Elizabeth Warren’s Soapbox
Two weeks ago, I suggested Obama would do well to hire the woman who wrote the book on the struggles of the middle class.
Today, he did that.
This afternoon, I suggested that the White House needed to get their newest employee out on teevee, talking to the middle class.
For the White House, not only do they need to fulfill whatever promises they made to Warren. Just as importantly, though, if they don’t actually use the fact that they finally have someone who can speak for and to the middle class (without the kind of gaffes that Joe Biden inevitably makes) to their advantage they will be really hurting themselves. Is Warren booked for the Sunday shows this weekend? If not, why not?
Either the White House or Warren herself made sure she did the round of news shows to talk about her appointment.
As I said earlier, it pays to be cautious about such things.
But–as Rachel Maddow pointed out–at the very least the White House now has a person who can and will, relentlessly, speak about the concerns and challenges of the middle class.
And that–all by itself–is a vast improvement on what the Administration had yesterday.
Is that Geithner and Summers, over there in the corner, talking about how to keep her from having real influence?
Is it too much to hope that her non-partisan, plainspokenness on these issues somehow cuts through the fog?
We need more women in power.
Hilary and Warren in 2012.
Let’s promote Stewart’s rally.
What a horribly sexist thing to say. Support those individuals if you feel they are the most qualified, but to support them merely because of their sex makes you no better than the Republicans who thought bringing Sarah Palin on board would get them women’s votes in 2008.
I think that is a little narrow….the position is not advocating affirmative action…just saying women need to be more represented. You are taking the comments as much more over-determined, it seems to me. Advocating for women is not ipso facto “sexist”, IMHO
I’ll keep that in mind the next time I say that want Kucinich and Russ Feingold to run for the Presidency and add, “We need more white men in office”. Let’s see if I get such indifference there.
More women go to and graduate from college than men, earn more than twice as many master degrees and now have surpassed men in PhDs. When, oh when, will women stop claiming they’re oppressed and what a disenfranchised minority they are although they outnumber men in the general population?
You go girl, burn that bra.
Talk is cheap.
Show me real, tangible results and then I might believe you.
Right now, this administration is down at the bar telling his buddies how he got tired of listening to her whining and straightened that bitch (the Dem base) out, the boys are all having a good laugh, and they’ve all agreed no change is necessary.
Sounds like St. Thomas?
Not hardly.
Thomas was doubtful because he was being presented with something which contradicted both his senses and his experience, i.e., a guy, whom he was aware had been executed, was now standing before him and saying that, not nonly had he died, but he was now alive and in the flesh. His doubt was not unreasonable in those terms.
On the other hand, Obama and his administration are presenting us with something which is wholly consonant with both our senses and experience – their tendency to sell out and abuse the Real Democratic base at every chance – and are asking us to believe something different will happen this time. Obama and his administration are much more like the junkie standing before us and saying he’s sober so please help him with a few bucks (to buy a meal or coffee), all the while we can see the works still making a lump in his back pocket. Or, he’s the wife-beater who finally got caught by someone in a position to do anything about it, showing off the chocolates and roses he’s buying for his woman as proof that not only did he never hit her (pesky doors she runs into,
the clumsy bitchshe’s not very coordinated) but even if he did (which he didn’t) he’ll never do it again so please let him have his freedom/toys back.In the Obama instance, he has something to gain from selling us this line of bullshit – and that gain is not a big Democratic majority. It’s a continuation of his ability to seek and gain re-election. The Professional Left have been warning him and his administration from the time they stopped taking questions on the website (Jan. 19, 2009) and before (when he let Lieberman keep his chairmanship and seniority) that his approach ran the serious risk of destroying the Democratic majorities in both houses. He and his staff did not heed this warning for one reason: they do not want large Democratic majorities in both houses.
This is for two reasons. First, a slender Democratic majority means that the Blue Dogs and Liebermans of the piece have the maximal amount of power. We saw that play during the HCR, where the Nelsons and Liebermans and Stupaks held up the bill for their pet graft, and Obama gladly went along with it, while descending with full force on those who tried to move the bill even incrementally to the left. A slim majority gives the Blue Dogs – Rahm – control of what comes out of the Congress. Second, a slim majority – particularly in the face of a very unified Rethug party with massive discipline – means nothing has to get done. The Admin will throw up their hands and say “we can’t get anything done with these obstructionist Republicans, so all you can expect is that which will garner their votes”. In other words, more Republican policies. We saw this in the HCR, too. They managed, by handing the bill to Baucus, to piss away a year or so. That was no accident. (You think they didn;’t know Baucus’ tendencies, lobbyist ties and M.O.?) Fixing HCR in short order would have meant something else needed to be addressed and fixed, like the economy and the banksters, which they did not want to do. Or torture, which they also did not want to do.
While Obama would likely prefer to avoid a Republican majority in either house, if only to stave off investigation after investigation, he can live with it. It has certain benefits. It gives him something to be seen fighting against, much like Clinton’s numbers went up during the impeachment debacle. The hue and cry of those battles will also conveniently give cover to all the other stuff which should be changed – torture, indefinite detention, warrantless wiretapping, growth of the police state, gutting environmental protections, you name it – continuing to go unchanged. The battles with a Republican congress will suck all the air out of the room for anything else, in addition to giving a further, horseshit reason for not changing things – “I don’t make the bills, I can only veto or sign them”.
The point of all this is that Obama did not want to effect change – transformational or otherwise – with his presidency. He was and is a servant of the corporate interests which put him there and is quite happy to do that. And, looking at Corporate America, one has to ask what their objectives have been and are. The short answer to that would be: Lower taxes on our high salaries, no regulation of the financial industry, continuing to take an axe to worker safety and environmental and any other kinds of socially beneficial regulation, continuing the very profiatble wars, making Social Security money accessible to the financial industry and, in the words of Evan Bayh the other day, “these other issues involving, oh, fairness and things like that can wait.”
In other words, Corporate America wants more of the same policies. Obama wil give it to them. He doesn’t care if he’s a one-termer; he’ll never have to buy lunch again.
More of the same is what we’ve gotten, while Barry’s been busy writing his children’s book.
Oh, and look forward to the Administration’s pitch for voting “For” the Catfood Commission’s recommendations in the lame duck session to be along the lines of “The people have spoken, so we must gut Social Security.” The same pitch will be used to keep the Bush tax cuts from expiring.
No, I’m not a Doubting Thomas. I can see quite clearly what Obama’s doing – by putting Warren in this job he puts her under his thumb and shuts her up.
Great post and crystal clear.
Got to agree w/you on that.
Reminds me a bit of Bush pushing Collin Powell out of the plane in IsraeliPalestinian “peace talks” after their “Palestinian solution goes through Baghdad” Iraq adventure: eg. throw a sop to his PITA-SUPPORTERS and get on with the business of conducting a do nothing, know nothing, utterly innefectual presidency that stands for nothing.
PS: Thanks for the “Obama Mocks (…)” link… serves to keep pessimism alive. :(
This is what I love about the internet and the explosion of channels on TV. I can listen to or read some really first rate minds. Alphabetically:
Kathy Kattenburg
Melissa Harris-Lacewell
Rachel Maddow
Barbara O’Brien
Elizabeth Warren
Marcy Wheeler
And non-alphabetically
Glenn Greenwald
I’ll believe it when I see and I’m not expecting to see much of anything.
One does wonder what group of people Elizabeth Warren will first address most sternly; those truly responsible for the economic debacle now destroying or severely endangering the lives of millions of human beings in this nation, or those who do not fully appreciate or sufficiently believe in all the good things which the Obama Administration has claimed to already have accomplished, or “changed” for the country?
Then, what will she actually do?
Talk is one thing, effectively doing something, is quite another.
(And Elizabeth, as you must know, both truth and time are critical …)
DW
At the end of the day, she has no more power than th president and Timmy and Larry decide to give her.
This is simply what a lot of us expected: Since they couldn’t avoid “appointing” her, they gave her a position with no real power.
We’ll see a lot of speaches from her, but no action unless Timmy and Larry and the MOTU’s (Via their pet Dodd) approve.
Boxturtle (anutter kwality phix from ObamaLLP)
From linked Maddow video (Warren):
I *do* like that.
What bothers me, I think most, is everything Warren has talked about that I’ve heard… she cuts to the heart of the matter IMO. She has accurately described many of worst corroding (crimes!) conditions in (mostly) US financial system.
Everything BO, Geithner and team have said and done in this regard have clearly chosen to obscure/ignore most of what Warren is focused on. And IMO, this “Consumer” agency at her hand & by her words, is much more core then “consumers”: her comments have spoken directly to more fundamental problems… the stuff BO should have been thinking about and acting on since day 1.
Given BO’s actions, and what Warren has stood for… they look like diametrically opposed strategies/principles/agendas to me. How to square the 2?
I don’t see it. I hope Warren doesn’t end up like Powell did in Bush Admin: a symbol largely excluded from policy formulation thrown out to public for a little mollification.
I have absolutely no optimism EW will have any real influence and not much public voice once the elections are over. This job with no power is a crumb for the liberal progressive base. It is the Obama style as several of you all have pointed out.
No one from the big investment banks went to jail.
Without accountability, no one needs to change their behavior, whether it’s banksters, CIA torturers, salmonella farmers, oil well blower-uppers, car crashers, or economists.
Ah yes, the essential thing the Obama administration was lacking was talk.
Well candor will be a plus….
Talk was essential winning the nomination. Talk was necessary in winning the presidency. But now that he has had his opportunity to make things better, more talk borders on insanity. NO ONE wants to hear ANY MORE of his bullshit. And Liz calling out what’s still wrong won’t help one bit. It will just serve to emphasize his as an impotent and failed presidency.
I’d say “impotent” and “failed” are rather subjective terms.
The perforated colorectal bleeding on the part of the electorate and the relieved, condescending laughter from Wall Street suggest Obama’s done exactly what he was run to do.
I spoke to a lifelong Democrat today – a wealthy big donor/activist. I fully expected him to make excuses for Obama and the D’s. He did not. He is super pissed.
He told me that he is not giving any money and he is not going to vote. I was surprised at his anger and frustration. He had always seemed like a Centrist type to me. And now he is saddened, depressed and angry like me. And not by my influence. It was all him.
Good. Good news. I similarly had a discussion recently with a lifelong Republican who is extremely PO’d at the banks and is quite nervous about Citizens United. When he saw my look of shocked disbelief he said “yeah, yea I know you’ve been telling me this for 20 years now. Whatever.”
The negative reaction by many here to what is objectvely good news, Warren’s appointment, is a classic example of confirmation bias. It is the tendency of people, regardless of new information being present, to affirm their beliefs rather than challenge them.
And this is another classic example of party bias. The tendency to defend, regardless of all the information present, the party rather than challenge it.
In several long and painful recent threads, folks have tried in vain to show you that Warren’s appointment is not “objectively good news.” And that constructions like yours amount to “special pleading.” In fact, most of the commenters have told you that they were skeptical that much good would come of the appointment but they hoped for the best and would wait and see.
Rather than “confirmation bias,” I think what we have here is more like “ass fuck bias” — the scientific definition of which is the hesitancy of repeated ass fuckees to accept another party invitation from the ass fucker.
Love your apt analogy. Pun intended.
Confirmation bias is made even more pernicious when accompanied by ludic fallacy.
One of those may have been me. However, I would like to make clear that while I absolutely do not believe this is what it should be for Warren or the average people out there she could, and would like to, help; it is still a good thing. And Liz Warren is better than no Liz Warren considering what else this Administration has to offer. So it IS a positive thing. It is NOT what ought to be occurring or what could have occured had the Obama White House promptly nominated her, appointed her interim and actually fought for her confirmation. And the failure in that regard was intended and the direct result of what the WH wanted. And what they did NOT want was Warren confirmed and vested with the literally awesome authority possible under the CFPA enabling provisions of the Dodd-Frank bill.
Gosh golly, oldgold, you wouldn’t and couldn’t have any personal experience with such “classic” behavior, now would or could you? Therefore, we must conclude that, as your “nature” is, essentially, sanguine, you have only observed this behavior in others.
They say that doing the same thing again and again, while expecting “different” results, eventually … or inevitably, is one definition of insanity.
Maybe things are only “made” to appear “different” … but, somehow, we’ll get the same “results”?
Wouldn’t THAT be crazy?
DW
Objectively there is no real good news in appointing someone who has no authority, no matter how much one may admire the appointee and her positions.
In fact it would be only repeating failed history to believe Obama has much stomach to rein in criminal enterprises called big business.
I choose to believe those suspicious of the ability of this appointment to bring about wished for changes is based on past experience and the hope to not repeat history.
Here’s the part that no one’s given me an explanation for yet.
He didn’t appoint her temp head or recess appoint her, things he could’ve done without Congress, because…. why? I think most realists assume it’s because she’s too controversial for the MOTU. They’ve been howling for weeks now that they don’t want her there.
So, the MOTU doesn’t want her there. So he doesn’t put her there. Instead he…. makes up a position that has the same or more power than head of the agency??? Really?? You’re telling me this President, this Wall Street puppet President, instead of just appointing her which would’ve pissed them off instead gave her another name with the same or more authority, just to piss them off even more???
Now who isn’t processing all of the information? Because if you’ve been any attention to this administration over the last two years, you would almost have no choice to come to the conlusion that he wouldn’t dare do such a thing to his Wall St. pals.
BTW, the “you” wasn’t to at you TS, I was just addressing all by saying “you”
You win a cigar!
Said better than I could.
There is no evidence objective or intuitive to believe Obama plans any change in course or even tactics.
Are we supposed to ignore every financial decision the administration has made in the last 18 months and just assume they have had a change of heart and become champions of the middle class (coincidentally, just before the election)?
Whether it’s confirmation bias or ass-fuck-bias (as suggested elsewhere) it’s based entirely on the performance (or depravity) of the Obama administration, without reference to the performance (and virtue) of the woman herself {whose name should not be associated for any reason whatsoever with Clinton’s, @3}. If she can’t accomplish anything (or enough) substantively in the position, she can sure as hell make an impression whistle-blowing on the way out. She has said that nothing these turds say to her will be held in confidence. I think they may just have hired on an advanced IED…someone who is likely to stuff their eleven-dimensional chessboard up their asses sideways.
Warren-Born 2012
Mr. Gibbs suggested I need to be drug tested and Rahm referred to me as fucking r*t**ded. If Obama thinks the appointment of Ms. Warren will all of a sudden give me amnesia, sorry. Call me Ms. Enthusiasm Gap.
Book Salon up with Philip Dray’s There is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America hosted by Les Leopold
If Obama and the rest of his Wall Street cronies are trying to pull some funny business with this nomination, my take is that Elizabeth Warren will be in a much stronger position to mount a primary challenge to Obama after resigning as “special adviser” to the president then if she hadn’t got the appointment to begin with. Not that I have any idea if she wants to run for president, but I’ll bet that is an outcome this administration would like to avoid…
I think EW is quite realistic about the challenges before her and I think patriotic to take them on. I do hold hope for her to have some impact, especially if in the time they allow her before the election she can get her very articulate and clear information out to the public.. I would vote for her for president in a minute but my guess is she does not have the passion for that job. She may really have more influence as a spokesman, in or out of government, for how the corporates must and can be reined in.
If Elizabeth Warren’s appointment is actually what it’s supposedly presented as just in time for an election campaign – a strong stand against Wall Street and for the middle class – then I’m all for it.
But let’s face it, if it’s just window-dressing, it wouldn’t be the first time for the White House and Democrats. The notion that Elizabeth Warren has any actual power as opposed to the Geithners, Summers, and Bernankes is a hypothesis that has yet to be proven. I don’t think the White House’s problem is that they needed someone who could write the book on the struggles of the middle class, their problem is they haven’t been writing the book on the recovery of the middle class and poor. Cutting Social Security is what’s on the menu as far as that goes.
Too busy, I guess, cutting deals with AHIP and the like, and acting surprised and enraged when bankers react to your no-strings-attached bailouts by giving themselves record bonuses. As if the results could have been unforeseeable by anyone with an intelligence level higher than a slug.
Prof. Warren,
Welcome to the veal pen. You’ll get a complete script of what to say and do later today!
But in the mean time, the WH staff has a NDA for you to initial right here where you acknowledge that you are part of the “professional left”, initial right here that you’re incapable of higher math (but Larry the “Economic Imploder” will tutor you), and sign and date right here on the line next to “F&*king Ret&*d”.
Yours,
Gibbs, Summers and Rahm-man
I am absolutely convinced that Ms. Warren’s appointment was made in earnest, and that she will have the power to protect workers from the predatory practices of banks.
“But–as Rachel Maddow pointed out–at the very least the White House now has a person who can and will, relentlessly, speak about the concerns and challenges of the middle class.
And that–all by itself–is a vast improvement on what the Administration had yesterday.”
I hope you are right, Marcy. And I hope that Warren will speak out against the administration and walk away if they try to marginalize her like they did to a non-rubinite minded economic hire they made: Paul Volcker.
The fact of the matter is though, if Warren’s given no power … and Volcker has been given little and has been pretty effectively boxed out by summers and geithner by almost all accounts … nothing has changed except that the left has been emptily placated once again.
Z
I would love it if Warren would run for president … I’d vote for her. But it is highly doubtful that she would ever do that becoz she’s too sane and not narcissistic enough.
Z
For yr “No Sh*t Sherlock” file:
Majority of Americans want a Third Party (Gallup poll).
You might be surprised at what they want in a third party. Around here, they want the old Nixon Republicans.
You must be joking…Are you new here? These folks didn’t want Nixon the first time.
Here means North Carolina, where there is sentiment for a third party.
A majority would just love to have people to represent them instead of lobbyists and the rich. Ya, that boils down to Tricky Dick Nixon’s Republicans all right. Not.
Why would anybody want a third party be Republican in any way, Nixon or other? We’ve already got two of those.
They think that neither party is representing the people, and they have the illusion that the Nixon Republicans did.
“Third party” does not equal “progressive third party”.
Well, at least they’re half right.
I’m from Jawja; nothing surprises me.
Why didn’t Maddow ask her more specifics about her actual job and if she wanted the nomination to head the agency? Sometimes I wonder about Maddow.
What matters is not what Elizabeth Warren says but how she is able to persuade the President (and that means also Tim Geither and Ben Bernanke) about the general framework for setting up the CFPB. According to reports, she already has negotiated that framework as part of her conditions for taking on the job.
The amount of cynicism here shows the ignorance of how large organizations, and the federal government is the largest of organizations, operate. They don’t operate by fiat like small- and medium-sized businesses do. The direct reports shape what the boss does as much as the boss shapes what the direct reports do. Elizabeth Warren’s power in this case has to do with her relationship to civil servants and political appointees at Treasury and the Fed who will actually be writing the details of how to set up the CFPB and the draft regulations that CFPB will issue. Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke will become involved only in cases in which there is a disagreement with Warren that needs to be ironed out. Most of the civil service employees involved in writing the details are committed to the mission of the agency and not to any one appointee’s political agenda. They tend to go very much by the law as enacted and whatever implementation instructions they might have received. The implementation instructions are much to detailed for a Secretary of the Treasury, Chair of the Fed, or President to be involved in. The power, like the devil, is in the details.
Aa for her public statements, they will not be of much consequence in relationship to what she is actually doing with the standing up of the CFPB. And they will not likely be aimed at soothing the ruffled fur of Firepups. There really is as world and a progressive base beyond Firedoglake. I do believe that Jane and the front-pagers understand this, but not all commenters seem to.
Your influence extends to how many of your personal network of family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers you can persuade to your views of what needs to happen in the country. If me and you, we, create the political climate in local areas, getting progressive politicians elected will become much easier. But the conversation does not end with the election. Lobbying for legislation, even if you lose, is important. Bringing intelligent comments in the public comment process of regulations is important. Getting beyond your sense of anger is also important. Kvetching never persuaded anyone.
Just because there is a veal pen doesn’t mean that Warren will become part of it. Mostly because the veal pen is made up of Washington non-profit organizations who can be controlled through their donor base. Or haven’t you read Jane’s articles carefully. “Veal pen” isn’t an insult. It’s a graphic analogy of the situation that naive representatives of these non-profits found themselves in through the way that Rahm Emmanuel (“the White House”) tried to manipulate these organizations. That’s a problem with Rahm Emmanuel, not Elizabeth Warren. The fact that the CFPB has been authorized through the financial reform legislation at all is because Warren has proven herself able to outmaneuver the financial industry and the corporatist Democrat who support it. She can throw elbow. She can fight. And she has proven that she can win.
The fact that she negotiated a very specific role in the setup of the CFPB shows that she is not cowed by the President of the United States. And that she got his commitment to what she intends to do. Otherwise, she would be out of there.
And this role allows her to build her vision for financial consumer protection and lets her return to private life probably by the end of 2011. At which point she can go back to teaching at Harvard. Or be persuaded to run against Scott Brown as Senator from Massachusetts. Or be appointed to the Fed Board of Governors; you know, the folks that oversee the CFPB once it’s set up.
Sorry that this is so long and so pointed, but the hysteria in the Lake has gotten a little out of hand.
So…what your post boils down to is, frankly, she will do nothing. That seems to be the overwhelming consensus on FDL too, yet you argued against it before agreeing with it. Did I get that right?
No. The consensus here is likely wrong. But we will have to wait and see, won’t we?
I will wager you a bet anytime anyplace, that she does little to nothing. She’s nothing more than an offering of peace to libs and progressives for the last 2 years of being called jerkoffs. Please vote for us. Oh look, Mizz Warren has resigned. Imagine that.
I generally think she is smart enough that she would have gotten wind of that if that is really the agenda. On the other hand, however, as noted above, if she is really treated badly/excluded, she can certainly leave with that disclosure.
You overestimate the importance of liberals and progressives to the success of the Democratic Party. African-American turnout was the margin that put Barack Obama in office. And Southern centrist whites in Virginia and North Carolina and centrists in Indiana and some other states.
I wish it was otherwise, but that is what it was. Coddling progressives, sad to say, is irrelevant to the Obama administration. Progressives are not going to make the difference in this election, even in California and New York. If he’s playing to progressives, it’s progressives in Congress not in the blogosphere. I hate to deflate your bubble but the blogosphere is not that influential.
She was appointed for what she can do. She and Obama have been talking about this agency for six years.
Thank you.
Therefore, since progressives aren’t important, I hope we can now be done with the posts here saying we need to get with the program and vote for the Democrats.
Since we’re not at all influential, he and the Democrats don’t need our votes.
So please folks, remember this, and do what needs to be done and DO NOT vote for the Democrats and reward their corporatist behavior. You can relax because our votes don’t matter anyway.
Exactly. If you don’t like the program, you have until 2012 to put together a third party that can win elections in whatever districts that you are in. It takes 150,000 votes to win a Congressional seat; start counting noses for a candidate for 2012. Senate seats depend on the population of the state; do your research to determine how many votes you need to win. And go do it. Go to win. A third party as a spoiler is ineffective, as the Tea Party is likely to find out.
But if you are in North Carolina (especially NC-05, Virginia Foxx’s district), Iowa (expecially IA-05, Steve King’s district), MN-06 (Michele Bachmann’s district), OH-08 (John Boehner’s district), and SC-02 (Joe Wilson’s district), this does not apply to you. This year you must vote for Democrats for Congress and the Senate.
For this year, if you can find a Democrat who is not a corporatist, go ahead and vote for them.
Wow, first of all I don’t have to do anything regarding 2012 or a third party, nor does anyone here angered by the Democratic party.
Secondly, it’s pretty damned slick of you to say in one post “You overestimate the importance of liberals and progressives to the success of the Democratic Party” and then claim in another some progressives in some states “MUST vote for Democrats for Congress and the Senate.” (actually the Senate is part of Congress, but whatever).
Either progressive votes aren’t important or they are. Which is it? You can’t have it both ways.
Is it about stroking the egos of “progressive voters” or is it about achieving a progressive agenda in Congress? If you want to achieve a progressive agenda in Congress, the way you move the Overton window is by defeating folks like Grassley, Burr, Boehner, Bachmann, Foxx, Wilson, and Steve King. Then the national conversation can return to policy instead of where Barack Obama was born.
Yeah, bring back those Nixon Republicans to Congress. That’s the change we need.
I’m not advocating it, just reporting the sort of third party that would be popular here. And it would probably suck in more Republicans than Democrats.
I personally will not vote unless Donald Rumsfeld is back on the ticket.
It’s about achieving more progressive policies in this country. Like health care being a right and not a prvilage. I don’t have the links right now but if you want I can find them again about national polling on single payer in late 2008 and 2009, and in every one of those single payer was supported by a mjority or in one case a plurality (something like 47-40 in favor IIRC).
The American public doesn’t like to label itself as liberal, and in fact quite a few don’t like to be labelled anything, but this country, when polloing is done on individual issues, is far more liberal than our Congress has been for at least a decade.
So, if the country is more liberal than the leaders they send to Congress, there is something besides working for their voters that are motivating them. The only reasonable explanation, and it seems crystal clear to me now, is that they are indeed working for the interests of corporations and not the voters. If that’s the case, then the only logical explanation for that is, for demcorats, that they don’t fear the voters. They take them for granted because they beleive we will fear the R’s to much to EVER not give them our support.
So it’s about sending a message to Congress members AND MOST IMPORTATNTLY to folks considering being a Congressman/woman, that they CAN NO LONGER take our votes for granted, and that they must deliver something. Fight for what’s right when you can’t win, and pass what’s right when you can.
IMO, if they do beleive they can take our votes for granted (and I do believe they think that. After all they mock us, rather than fear us.) then if they learn the lesson that they can’t then IMO they will start to deliver more progressive policies.
And when I say don’t vote for Democrats, I’m ONLY talking about incumbants. Or challengers that are known corporatists. I would love it if EVERY incumbent Democrat lost and every challenger Democrat won. Obviously I know that won’t happen, but my point is I don’t want to destroy the D party. I want to move it back to it’s regular working man roots. Cause right now it just keeps moving further and further right.
The current bill establishes that in principle and then does a piss-poor job of implementing it. So the proper framing is to push Congress to finish the job of reform. In 2012, this should be a huge issue; it would be now except for the diversion of the GOP wanting repeal.
If polled properly, I suspect that that includes the South as well. Southerners on individual issues are relatively more liberal than the folks in Congress that represent them, sometimes dramatically more liberal.
There are a couple of points here. (1) Those who answer public opinion surveys aren’t those who actually vote; that’s what get-out-the-vote campaigns deal with–getting the people who agree with you to actually vote and ensuring that their vote is counted; (2) Democrats fear the voters who will vote for them, not the voters in general. For Blue Dog Mike McIntyre, the voters he fears are the ones that rightwing superchurches will bring to the polls in church buses. His actions are taken to reduce the number of those people (the ones who are more liberal than their preacher) from getting on that church bus. He doesn’t have enough progressives in his district to fear them. But to get his message out he has to buy big dollar media ads, which right there put him beholding to either a large group of small donors (the less likely scenario) or corporate donors (the more likely scenario). You wean these folks off the corporate tit with large blocks of small donations, such as through ActBlue instead of by letting the Republican win. And the Republican going up against McIntyre this years is this guy — not loopy, but not great either. If you are in Wilmington or Fayetteville, or the rural areas in between, these are your choices. Vote for one or the other or sit out. Dealing with this Hobson’s choice requires putting together either a primary challenge to McIntyre that will win or creating a third party and third party candidate that will win. It’s is much too late to do that for the 2010 election. So your choices are set. But for 2012 and 2014, they are not and progressives need to start focusing on the House and Senate races (and legislatures) for these years now. Otherwise it will be the same set of choices in 2012 and 2014.
Progressive votes are important only where progressives are strong and districts where progressives can provide a margin of victory. There are not a whole lot of those in the districts and states in play in this election.
Why should progressives in those districts vote for Democrats? To change the conversation at the national level. The Village thinks that Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle, and Joe Miller are the future of American politics. What brings back rationality in the Congress is the defeat of the folks I named even if Republicans pick up seats in both houses. Incidentally, Republicans would have to win 40 seats and lose none of their own to take the House. And the upside in the Senate for Republicans is 51 seats; the upside for Democrats is 67 seats. Neither will achieve the upside, which means that Republicans are likely not taking the Senate. In most cases where there are Democrats challenging Republicans, those Democrats are more progressive than current representatives from the same region in the Congress.
BTW, here are some of the Democrats who bucked Obama:
Altmire, Jason (PA-04)
Arcuri, Mike (NY-24)
Baca, Joe (CA-43)
Barrow, John (GA-12)
Berry, Marion (AR-01)
Bishop, Sanford (GA-02)
Boren, Dan (OK-02)
Boswell, Leonard (IA-03)
Boyd, Allen (FL-02)
Bright, Bobby (AL-02)
Cardoza, Dennis (CA-18)
Carney, Christopher (PA-10)
Chandler, Ben (KY-06)
Childers, Travis (MS-01)
Cooper, Jim (TN-05)
Costa, Jim (CA-20)
Cuellar, Henry (TX-28)
Dahlkemper, Kathy (PA-03)
Davis, Lincoln (TN-04)
Donnelly, Joe (IN-02)
Ellsworth, Brad (IN-08)
Giffords, Gabrielle (AZ-08)
Gordon, Bart (TN-06)
Harman, Jane (CA-36)
Herseth Sandlin, Stephanie (SD)
Hill, Baron (IN-09)
Holden, Tim (PA-17)
Kratovil, Jr., Frank (MD-01)
McIntyre, Mike (NC-07)
Markey, Betsy (CO-04)
Marshall, Jim (GA-08)
Matheson, Jim (UT-02)
Melancon, Charlie (LA-03)
Michaud, Mike (ME-02)
Minnick, Walt (ID-01)
Mitchell, Harry (AZ-05)
Moore, Dennis (KS-03)
Murphy, Patrick (PA-08)
Murphy, Scott (NY-20)
Nye, Glenn (VA-02)
Peterson, Collin (MN-07)
Pomeroy, Earl (ND)
Ross, Mike (AR-04)
Salazar, John (CO-03)
Sanchez, Loretta (CA-47)
Schiff, Adam (CA-29)
Schrader, Kurt (OR-05)
Scott, David (GA-13)
Shuler, Heath (NC-11)
Space, Zack (OH-18)
Tanner, John (TN-08)
Taylor, Gene (MS-04)
Thompson, Mike (CA-01)
Wilson, Charles (OH-06)
I’m sure you’ll find these agreeable to your point of view
Heath Schuler????
Yeah, he bucked him alright. Cause he wasn’t far enough to the right.
That a joke?
EDIT: How many on that list voted against HCR, do you know? I’ll start looking it up but if you know it could save me some time.
Nevermind. I just read more names on the list. Blue dogs.
Yeah, I’d be more in line with blue dogs. Right.
Most all of them.
Let me say this: Fuck that shit. Progressives are an important, and very much not an insignificant, part of the Democratic party irrespective of whether the electoral world depends on only them alone or not. We are citizens and are voices should be at least listened to and factored in as opposed to being mocked and disdained with impunity as the Obama Administration has consistently and relentlessly done. Progressives have been whipped like they are the designated “Sistah Souljah” de jour. Quite frankly, Sistah Souljah the original was, and remains now, a very impressive and admirable woman with valid issues and concerns (pretty rational ones too I might add). She NEVER should have been singled out and treated like that; but at least that was just one person, the Obama Administration thinks it appropriate to do that to the entire core left that was the active impetus for getting him elected. Blacks alone did not do it. The DLC/semi-Republican asshats he relentlessly panders to were all firmly Hillary Clinton territory.
So don’t give me that holier than thous pious bullshit; Barack Obama and his Administration are now, and have been since taking office, reneging on the very exact principles and postulates that got him elected and abusing like a red headed step child the forces and factions that gave him the winning momentum regardless of whether they were a dominant overall majority or not. I am so sick of the line of crap you pitch I could puke. Fuck that. And if that is going to continue to be the operative paradigm of the Obama crew, I will not just “stay at home”, I will go vote for fucking Sarah Palin to make damn sure my vote of protest is recognized and counted.
Jane Fucking Harman bucked Obama? Not on HCR or FinReg. She sold us down the right on both.
I’m in her fracking district and I was sooo hoping that Marcy Winograd would dump that worthless corporatist anti-civil liberties surveillance state apologist bitch in the primary, but alas, big bucks Jane prevailed.
He just copied the list of blue dogs, is all.
Making fun of me.
It’s ok. It WAS funny. Yeah, me and blue dogs aligned in our thinking. HAHAHAHAHAHA. Only ones I’m more out of line with is the Republicans that admit to being Republican by having an R after their name.
I might have included some Blue Dogs that he did get to go along. But their bucking him during the sausage-making in the committees is what made the bill such a POS. And she was part of that; she apparently got enough of what she wanted to vote for the bills.
Yep, Marcy Winograd’s failure to beat her was tough. If I were in her district, I would have another go at Harmon in 2012. From the past two times, you know the numbers that you have to turn out and where you have to get them from.
This is a joke. The deals that made healthcare reform a pathetic joke were cut from the outset by the Administration; the Blue Dogs and Republican noise was just convenient cover.
The deals that the White House struck were made necessary by the commitments that key Democrats had to their respective industries. The industry had wired the key committee Democrats even before Obama was elected, expecting that any Democrat would logically push for health care reform. A lot of the ideas in the Senate bill had been worked out with Baucus almost as soon as he became head of the Finance Committee.
The White House sought a bill, any bill, earlier rather than later. And now they have a law that establishes the principle of the right to healthcare and implements some real reform for primarily the remaining portion of the middle class early and a complicated, state-run, Baucus designed market system that takes effect later. That is a step forward. There is now a law that can be amended. And the process of amendment is a lot easier legislatively than the process of establishing a new mandate.
And those deals were compromises, not capitulations. The fate of Billy Tauzin indicates that.
The bill does not establish “the right to healthcare” in the least. That is an absolutely absurd statement.
Maybe not in the language, but try finding a politician who will run on “Americans don’t have an inherent right to health care; it’s a privilege”. That is what the “socialism” charge is all about. The fact is that most people believe that this establishes a right, however imperfect, to healthcare. Even those who oppose the concept; that’s what repeal is all about.
How many “Democrats” are now contemplating the thought, “Americans, those not rich like me and my buds, don’t have an inherent right to Social Security, because “we” need the money … for wars and scams and whatever else “we” want?
TD, what universe do you imagine the Dims occupy? “They” cannot even acknowledge their responsibility, in part (refuse to do so, in fact), for the economic debacle in which the rest of us find ourselves?
Think, NAFTA, and “off-shoring” jobs, think Glass-Steagall and “derivitives”.
Of course neither you NOR the Dims wish to think that way … but many of the rest of us are.
Those who do not and will not recognize reality or genuine suffering, those who “play” with words, with ideas, “Not in the language …” and toy with the heart-felt aspirations and desperate needs of the rest of us do not deserve power.
When you and they then say, “But, think what it will mean if the evil thugs (whom you have all been sucking up to, remember “bipartisanship”) take over”, my response is this: First, YOU, the Democrats, should be doing some thinking … and not attacking … us. Second, until there is genuine difference between the “aims” of the two friggin’ parties, such that your party is NOT on the side of the wealthy, and made up of legacy class wannabees, YOU have NOTHING to say. Third. Good luck, you’ll need it.
DW
Not only does it not establish a right to healthcare, it doesn’t even provide any healthcare, as a right or privilage. Well, except for the lucky few that will get to take advantage of the new community clinics. I guess it will provide them with healthcare. Everyone else, doesn’t provide an ounce of healthcare. Helps some folks purchase health insurance, sure. Health insurance doesn’t equal healthcare, especially when the insurers can still find many, many ways to deny the care.
Community clinics can be expanded simply through appropriations. Any “Finish the job” effort would at a minimum increase the appropriations and number of community clinics.
Yep, the health insurance industry can find many, many ways to deny care, but the most obvious stated reasons are now shut off. The next wave of reform has to deal with the consolidation of providers into large healthcare systems, often university medical school-run, with multi-millionaire CEOs. As this consolidation has occurred MBA-think has replaced physician judgment and costs have skyrocketed because of the indirect costs involved in large organizations. Making single-doctor practices possible again will certainly help deliver better healthcare for less cost. This is a second item on a finish-the-job agenda.
The third is either a single payer system (Medicare or all) or a national health care system (VA for all).
You might be interested in this recent study from the Pew Research Center. It supports your positon with a lot of good polling data.
http://people-press.org/report/636/
Actually it doesn’t since it’s just another poll asking about self-identification. You might be surprised to learn that in such polls, people representing an unpopular position tend to be very undercounted since they don’t like to admit to it.
For example, a poll asking to self-identify as wife beaters is likely to find that only 0.00001% of men are wife beaters. Likewise, after 30 plus years of ingraining in the American culture that liberal equals weak on defense, weak on crime, weak weak weak weak assed pussies, it;s had an effect. And that meme has been prevalent throughout culture and especially in movies and tv, and it’s worked.
Nice try though. Keep trying to reinforce your own negative view of what we should expect. Me, I’m going to expect more because this country is vastly more liberal and progressive than nay-sayers like you try to claim.
I agree with 4 words you wrote.
Precisely so.
OK, that’s 4 more than I thought you would. :)
Well, no, for they are the troops that run the ground game. And, in fact, in marginal percentages, they are every bit as important to the winning majority as any other sector; take, for instance, the “Blue Dogs”.
You are correct in saying that progressives are important as volunteers for the ground game, but only in certain states and districts. There are many other volunteers besides progressives important for the ground game. More so in North Carolina, than say in Massachusetts. I’m not sure how large the progressive community is in Arizona but I bet it’s not the largest constituency of the Democratic Party. Margin-of-victory only is a political asset in close elections.
Very well said!
Kabuki theater once more just in time for elections. Ta Da! See how progressive Obama is??
This election is not about Obama, no matter how much Republicans and the media try to make it so.
It is about whether the Republicans will be given a blank check to obstruct legislation so as to get into power again. It is about the conventional narrative about American politics that sees it as a center-right nation or a Tea Party nation. It is about the demeanor of legislative debate. If progressives who are running against Republican incumbents can win and if some of the symbolic crazies of the GOP go down (Boehner, Foxx, Bachmann, Steve King) and some of the Republican old-timers (Grassley), then the conversation that we will be having about politics might allow progressives to make their points.
Stewart and Colbert are on point with their reading of what the election is about. Reasonableness versus the preservation of fear.
You are CRAZY. It’s ALL about Obama.
Not a single person in this country is going to have Barack Obama on his ballot.
You are going to punish Democrats who bucked Obama’s agenda because they are Democrats? That doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Which Democrats bucked Obama’s agenda?? List please, I would gladly support them.
First, I’m not going to punish anyone. Second, all the difference in motivation and enthusiasm — arguably what will prove to be the determinative factor in the election — between the D an R bases is a function of Barack Obama.
Exactly. And yet, some still insist we’re the one’s being unrealistic cry babies. We wanted her for THAT job, not as special asst to the Prez. I swear if we had been screaming for her to be special asst to the Prez, and they hired her as a secretary in the White House, and we complained, those same ones would be here scolding us again. “Look, this is a good thing. She’s IN the White House after all.”
I know if I were a politician and my voters could always be counted on to vote for me no matter what because they fear the other guy, and they rush out to thank me when I do anything, even if it’s not what they wanted, then I’m having a hard time figuring out any reason whatsoever I would have to EVER give them ANYTHING they want.
Unbelievable. But hey, I’m just sitting here in my mother’s basement in my pajamas next to an empty Cheeto’s bag, smoking a joint and typing, what do I know?
TBogg is upstairs!
It’s Always Sunny In Detroit
Here’s the link to those polls about single payer.
In February of 2009, AFTER Obama became Prez, and before health care was passed, a NY Times/CBS poll found support at 59%.
So 59% of the country favors single payer, yet when Obama and the Democrats in Congress start discussing it, single payer can’t even be DISCUSSED. WHy? For all you folks that keep saying we have to accept these bullshit crumbs we get instead of what we really want because this country is too conservative for such policies, how do you explain that? You simply CANNOT say it’s due to the country, when nearly 60% of the country approves of it. So what is it?
I suppose you nay sayers would say that since the US Congress is so conservative we must accept what little we get. Is that it?? What then. What explanation do you have for insisting that we should be pleased with the bullshit POS HCR bill we got when 60% of Americans supported exactly what we supported?
Doh, no link??
I’ll try this then:
http://www.wpasinglepayer.org/PollResults.html
I would be interested in what the current polling of this issue is. I suspect that the percentages have not changed much.
What is done is done. I called Congresscritters that I had either voted for or contributed to numerous times and we got what we got due the fact that is easier to stop something than do something. It wasn’t that Congress was conservative but that so many Democrats were bought out. But we must make distinctions because not all Democrats were bought out and those who were lost a lot of things their corporate masters were seeking. So much so that Billy Tauzin of PhRMA, the pharmaceutical lobby lost his job because he didn’t stop the bill but cut a deal with Obama.
The next step is to mobilize to have Congress finish the job. By 2012, insurance premium rates will not be going up a fast as before the bill but folks will still not get adequate healthcare for what they are spending. Access will not be the issue; that has been mostly settled. Affordability will be the issue. And the most effective way to deal with affordability is through either VA for all (National Health Service) or Medicare for All (single payer). In order to accomplish this, we will have to deal with the knee-jerk charges of socialism that appear anytime the government wants to do something. Hell yes, it’s socialism. What’s the problem with that? But it is not totalitarian socialism, which is the bogeyman that the right is raising.
But we are far ahead in this fight than we were in 2007. There is a law that can be amended; you don’t have to create the law from scratch. If the right ever shifts from pushing repeal to pushing amendment, we can get some more things done. They don’t like individual mandates? Well we have a solution that gets the job done; they don’t. When you get to negotiations over the nitty-gritty of amendments, we can begin move this further. And the nice thing about the POS legislation is that the shit part doesn’t take effect until 2014. There is time to force legislative changes. Even with smaller Democratic majorities.
We would probably get the same polling numbers on the support for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or our record on civil liberties and the denial of habeas corpus. These numbers are completely ignored by the MSM and all they report on is the “Tea Party” a well funded creation of far right wing ideology as emblematic of American anger and distrust of government. It’s all about lies, derision, obfuscation, and distraction by the wealthy elites. And they wonder why there’s an enthusiasm gap?
Oh, and in case there is any doubt as to the wording of the polls, this one done by AP worded it just like this:
65% agreed. SIXTY FIVE PERCENT!
I would bet my life on this:
Whichever party finally does do single payer, universal, free or mostly free at point of service (like public education), then THAT party will become the majority party for a generation.
And once passed, and the people experience it, they ain’t nevah gonna go back.
I’d bet my very life on it.
That is what terrified Republicans and caused McConnell and Boehner to adopt a scorched earth strategy to defeat it. Not only that, but conservatism would be dead for a generation. They lost big, but they are trying to claw their way back in this election with the economic failures they enabled. Every Republican in Congress knows that infrastructure creates jobs; that’s why they like porkbarrel infrastructure spending in their states and districts. But they couldn’t have Obama taking credit for infrastructure spending because Democrats controlled the White House and the Congress. Therefore the Recovery Act had to include some tax cuts to satisfy them and the Conservadems (you folks in Connecticut know what to do in 2012).
The same dynamic was going on concerning the financial industry regulation legislation. And FDL helped somewhat is getting that legislation through by participating in supporting Bill Halter’s primary challenge of Blanche Lincoln. Blanche Lincoln in order to win the runoff, made a big show of her support of significant regulation in the bill and essentially forced it into the bill. Once in, the lobbyists couldn’t get much of it out through the remainder of the process.
That is how you move things in a more progressive direction. And now, Elizabeth Warren is going to move the solution forward some more. And there will be great opposition from the financial industry and its Congressional backers. But Chris Dodd will be gone, a liberal reputation torpedoed by his support of Wall Street.
Everything Chris Dodd has done in opposing Warren was almost certainly sanctioned directly by the White House. That it served MOTU interests is true, but not likely the defining reason it occurred.
I see the White House as being pushed more than being pushy on this. What appears to be the case is that Warren outflanked Dodd and not gets to shape the details of implementation anyway. And neither Geithner nor Obama have the time to challenge every single detail that is going into the setup of this agency. As I said above, Warren has the authority to say to the worker bees actually doing the setup of the CFPB, “The White House wants….”. If they disagree, they take it to Geithner and to Obama–detail by detail. Warren wins any war of attrition. The industry’s next chance is when the details are released for public comment.
And “the White House” is an institution sometimes at odds with itself. That is a product of the “team of rivals” philosophy in staffing, which FDR also did (not that I am comparing Obama overall to FDR).
Given what has happened so far, my guess is that the correction above needs to be made. You make too much of “The White House” being a monolithic homogeneous entity. What Chris Dodd has said just does not square with what Obama said in his appointment speech, which to me means that Dodd’s source was someone other than Obama in the White House. And my bet is Rahm, because he keeps closer tabs on the lines of opposition in Congress.
Bob in AZ
Nope, I stick with exactly what I said. This did not occur without the direct sanction of Obama. That his “appointment speech” contained some other bullshit is simply because Barack Obama is a standard issue disingenuous politician. Well, actually, I take that back; he is not standard at all, he is exceptionally disingenuous. And it was not based upon “opposition in Congress” either; it was because they absolutely did NOT want Elizabeth Warren anywhere near the stunning power that would have been possible for her to marshall had she been formally made head of the CFPB. You have to actually read the bill to understand what I am talking about. Once you really see how the CFPB is enabled by the pertinent portions of the bill and what could be done to suck up power from other agencies and carve out new ones too, all depending on the discretion of the head of CFPB, and who would have had all the authority instead of the Secretary of the Treasury, who has it until a formal head is confirmed or recess installed, then it becomes readily apparent that there was never a chance in hell they were going to let Warren have that title and power. Just none and I positively guarantee you Obama was involved in seeing to that.
I am telling you, I spent the night a couple of nights ago reading the thing. Almost nobody out there has any idea what is in there and what is capable of occurring. To say it is stunning and eye opening is an enormous understatement. Once you take it in in detail and understand it, what has occurred makes much more sense. Warren was never going to get that, and indeed she did not.
Possibility: giving Warren an interim appointment to “launch” is their way of hoping she’ll give them an excuse to can her once that “launch” is done.
In reply to wirerat1 @ 100
And yet they still earn on average less than men.
Something’s not right. If you don’t like the word oppression, that’s cool. But whatever you call it, something’s not right with that formula.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/womenspay.htm
Thanks…I was going to say something similar…true about the college degree numbers, I think. But pay for women still about 80% on the dollar cf. men….up though from 75% where it had been for years. Looking at facts seems to = bra burning, however.;)
Speaking of bait ‘n switch from O & Co, where we got criminalized if we don’t buy the crappy “coverage” when what we need is care (I’m typing this with a brand-new $7,000 cast on my effing left wrist, thanks to a fall from an effing 4 foot ladder while trying to earn the money to pay my effing bankruptcy atty to declare I have no money, so if I seem a bit pissed, it’s because I’m toning it way down just to be able to effing type):
I’m with the doubters. We don’t need their stinking “consumer” protection. By the time you’re dancing with the devil, in the devil’s dance hall, to the tune of the devil’s own hellhouse band, watching your hat and coat won’t do you no good. It’s a bit late for that.
The only way to dance with the devil and not get taken for a ride straight to hell, is not to dance with the god damn devil to begin with.
Healthcare is a perfect case in point: get the profit motive out of my god damn doctor’s office. Same goes for my god damn banker. Make them utilities.
Unless we’re going to get the piranhas out of the pool, not even Aquaman and Wonder Woman can save us now.
What we need is citizen protection. All due respect to Prof. Warren, we need RICO to clear the foxes from the henhouse before we can hope to sustain a healthy economy. Speaking of control fraud of epic proportions, Why has ObamaCo ignored Bill Black? (Rhetorical q, amigos.)
Most important to me is this point. When it comes to acting in our political economy, I appear as a citizen, not an effing consumer, a revenue stream to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, a potential customer only.
So, ObamaCo, you can take your effing “consumer” protection and shove it. I want sovereign protection. I’m not just an effing consumer of healthcare or any other products, got it? I’m a human American citizen, here to assert my rights, not a potential mark for the same con artists who crashed the effing economy to begin with.
I effing hate this effing bait & switch, can you tell? Now my effing wrist (broken in 4 places) is killing me, along with my effing public servants.
Joke’s on them, though, since I’m already bankrupt. And you just know I can’t wait to be criminalized for not buying crappy insurance I can’t afford, and wouldn’t buy if I could.
4 years ago, I cut my right hand with a table saw. BAM! 7 grand. Led to bankruptcy, which is costing another 2 grand. Couple weeks ago, a ladder fell out from under me. BAM! Another 7 grand. I’m 46. Tell me how I’m supposed to survive to retire after 70 (on a freakin meager wage base, at that) at this rate, you freakin actuarial-driven assholes.
We’re spending trillions on war — and I live right alongside one of the billion-dollar installations (not in AfPak or Iraq, it’s called NAS Whidbey Island, WA) that don’t do jack for the local economy, except get our young women raped and the land polluted beyond redemption, the air filled with some of the loudest jets in the Navy, many of which are used in Iraq & AfPak, billions and billions for war — but tough titty, little kitty, if you hurt yourself trying to make a living around here. You can’t go to the base hospital anymore, not even for emergencies.
What we need, in finance as in the bogus GWOT, is law enforcement, from the top down, not more amateurish theatrics.
The problem with the so-called enthusiasm gap is simply that we see through their masks. In the midst of so much crisis, all they offer is more manipulation of the media narrative, ie, they’re putting a wonder woman’s face on the financial crisis, instead of addressing the underlying crimes.
I am so sorry about your wrist and break and cast and general anxiety. I hope you heal well….take your pain meds, or whatever. Take care of yourself in such difficult times. My best…
just in time for the nov elections.
she is allowing herself to be used as a pawn.
but the wash allure is just too great for these people.
that town takes you in sucks you up and spits you out.
unless you are in congress then the voters put you in term after term after term and hate congress except their congress person.
we are an interesting nation.
Elizabeth Warren has a quality we can all admire and benefit from. She is more than likely gonna have the livin sh1t kicked out of her,every day, and knows it. But when we wake up tomorrow she will still be there scratching and biting for all she’s worth, because she thinks we’re worth it. I wish her the best, God knows she’ll need it.
I’m with willits and EW on this. We’ll see how it plays out. As I wrote in the comments days ago, this will be a delicate dance between Geithner, Warren and Obama. And yes, elbows will be thrown during the dance, and there will be some missteps or two. But Warren has proven to be no dummy, and her stint as chair of COP has helped her peer under the rug, under which so much has been swept.
BTW, I was surprised to learn that she was 61. Is that true? I thought that she was at least 10 years younger.
Bob in AZ