O’Keefe, also a NJ native, is continuing to release the damning videos on BigGovernment.com.

Not to take too much thunder from my excellent article in The Record this morning that you can read HERE, but something must be said on why Milton Friedman should be inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame on the next ballot.

Anyone can vote on NJHallofFame.org under the “General” category for the father of modern economics.  Friedman’s theories obliterated the tired old models of the Left that always failed and ushered in a new understanding of the economic system.

Perhaps even more importantly, Friedman’s theories properly couched the debate on liberty and human condition and how it relates to the economic system, and society in general.  A great summary of that thinking can be found in the video, above.

Friedman, a Rahway, NJ native and Rutgers alumnus, was one of the greatest thinkers of our era, and the least New Jersey can do is put him into the Hall of Fame.

Please don’t forget to check out the article in The Record and post a comment there!

On an ironically related note, James O’Keefe, the filmmaker behind the ACORN video scandal that I wrote about yesterday, was also the founder of the Rutgers University Centurion.  The RU Centurion tried to get the campus powers at Rutgers honor Friedman… to no avail:

Unless you live in a shell away from popular culture (which I almost do), you’ve probably heard that Kanye West made a complete fool of himself last night at the Video Music Awards. When Taylor Swift was receiving her award, Kanye walked up after being spotted “swigging” alcohol earlier and gave a shout out to Beyonce, who had lost out to Swift.

The whole incident reminds me of a parody that South Park did of Kanye back in the spring, which apparently will be shown again tonight.

On the show, Kanye was portrayed as a narcissistic fool (art imitating life?). More telling was the reaction from Kanye to being mocked so thoroughly:

In typical all-caps mode, he wrote: “SOUTH PARK MURDERED ME LAST NIGHT AND IT’S PRETTY FUNNY. IT HURTS MY FEELINGS BUT WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT FROM SOUTH PARK! I ACTUALLY HAVE BEEN WORKING ON MY EGO THOUGH. HAVING THE CRAZY EGO IS PLAYED OUT IN MY LIFE AND CAREER.”

West said that he started stroking his ego long ago to build up his self esteem — but he now realizes he needs to “GET PAST MYSELF.”

In the self-reflective post, he said that people won’t take him seriously if he keeps it up (perhaps referring to his well-documented meltdowns at awards shows when he didn’t win what he expected).

“I JUST WANT TO BE A DOPER PERSON WHICH STARTS WITH ME NOT ALWAYS TELLING PEOPLE HOW DOPE I THINK I AM,” he said.

Guess he didn’t learn. Only one question for Kanye: Got fishsticks?

The videos are shocking and appalling, and ACORN is finally getting its just desserts as the US Senate voted last night to cut their funding from upcoming Housing and Urban Development Projects.  The US Census cut their ties with ACORN last week.

Had ACORN been watching the activist scene from the Right and not just encouraging it from the Left, they might have seen O’Keefe coming.

In the summer of 2008 I became the first editor in chief of New Guard in over a decade.  New Guard was the product of William F. Buckley, Jr., the modern American conservative legend.  The magazine was an outgrowth from the 1960 Sharon Statement and the beginning of the “Goldwater Republicans.”  It also served as the official publication for Young Americans for Freedom.

Like New Guard was to its generation of conservatives activists, we thought it could be the same for us when the magazine was revived in print and online.  (Unfortunately, a September 2008 release was a bad time to go out and try to get financial backers to continue to support the mag).

Had ACORN been reading New Guard, they would have seen the article that publisher Kevin DeAnna and I asked him to write up talked about investigations just like this one.  In “Pro-life activists not ashamed to use the tactics of the Left against them” O’Keefe outlined his project in vowing to donate money to Planned Parenthood on the condition that they ensure that the money went to aborting minority babies only.  They told the “donor,” O”Keefe, that wanting to have less blacks born was “understandable.”

O’Keefe explained:

We framed the issue in a creative way. We did not tackle abortion conventionally but from the racism angle. Because leftists believe that racism is a cardinal sin, we used their rules against them…

Many students around the country have nodded in agreement with my theories on activism, but they fear doing what it takes to make them happen. The movement dies when it becomes boring and risk-averse. The hardest part about being a leader is getting people to focus on action in addition to philosophy. If you must spend time “convincing” anyone of anything, it is that they owe it to their philosophy to take action. In the pro-life movement it has been particularly difficult to find people to believe in these tactics, or have the courage to use them…

The ability to use “Rules for Radicals” by Saul Alinsky is easy for conservatives to adapt.  When the Left is in power, the Right can use the same spirit to break down their institutions.  The best example of this is on a university campus.  When I first met James, he came to William and Mary to help us better develop The Virginia Informer. It was there that James shared what was probably his most infamous and outrageous video, until last week.  He somehow managed to get his alma mater, Rutgers, to band Lucky Charms cereal in the cafeteria, as he dubbed it offensive to Irish-Americans.

ACORN and the head community organizer, Barack Obama, ought not be surprised or troubled by the tactics used by O’Keefe and others. Right activists are nearly taking a page out of Alinsky’s book and flipping the script.  That makes two things that Obama and I can agree on.

Later in the evening, Beyonce Knowles, who West insisted should have won, did in fact win for Video of the Year.  She made a great gesture and invited Swift back on stage to give her proper thank yous and have her “moment.”

For more info: Joe Luppino-Esposito is a law student and a leading young conservative writer. He speaks nationally on winning activism battles for conservatives on campus. Joe is also editor of AverageJoeLE.com, a blog for recent conservative college graduates.

Not long after I and others reported yesterday that the Department Education urged teachers to tell their students to write letters on “what they can do to help the president” there appears to be an unexplained edit to the document online.

The second point under ideas for what to do as an extension of Obama’s unprecedented speech to the nation’s children, on what will be the first day of school for many, has been changed.  It now reads: “Write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short?term and long?term education goals.”  That version can be found HERE.

Originally, the document read: “Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.” The original version is still online HERE.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Obama administration has yet to mention the controversy, as spokesman Robert Gibbs continues to play dumb, as seems to be his strategy.

The sudden switch even fooled ABC’s Jake Tapper, who tweeted, around 5:30 yesterday: “Heres Dept of Ed assignments ppl are talking about >> http://bit.ly/11VzwE Where does it assign essays on “how can i help the president”?“ Jim Geraghty of National Review was one of the first to respond, tweeting back: “@jaketapper Jake, as it looks like there are 2 versions out there. Was 1 a draft? “help the president” at link: http://tinyurl.com/nr4qya“

Some, including commenters on yesterday’s piece, are happy playing dumb to the whole ordeal.  Below is my tribute to them.

One man is the son of a former President who went on to become the President himself.  He had a checkered early life with numerous arrests and alcohol problems.  However, he was sober and more responsible by age 40 when he began to enter politics.

Another man is the son of a wealthy businessman and politician whose brother was President and other brother was a Senator and Attorney General and well on the way to becoming President before his assassination.  He won his older brother’s former Senate seat a couple years after his brother was elected President and held onto it for nearly fifty years until his death.  He continued to live a checkered life for decades, including killing a woman by driving off a bridge and not reporting the “accident” to authorities until after her body was found.

The first politician is former President George W.  Bush whose political career was marred by charges of nepotism and constant reminders of his past transgressions.

The second politician is former Senator Ted Kennedy who is always referred to in the media as being a part of a “great  political family” and the Chappaquiddick incident, which killed Mary Jo Kopechne, has been ignored in the media.  When the incident is brought up, accusations are made that the person who brings up the incident is trying to discredit Kennedy by bringing up something that happened well in the past, ignoring the fact that he continued to live an irresponsible life for decades after Chappaquiddick.

In the wake of Kennedy’s death in the last week, the media has gone to great lengths to portray Kennedy as a true American hero and has provided incessant positive coverage of him.

However, what if another long-term senator such as Robert Byrd (D-WV) or Orrin Hatch (R-UT) had died instead?  Byrd and Hatch have also been “great” senators in that they have numerous accomplishments and are known for being willing to compromise with the other party.  However, they were elected to the Senate without the backing of a “great political family” and have lived much more respectable lives than Kennedy (although Byrd was in the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s, a membership which he has regretted for more than sixty years).

Therefore, if a politician wants to have a massive public display of support after his death and get canonized by the media, they must be elected as a result of their parents’ success and not be a role model throughout their political career (and not be named  Bush).

With the passing of Ted Kennedy last week, it is easy to recall the memories of “Camelot” and the lore of the Kennedy family.  Much of that has to do with the rhetoric flourishes of Ted’s brother, John F. Kennedy.

The words, “Ask not what your country can do for you; Ask what you can do for your country,” although ingrained in the hearts and minds of most Americans, seem to have been misunderstood by Barack Obama to say, “Ask what you can do for your president.”

The Drudge Report splashed the story Tuesday afternoon that Obama planned to make an “unprecedented address to all public school students”  on September 8.

And despite all of the proposed protests and outcry (even by Lefties) against the plan, which I sympathize with, there is a greater issue that already exists with the materials distributed for the event.

On the “Activities for grades PreK-6” document, the Department of Education has lined up some ideas on what teachers can do with their 4-14 year olds in the classroom.  What is odd about the list is that all of the ideas revolve around Obama, not about the students or the country.

“Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama…” is the tip for what to do before Obama’s speech.  Why is it so important to know about him?  Is is really appropriate for schools to have students read all about Obama as a standalone project and not encourage and more in-depth civics lesson as part of the curriculum?  Teachers should be careful with the suggested reading and make sure their 2nd grade class doesn’t get to read all about how Obama tried cocaine, as he admitted in “Dreams From My Father.”

Throughout the speech, teachers are asked to encourage students to think about many things… mostly relating to Obama himself:

“As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following:  What is the President trying to tell me? What is the President asking me to do? What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?” (emphasis added).

“Students could discuss their responses to the following questions: What do you think the President wants us to do? Does the speech make you want to do anything? Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us? What would you like to tell the President? ” (emphasis added).

Why is it that the students ought to be accountable to Obama himself?  This is yet another example of how out of touch Obama and his administration have become.  They must honestly believe that citizens should be waiting to hear what Obama has to say and when he says “Jump” they should respond “How high?”  To push this mindset on young children is appalling.

Finally, teachers are also encouraged to have the students work on some projects following the speech.  One notable suggestion was to:

“Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.  These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.” (emphasis added).

Rather than doing for country, Obama now asks elementary school kids and younger to do for him instead.

The only thing missing from these suggestions were the deity-worthy capitalization of pronouns referring to Obama.